The Helpdesk

Up Bank 

I've been taking a look into how our banking apps might change in the future. They have been getting smarter, but mostly your app is still a record of your transactions. but There's are soem cool things you can come up with once you start to connect apps together and automate things. 

Up are working on an API that will enable payments and transfers on behalf of users. 

These examples are somewhere off in the future... Eg a fitness tracking app could recognise when you ride your bike to work instead of taking the tram and the API tells your bank to transfer the unused tram fare to a savings account. 

Or the rules could trigger "some crazy mash up of investing and spending" so every time you buy a burger at McDonalds, the app rounds up your spending to invest a small amount into a fractional share of the fast food company. 

Spotify has announced a new way for podcasters to blend real, honest to goodness music, with podcasts.

Using Anchor, a podcast creation tool that Spotify purchased - i wanna say late last year? i was in the before times, whenever it was

the new shows will be available only to Spotify Premium subscribers, not users on the free ad-supported tier

Becaause of the limited reach, this really is for podcasters who want to live within Spotify's walled garden, but if you've ever wanted to host your own love-song dedications porgram, or create a series on your favourite artist, have at it 

this concept is something i wrote about back in 2013! I wanted apple to do it then cos they were the only company with a music service and a podcast service... 

this is slightly different, i wanted client side - ie: mix my fave pods with my 5 star songs - which spotify already do with My Daily Drive

Spotify is out-innovating Apple in the podcast space

Dropbox goes 'Virtual first' for remote working 

Dropbox announced yesterday its a 'virtual first' company. What's that mean? 

remote work is the primary experience for workers. It's a policy and set of rules that will clear up the ambiguity around a hyrbid remote-office setup. 

Introduce non-linear workdays by setting core collaboration hours (9am - 1pm). Outside of these hours employees can run their own schedule. 

Offices will be turned into 'hubs' - for meeting up, not for daily work. 

I'd say we are still earlier in the remote work experiment and many households haven't had a proper experience, if they've been performing childcare etc. 

Ever going back to the office? I think policies are one thing and how humans actually behave will be another... 

Microsoft AI for Image captions

Microsoft is often forgotten when talking about AI, because their tech is mainly used in the background, server side - rather than obvious consumer facing products like Google Assistant or Amazon's Alexa, but the company is the quiet acheiver, kicking goals with transcription (now available in office 365, and now with Image captioning

Why does it matter? Not only does image capturing improve search - but think about this, when was the last time you captioned an image on Twitter or Facebook? 

I never remember to, which means my posts are not accessible by visually impaired users. If Microsoft can license...

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Apple Event 

• iPhone 12 and iPhone 12 Pro
• Mini is a new form factor thank god - lots of pretty colours
• New Ceramic glass 
• MagSafe - a whole bunch of new accessories 
• Pro video is insane, 10bit Dolby vision HDR 
• Also new HomePod mini - intercom is cute - no support for Spotify. 
• No headphones or charging cable in the box 
• Combo Touch ID / power button from the new iPad Air didn’t make it to the iPhone this year.

Apple simultaneously talked up and downplayed 5g

• Australian pricing:
• iPhone 12 mini A$1199
• iPhone 12 A$1349
• iPhone 12 Pro A$1699
• iPhone 12 Pro Max $1849
• HomePod mini is A$149

Will Australian telcos work with 5G bands? 

Facebook is growing up, just in time? *gestures at everything* 

• https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2020-10-12/facebook-to-ban-posts-that-deny-holocaust-in-reversal-of-policy 
• https://www.cnbc.com/2020/10/13/facebook-bans-anti-vax-ads.html
• https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2020/oct/13/facebook-vaccine-ads-ban 

Staying with Facebook, Messenger has been updated with better integration with Instagram, making it harder for the doj to break up the company?

• Looks like Facebook kids - i.e. fugly
• https://techcrunch.com/2020/10/13/messengers-latest-update-brings-new-features-cross-app-communication-with-instagram/

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4 Corners on Tinder

A joint investigation between Triple J and Four Corners has revealed Tinder has not done enough to protect users on its dating app from sexual assault. Specifically alleged offenders 'unmatching' from their victims to erase their digital trail. and Tinder's reporting process has repeatedly failed victims. 

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-12/tinder-dating-app-helps-sexual-predators-hide-four-corners/12722732?nw=0

https://iview.abc.net.au/show/four-corners/series/2020/video/NC2003H036S00

https://www.abc.net.au/news/2020-10-13/tinder-rapist-glenn-hartland-used-fake-profiles-to-lure-women/12742670

And be careful what you tweet

https://twitter.com/joanna_horton/status/1315569921871364096

A tweet from a greens member has blown up in the lead up to the Queensland State Election.

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