Apple’s wireless charging tech may interfere with pacemakers

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A new study published in the Journal of the American Heart Association shows that the iPhone 12 Pro Max can cause magnetic interference when placed very close to implantable cardiac devices from three major brands. Researchers first tested the iPhone 12 Pro Max by placing it on a patient’s skin right over the implant, replicating the impact of a phone placed in the breast pocket of a shirt. In a second test, they placed the phone on top of an unwrapped implantable device, still in its box. In both cases, researchers were able to detect significant magnetic interference. The study was small, involving three patients and a total of 14 devices from Medtronic, Abbott, and Boston Scientific. Still, interference was present in all of the implanted devices and more than 70% of the boxed-up devices. The culprit here is MagSafe, a feature that was reintroduced in 12-series devices and refers to Apple’s various magnetic accessories for iPhone and iPad. This includes MagSafe wireless chargers, cases, and wallets. To connect iPhones and iPads to these accessories, Apple has installed a ring of magnets inside the 12-series devices. This allows the accessories to snap onto its phones and tablets and stay attached Read More …

Firefox still wants to be the ‘Anti-Chrome.’ Can it beat Edge, too?

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With a major redesign, Mozilla Firefox is back but no longer in black. The most obvious change in Firefox 89, which arrived on Tuesday morning, is the toolbar atop the browser: It now comes in a shade of pale gray instead of black, so it fits in much better with other Mac or Windows apps. Below that, the new release of the open-source browser—which has also been updated for Linux, with a corresponding iOS and iPadOS update—shows considerable pruning of its interface. The address bar has lost the traditional home button and condensed the raft of buttons at the top right, while the menu available there is no longer festooned with the icons that made Firefox look even more like a stranger on a Mac or PC. A June 1 blog post calls this “a modern new look designed to streamline and calm things down.” But the face-lift also represents a recognition that this privacy-focused browser continues to get squeezed between Google’s dominant Chrome, Apple’s equally privacy-minded Safari, and Microsoft’s reinvented Edge . So while past Firefox updates have emphasized its protection against online tracking —it blocks third-party ad trackers and the Facebook widgets that let that firm follow us across the web, displays a privacy report card for each page, and even encrypts your domain lookups—this one sells a less-is-more design. That was the right call for Firefox, a browser that broke Microsoft Internet Explorer’s lock on the market by offering tools Microsoft wouldn’t—starting with pop-up blocking and tabbed browsing—but then grew to suffer from a certain amount of feature-itis. For example, the previous release featured two rectangular toolbar buttons, one with mostly vertical lines and the other with a mix of horizontal and vertical lines. The former, Library, provides access to your bookmarks and history, while the latter, Sidebar, offers a different way to view your bookmarks and history while adding the ability to see tabs synced from other copies of Firefox. Updating my Mac and Windows installations of Firefox expunged the Sidebar button and with it the chance that I’d once again confuse it for the Library button. You can undo that in the Customize Toolbar screen or choose the latest Firefox defaults—which remove the Library button as well but add a button for Mozilla’s  Pocket page-saving service . Read More …

Forget ad optimization: This VC wants to invest in startups working on real problems

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The U.S. will face some very serious challenges in the coming decades, including arresting damage to the environment, rebuilding our infrastructure, reinventing education, defending against new geopolitical threats, and venturing to Mars. Traditionally, we look to the federal government to tackle these problems—but that tradition may be over. The technical talent needed to confront our biggest problems now works in the private sector, because that’s where the money is. And too many of those talented people are spending their days working on trivial problems like ad-tech algorithms and photo-sharing apps. Katherine Boyle [Photo: courtesy of General Catalyst] To lure tech workers into focusing on important problems with fresh ideas, Katherine Boyle at the venture capital firm General Catalyst is starting a new investment sector within the fund: She will invest in civic-tech startups targeting aerospace and defense, public safety, education, transportation, and infrastructure. “A big part of our thesis is that innovative companies can fill in where existing government agencies have fallen short,” Boyle tells Fast Company . Boyle will work the sector from her new home in Miami. She believes she might have a clearer view of the field of civic tech startups from a vantage point far away from tech industry hubs such as the Bay Area and Austin. Boyle and General Catalyst have already made some bets on companies that could be called “civic tech.” Crunchbase shows that General Catalyst participated in three funding rounds for Anduril Industries , the Palmer Luckey -founded defense startup that produces autonomous drone surveillance systems. ‌ Boyle’s investment thesis recognizes that engineers and designers and programmers and data scientists aren’t likely to take a pay cut and move from San Francisco to Washington to work for a government agency. Innovation happens in the private sector. Her new fund is part of a growing awareness that the government should lean harder on private-sector startups—civic tech startups—to find new approaches to the massive challenges we face as a society. Where the talent is Boyle says that there was a time in America when entering civil service professions within the government were a source of social cachet and a respectable salary. This attitude among professionals was influenced by President John F. Kennedy’s famous words, “ask not what your country can do for you—ask what you can do for your country.” That maxim came in the midst of the Cold War (and the Space Race), when, regardless of their political party, Americans felt the presence of a common enemy in the Soviet Union. How times have changed. We live in a deeply polarized society with great distrust of the government, and as a result, working within it is no longer as popular. Read More …

4 reasons you need more EQ in a hybrid workplace (and how to get it)

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Although it is hard to predict what the post-COVID world of work will look like, it’s safe to assume that, at least in the short term, most organizations will increase the flexibility of their working arrangements and become more hybrid or fluid than they were before. In principle, this sounds like a better proposition for employees. When we asked 8,000 workers about their top concerns for this new next, “going back to the way things were” came in third place, preceded only by health and keeping their job.  History tells us that many people will see the crisis as a catalyst for change; they will be more likely to opt for work that suits their needs, family priorities, and lifestyle. Yet of course, things are rarely as good or simple as they seem, and the devil is always in the details.  In fact, whenever you try to personalize anything—working arrangements are no exception—you introduce more nuances, complexities, and unforeseen problems. Change is always taxing and more demanding than business as usual, and as such is always met with resistance.  That’s why there’s never been a more important time for managers to act with emotional intelligence (EQ) if they want to make hybrid work…work.  Remote and hybrid work come with diverse circumstances In the past year, we have all been invited into each other’s homes. We’ve met pets, children, partners; we’ve been serenaded by piano lessons and choir practice; we’ve learned about newfound bread-making skills and sourdough starters. Hours shifted to teach kids from home, take kids to various stages of part-time school reopenings, and do more work, often with fewer hours, than ever before.  However, in the midst of the chaos, many people discovered (or in some cases rediscovered) different facets of their lives.  Parents have enjoyed the opportunity to eat lunch every day with their kids or take a walk around the block with the family dog each evening. As we head back to work now, more than work will be hybrid: our lives will be, dissipating the historical divide between our professional and our personal selves. We are caught between the normalcy we knew prior to the crisis and the normalcy we’ve built in the past 14 months. We will continue to operate between these two worlds until we set new patterns for what’s next. During this transition, empathy will be paramount. Demonstrating the ability to put yourself in someone else’s situation and understand their views, and then using that knowledge to guide your own reaction, will support successful change. We need to understand that normal will be redefined as we all determine how to keep the best of what we’ve embraced in the past year and balance a return to a world that didn’t previously integrate work and home. E mpathy will be required to continually bridge the two. We must actively demonstrate a willingness to understand how other people are redefining their professional space, and how far into their personal lives we are invited.   Uncertainty and stress will continue Transition is stressful. Life as we knew it literally stopped more than a year ago and is slowly restarting now. Our tendency will be to move in full force at a speed that attempts to catch up on what is perceived as lost time. However, leaders need to set the pace. A pace that is purposeful and sustainable. An environment that acknowledges the pendulum swung dramatically from Go to Stop and cannot instantly swing back to Go again.  We are emerging as a different workforce as we reopen Read More …

Inside YouTube’s 5-year program to help creators that you’re just now hearing about

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For the past five years, there’s been a cadre of YouTubers working closely with the company to shape the tools and features creators are using. And it’s not until now that YouTube is pulling back the curtain on its findings and on the program itself. YouTube’s Creator in Residence launched in 2016 as a way for a select group of creators to stress test new additions to the platform and give feedback on the user experience directly to engineers, designers, and product managers. Ten creators are handpicked by the Creator in Residence team for six-month terms that include weekly meetings and, at times, team members visiting creators in their homes and studios to see how being a YouTuber affects their lives on and off camera. Renato Verdugo, a user experience researcher at YouTube an co-lead of Creator in Residence, says typical UX research stops after a week or two with a specific focus on workshopping a product, website, or app. “The more time we started spending with creators without a product agenda, the more we learned [about] their everyday life in a way that allows us to better understand the role that the platform plays in a specific creator’s success, in a specific creator’s business,” Verdugo says. “The residency came from the spirit of, how do we spend time with creators beyond one research session? ” Part of the reason the Creator in Residence program stayed under wraps for five years was to ensure that time with creators was as unfiltered as possible. Renato Verdugo [Photo: courtesy of YouTube] “For this to be effective, the creator needs to know that they’re not here to be a spokesperson, that they’re here to be honest and raw,” Verdugo says. “Giving time to work without the public spotlight and [creators not having] people put pressure on them like, ‘You’re talking to YouTube? Can you also raise this other thing?’ It just creates space to breathe.” Verdugo and his team select creators based on who they deem are doing something “unique or cool” and “really creative” with their channels, regardless of the size of their following. “We have no hard requirements,” he says. “We’ve reached out to people who have a couple hundred thousand all the way to the well into the millions. It’s much more about doing interesting things on the platform.” For example, Anisha Dixit, a creator based in Mumbai whose aim is empowering women, particularly in India, in approachable and comedic ways. “She talks about things that could be considered taboo, like menstruation,” Verdugo says. “She mixes her own experience of growing up as a woman in India with the experience that her younger audience is going through.” To get a better sense of Dixit’s workflow and life, Verdugo spent a week in Mumbai shadowing her creating content, doing press, and so forth. “That ethnographic research is really not necessarily about any specific feature of the platform. I don’t show up with like a suitcase full of prototypes like, let’s try new things,” Verdugo says. “It’s an opportunity to open that window into what is everyday life. What is it like to wake up in the morning and be a YouTube creator and go to bed and still be a YouTube creator?” That said, there are occasions where Verdugo gives creators the opportunity to test, and ultimately shape, new features on the platform, such as the revamped YouTube Studio, the hub for creators to manage their accounts; and YouTube Stories, which originally launched as Reels in 2017 but not without some necessary guidance from creators in the program who were flown to New York City to participate in a scavenger hunt as a fun way to test the feature Read More …