Technology - Google News

Twitter Announces Full Rollout of the Platform's New Desktop Experience - Social Media Today
Sony releases fully digital ECM-B1M Shotgun Microphone - Newsshooter
Recode Daily: More homes will have surveillance devices after this Amazon Prime Day - Vox.com

Twitter Announces Full Rollout of the Platform's New Desktop Experience - Social Media Today

Posted: 16 Jul 2019 12:26 AM PDT

After testing a new version of its desktop UI with selected users over the past few months, Twitter has this week announced that it's now rolling out the updated Twitter.com experience to all users.

As you can see from the video, the new Twitter for desktop includes a range of updated features, including:

More of What's Happening - We've brought over Explore to bring you the same great content found in our apps; expect more live video and local moments personalized for wherever you are in the world.
Easy Access to Your Favorite Features - Bookmarks, Lists, and your Profile are right up front and have their own spot on the side navigation, making it easier and faster to jump between different tabs.
Direct Messages All in One Place - Direct Messages have been expanded so you can see your conversations and send messages all from the same view.
Login, Logout Struggle No More - Whether you have one profile or a few, now you're also able to switch between accounts faster, directly from the side navigation; your stan, foodie and cat meme accounts thank you.
Make Twitter Yours - The love is real for dark mode themes Dim and Lights Out. You've asked for even more ways to personalize Twitter so we're bringing you different themes and color options, along with two options for dark mode.

As noted, the new desktop UI was first rolled out to some users back in January - if you were among that initial test pool, you would have seen a notification like this:

Aside from the cosmetic changes, which will initially be what stands out, Twitter's also working to improve its back-end systems and processes to ensure that its desktop and mobile experiences are better integrated, and inclusive for all users.

Over on the Twitter Engineering blog, Twitter's technical team provides a more in-depth explanation of this approach, including an outline of why Twitter chose to re-build its desktop version:

"One of Twitter's goals is to reach everyone everywhere. Twitter's web apps are critical to making this happen. They don't require installation and are immediately accessible by almost every connected device in the world. The open web has unparalleled discoverability and reach. However, the Twitter web team found it difficult to deliver on the promise of bringing Twitter's features to everyone on the web due to our large user base and the variety of devices they use."

That prompted the desktop re-build - which is, indeed, exactly that. Twitter says it started all over again with its desktop site, with the new version being more aligned with the functionality of the more complex mobile version. Twitter's aim is to align with a "write once, run everywhere" approach, which will ensure that all functionality is available on any version of the platform, meaning desktop users don't get left behind with new tools.

In my own experience (I was part of the initial January test pool), the new desktop version is an improvement, and while it takes a second to get used to, I found myself reverting to the newer version fairly quickly, and haven't looked back.

Oh, and one other thing...

A small visual feature addition to also check out.

The new Twitter.com will be available to all users from this week.

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Sony releases fully digital ECM-B1M Shotgun Microphone - Newsshooter

Posted: 16 Jul 2019 08:10 AM PDT

Today Sony released the new A7R IV 61MP camera with impressive real-time tracking autofocus. While this new camera looks to be a beast with the a new sensor Sony also is making advances audio capture with the all-new ECM-B1M all digital microphone.

The new Sony ECM-B1M is the first all-digital hot-shoe microphone designed for the a7r IV camera. The signal is captured and transferred to the a7R IV through its Multi Interface Shoe. In theory this will be a much cleaner signal than what is captured using the 3.5 analog input on most cameras

ECM-B1M Shotgun Microphone

The new shotgun microphones eight high-performance mic capsules and advanced digital signal processing provide three selectable directivity patterns in one compact microphone of approximately 99.3mm (4 inches) in length with Super-directional pick up; when connected to the Alpha 7R IV via its Multi-Interface Shoe with digital audio interface support, audio is directly transferred to the camera in digital form so that the highest possible quality is achieved without noise or degradation.

Audio with mirrorless cameras has always been a struggle and if you want good audio you usually need to use an external audio recorder. The ECM-B1M being a shotgun microphone should help getting cleaner nat sound and close range audio capture however like all shotgun microhones they have their limitaions.

The new ECM-B1M Shotgun Microphone will ship in September 2019 for approximately $350 US and $470 CA.

XLR-K3M XLR Adaptor Kit

Alpha Universe ILCE 7RM4 a7R IV FE2470GM XLRK3M

The original audio interface also got an upgrade. Two XLR/TRS combo connectors and one 3.5mm stereo mini-jack for microphone and line input, with extensive control that helps facilitate the post-processing workflow; connected to the Alpha 7R IV via the Multi Interface Shoe with digital audio interface support, audio is directly transferred to the camera in digital form so that the highest possible audio quality is achieved without noise or degradation; supplied extension cable for Audio provides extra flexibility for camera attachment with rig, cage or bracket.

The new XLR-K3M XLR Adapter Kit will ship in October 2019 for approximately $600 US and $800 CA.

By Erik Naso

Erik is an 18 time Emmy award-winning DP, with over 20 years experience in photojournalism, working in newsrooms all over the USA.

The last decade has seen Erik migrate into broadcast television and filmmaking, where he has discovered a passion for visual storytelling and production.

Additionally, Erik is an outstanding educator, teaching filmmaking via courses on Linkedin Learning and Lynda.com.

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Recode Daily: More homes will have surveillance devices after this Amazon Prime Day - Vox.com

Posted: 16 Jul 2019 05:43 AM PDT

Guess what, Prime Day could contribute to a rise in fear-based social media usage. Amazon's Ring video doorbell was one of the company's best-sellers on the first day of its two-day Prime shopping fest, thanks to the steep discounts the e-commerce giant offered on Ring and other surveillance products. This year's Ring push, similar to the company's wildly successful campaigns to sell Alexa Echo devices in years past, could lead to a more widespread embrace of what Recode's Rani Molla called "fear-based social media," as more Americans install surveillance devices in their homes. Ring's attendant app, Neighbors, lets people in a given community report crimes and share footage of those crimes (spoiler: it's mainly of people stealing Amazon packages). As Molla writes, "in practice, that means a lot of reports of 'suspicious' brown people on porches and a general perception that the world is a scarier place than it is."

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Uber is (finally) setting diversity goals for 2022. So we know it's serious, the company is tying the goals to "the compensation of several of its senior executives," according to CNN. Uber released its diversity report this week, and the company has work to do. White men made up 30.1 percent of its US workforce, and black women made up 5.3 percent, black men 4 percent, Hispanic women 3.7 percent, and Hispanic men 4.6 percent. Though these percentages are low, they are up slightly from last year. Uber's corporate workforce (not including drivers, of course) grew from 18,000 to 26,000 this year.

Instacart's app hounds workers when they don't want to accept an order. Instacart's "full-service shoppers" are reporting that when a gig comes up for them in the app, there is no way for them to decline the request. Instead, these workers say, they have to "mute their phone, close the app, or sit through about four minutes of that strange pinging, which many say sounds like a submarine's sonar" to avoid a job for any number of reasons, but often because the gig doesn't pay enough. On top of this, workers say they are penalized for declining gigs by getting barred from gaining "early access," a system that surfaces better jobs. (Instacart told Bloomberg it doesn't force anyone to take on unwanted tasks.)

Background: Instacart (which is eyeing an IPO) has faced several other controversies over worker pay practices. In 2017, the company paid $4.6 million to settle a lawsuit brought by workers who claimed they were wrongly classified as contractors. Under public pressure this year, the company also changed a controversial policy that used customers' tips to cover its base pay minimum.
[Josh Eidelson / Bloomberg]

Congress wants less talk and more action from Apple on privacy. Privacy advocates, along with lawmakers, say that Apple "has not put enough muscle behind any federal effort to tighten privacy laws" and is an "ally in name only," according to the Washington Post. Though Apple CEO Tim Cook has been very vocal in advocating for federal privacy regulation, the company has not yet backed a bill. And in states that are introducing their own privacy legislation, like California, Washington, and Illinois, Apple has tried to discourage or "soften" the proposed privacy measures.

Amazon workers are celebrating Prime Day with a protest. Amazon has to do more than pay a $15 minimum wage to keep workers happy.
[Emily Stewart]

Tonight: Elon Musk reveals his "brain-machine interface."

Recode and Vox have joined forces to uncover and explain how our digital world is changing — and changing us. Subscribe to Recode podcasts to hear Kara Swisher and Peter Kafka lead the tough conversations the technology industry needs today.

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