Emoji Feminism

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Emojis Designed to Represent Women Better in Workplace

A set of 13 emojis have been designed by Google engineers and according to them represent women better in the world of work. The designs have been presented to the Unicode consortium which is a body that tends to approve and standardise emojis. The team have mentioned that they hope the samples would empower young women, the substantial emoji users and reflect better the fundamental roles that women seem to play in the world and include healthcare workers, scientists as well as businesswomen.

 Emojis are considered to be icons which are being utilised in mobile and web messaging in order to help tell a story. The terms which means picture (e) and character (moji) in Japanese had been added to the Oxford English Dictionary in 2013. A group of four Google employees mentioned a New York Time op-ed known as `Emoji Feminism’ as the inspiration for its new design. Amy Butcher commented that `they were told that they are the new generation of American women, no longer a minority and that they in fact, are the majority of breadwinners in American homes and yet the best that they can get is the flamenco – dancer’.

Search Engine for Emojis – Emojipedia

Research done by Procter & Gamble indicated that 82% of girls in the age group of 16 – 24 tend to use emojis daily. More than half of those who had been surveyed were of the opinion that female emojis were stereotypical. The designs of Google comprise of women in technology, construction, farming as well as the food industry. Female musician emoji includes homage to the late David Bowie with a pink zigzag on her face.

Users have the option of choosing from various skin tone and as well as the generic yellow on some of the devices. A search engine for emojis, Emojipedia, had recently proposed that one should also be able to choose the colour of hair and specify gender. All the emojis should be approved by Unicode to ensure that they are displayed properly on the various platforms.

But emojis could look quite different on competing platforms, where a dancer emoji for instance shows up as a ballerina on LG phones, a man disco-dancing on Samsung devices, a yellow blob with its arm raised on Android and a flamenco dancer on iOS. The next set of emoji candidates is said to be released mid-year though it is not known whether the designs of Google will be approved in time to be included in this.

Empower Girls Everywhere

According to its proposal, the objective of Google is to have these emojis in steady use on smartphone and computers towards the end of the year in order to empower girls everywhere. Presently, there are more than 1,000 standardized emojis that are utilised globally depicting everything from ice-cream to dragon to police cars.

But the current emoji selection feels subtly chauvinist, portraying men running and policing while women dance and cut their hair. Google had mentioned in its proposal that `considering the fact the women seem to be the most regular emojis users and they span a wide professional spectrum which is not yet reflected in the present emojis, we want to help address this pressing matter of equality’.

It is a good gesture though there is yet a long way to go in putting women on equal footing in the workplace. According to the latest data from the National Committee on Pay Equity, women in the U.S. tend to make around 79 cents for every dollar earned by men. The gender pay gap is closing since the early 60s though the change has been quite slow.

New LG Tech Hides Fingerprint Sensors Away

LG’s Fingerprint Sensor in Glass Front Panel

Fingerprint sensors seem to be the norm on modern smartphone though they are assimilated with a button of some type. Intending to create smoother and simpler devices, LG Innotek, the division of the company which produces components and materials has integrated a fingerprint sensor in the glass front panel but from beneath the sheet instead of in front or on top. It means that it is totally hidden away; more resistant to damage though crucially tends to have the same level of accuracy expected from a regular exposed fingerprint sensor.

The new fingerprint sensor enables users to only place their finger on the glass of their phone screen and the sensor beneath tends to identify the print. The benefit of this is that in view of LG, is the capability for waterproof of phone as well as better prevention of scratches. LG has crafted a small 0.01 groove on the underside of a glass screen cover to lodge the fingerprint module, as proof of the idea. Having the sensor hidden away on the inner side, phone designers would need to think productively on how to reveal its location. LG states that the module tends to have an accuracy of 99.998% which means that it will only falsely recognize someone else’s print 0.002% of the time.

Fingerprint Sensors on Phones – Immediately Obvious

Fingerprint sensors on most of the phones tend to be immediately obvious since it is being fitted inside button on the front such as the iPhone or Galaxy S7 or in recessed square or circular cut-outs towards the back of a phone such as in most Huawei devices or the LG G5.LG Innotek flipped the glass front panel around, fixed out a piece just 0.3 mm thick, placing the fingerprint sensor inside.

On turning the glass over and there is nothing there to indicate a fingerprint sensor is hidden away, giving a sleeker, less cluttered design and opportunities marking out where to place a finger or thumb utilising subtle graphics or markings. The sensor is protected from water damage while the surface is less likely to be scratched without using sapphire crystal cover such as those used on the Touch ID button of iPhone. Moreover has also dropped a 130 gram steel ball from a height of 20 cm to prove that the thin glass is tough.

Invisible Sensor – False Acceptance Rating – FAR 0.002%

LG asserts that the invisible sensor has a false acceptance rating – FAR of 0.002% which is a possibility of it accepting someone’s fingerprint as your own. Though it is great for our own security, it is an essential if LG prefers to use the new fingerprint sensor on Android phones. According to Googles’ documentation, a FAR rating not greater that 0.002% seems to be a requirement for sensors utilised with Android 6.0 Marshmallow.

While the new under glass fingerprint sensor has been announced, with LG Innotek developing a special adhesive in order to stick the sensor to the underside of the panel, there is no sign of when it would go into mass production, ready for the use on a real phone. The G5 had been revealed by LG recently but some have been expecting it to show off a sequel to the V10 later in the year.

AI Patient App Launched at Alder Hey Hospital

Alder Hey in Partnership with Watson for AI App

The staffs at Alder Hey children’s hospital in Liverpool has teamed up with IBM Watson in order to create an app which would be helpful for patients and doctors to work better together. The app would be answering any queries that parents as well as children tend to have regarding their hospital stay. Moreover it will also enable children to create a profile so that clinician will be aware of things like their favourite colour. Later on it could be utilised to provide insights into treatments.

Watson is said to be an AI platform which has been advising doctors on treatment in a dozen cancer hospitals in the US, searching through data and it can read 40 million documents in a matter of 15 seconds and would be offering insights into probable treatment.

It could ultimately do similar things at Alder Hey though has started with more simple patient/doctor app, which has been designed to make the hospital visits function more smoothly. The hospital has been working with the UK’s Science and Technology Facilities Councils’- STFCHartree Centre to develop the app.

Helping Patients/Families before Coming to Hospital

Hundreds of Alder Hey patients together with their parents will be asked a range of questions on everything from parking, to what they would like to eat, to their favourite games and films and what they want their bedroom to look like, for the next few months.

Besides this, they would also be asked what questions they have regarding clinical procedures, general anaesthetic as well as surgery. A team of experts from IBM and the Hartree Centre will be utilising this information to train `Watson’ in anticipating and responding to questions from patients and families before they tend to come in the hospital.

A paediatric surgeon and director of innovation at Alder Hey, Mr Iain Hennessey, informed BBC that `helping the patients and their families prepare properly to come into the hospital could reduce their anxiety and would mean that they can get them better and return home faster.

He adds that `so much of medicine is about looking after people and is roughly a third of what is done and it is a neglected part. How we communicate with patients has not changed much over the last 100 years. A leaflet is seen as cutting edge and website of patient information is award-winning’.

AI App – First Project of IBM/STFC Hartree

He stated that later on, the platform may offer `more hard-core diagnostic but informed that governance around using patient data was a nightmare. He wanted to get this off the ground faster and utilising patient records in time consuming, is costly and could cause debate.

Alder Hey is well-known for caring and that is what he wants to build on. The future application would comprise of summaries of patient notes, spotting trends all over the hospital and the AI could also be utilised in providing treatment as well as care options. Paul Chong, IBM’s European director for Watson had stated that he was thrilled to see IBM Watson technology applied to help doctors and the patients in an attempt to enhance the lives of children together with their families.

The AI app is said to be one of the first project that has come out of a wide-ranging £315 million partnership between IBM and STFC Hartree. Contributions from the US tech giant are £200 million while the government has pledged £115 million for research in big data applications. IBM has stated that patients can provide feedback through the app on a voluntary basis.

Turn Your Living Room into a High Tech Paradise

Designers: Homify

Home Tech/Latest Devices/Apps

Living room is agreat place to relax in the midst of family and friends with great number of gadgets that tend to make it much more convenient, enhancing our life and home. Home tech is getting better than ever and the latest devices and apps tend to simplify tasks, making the use of these resources better and alter our way of living. So much so we now find it difficult to do without them. From health and well-being, to home automation, together with personal computing and smart wearable we tend to live in the days of technological revolution. The television is the centre piece of most of the living room and hence tends to be of a high quality placed in the room. Various models have been competing in the market and one can make an appropriate choice based on the budget and models.

Amazon Echo

With achievements done in the technology world, the Amazon Echo is another choice for the living room, which is like Siri. It is just a Bluetooth speaker but then tends to start talking to `Alexa, which is the AI assistant at the core of the device. Besides that, it can do much more. Like Siri or Google Now, or Cortana, it can take down dictated notes, give information regarding the weather, set up alarms, can schedule appointments, read out audio books, add items to a to-do-list or just give random bits of information besides many more tasks. The Echo is said to be better at understanding requests and can get connected to different other smart devices in the home such as Sonos speaker or Philips Hue light. If one intends working on building a smart home, it could be the centre of it all.

TP-Link Archer C9 

Having a reliable Internet connection would enable you to have your connected devices functioning well where the TP-Link Archer C9 has the capability of offering it. It provides fast Wi-Fi speed of over 802.1lac which can manage various devices simultaneously, has good range via its trio of antennas and has various ports for supporting wired as well as wireless connections at the same time. It is also a great mid-tier router available at a good price.

Nest Protect 

This is a smart smoke alarm and carbon dioxide detector that is connected to your home Internet of Things network. It tends to alert you to dangers in any of the rooms it may take place. Smartphone notification makes sure that one is not caught unaware.

Muji Air Purifier 

Muji Air Purifier sucks up dust, pollen etc., filters out the bad air through the three layers of activated charcoal giving out the pure air through the top. The coolest feature is the jet air setting which tends to identify when you are vacuuming around the house and knocks the speed of the fan to a maximum of 30 minutes giving out clean air.

Devices to give us Control of our World

Besides these, there are various other gadgets which have made a great impact in the lifestyle of individuals and the overall way of living. Whether it is a new device which can bring us close together or tend to give us control of our world, we can find a gadget for any purpose one would prefer. The choice is available if the user intends to be in possession of any of them made available in the market.

The German Traffic Light for Smartphone Zombies

Credit: Thomas Hosemann/City of Augsburg

Smartphone Zombie – Substantial Safety Risk

The word `smombie’ is said to be one of the latest addition to the German language. Last November, the term mashup of smartphone and zombie denoting to unaware smartphone users staggering around the cities like the undead had been voted Youth Word of the Year in Germany. Smartphone zombie is a pedestrian who tends to walk slowly and without much attention to their surroundings since they have their focus on their smartphone. It has now become a substantial safety risk since the preoccupied user could result in an accident.

Cities like Chongqing and Antwerp have now introduced special lanes for smartphone users in order to help direct and handle them. China had over 5 hundred million smartphone users, in 2014 and more than half of them had phone addiction. In Chongqing, the government had built a cell phone pavement which separated the phone users and the non-phone users and in Hong Kong, they are known as dai tau juk – the head-down tribe. The disease is said to be infectious. Latest study of 14,000 pedestrians in Amsterdam, Berlin, Brussels, Paris, Rome and Stockholm showed that 17% of the people utilised their smartphone while walking and the substantial users were 25 to 35 years old and nearly a quarter of them showed smombie-esque behaviour.

Install New Traffic Light at Ground Levels

Augsburg, a municipality outside Munich has now braced itself for this new public peril and after many smombies had caused accidents by carelessly crossing tram tracks, the city officials had decided to install new traffic light at ground levels. At HaunstetterstraBe station, one of the two location intended for experiment, 16 red LEDs, each of which were the size of a beer mat had been embedded in the pavement next to a tram crossing. Passengers had been divided according to their merits.

Katja Lechner shuttles here daily to university and states that you really do see the lights blinking when the tram tends to approach but that does not stop anybody from crossing since people seem to rush to catch their trains. She is of the opinion that the €10,000 could have been invested in education. Arzu Araz, a hairdresser living nearby with her seven year old daughter seems to disagree and states that `the lights are ideal for kids who seem to notice them instantly’.

Smartphone Enabled with Corresponding App – Watch Out

Augsburg does not seem to be the first city to react. Cologne has prepared three trams crossing with same lights, prompting the creation of another portmanteau - `Bompeln’ which is an abbreviation of `Boden-Ampeln’ – ground traffic lights. In Munich, where a 15 year old girl with her headphones on, was killed by the tram recently, definite dangerous crossings had been fitted with special beacons which send warnings to smartphone enabled with a corresponding app known as `Watch Out’.

Meanwhile in the US, cities like Portland, Seattle and Cleveland have tested with talking buses which alert pedestrians during turns while Rexburg, Idaho have even imposed fines of $50 for walking and texting. A theme park in the Chinese city of Chongqing had experimented that tested with a special `phone lane’ for pedestrians based on an earlier investigation in Washington, DC. Augsburg official, after an experimental period, will be interviewing tram drivers as well as passengers before determining whether to roll the lights out to other stations.