The Razer Viper is the latest gaming mouse to join the wired lineup. Despite its nondescript appearance, the Viper brings several new features to the table that offer refined performance when gaming.
Source: Digital trends
The idea seemed simple: If you find yourself regularly ordering the same thing from Amazon — coffee, laundry detergent, whatever — why not replace the whole ordering process with a button you put somewhere in your house? Push a button, get a thing.
And from that, Amazon’s Dash button was born. Announced one day before April Fools’ 2015, people weren’t sure if it was actually real.
It was! But now it’s dead.
Amazon stopped selling the Dash button earlier this year; now they’re ending support for them altogether. In an email to Dash users, Amazon says that Dash button devices will cease to function as of August 31st, 2019.
Why? They’re not selling any more of them, and too few people are using the ones that still exist. An Amazon rep told CNET that usage of the buttons “had significantly slowed” over the last few months.
“Virtual” dash buttons (the same push-button concept, but digitized and tucked into Amazon’s app) will continue to work, as will devices that tie into Amazon’s “Dash Replenishment Service” — think washing machines that have a button to order detergent, or coffee makers that can order their own beans. Just the dedicated, physical, standalone buttons are going dark.
While the Dash button program may not have ever taken off, people found their own fun uses for the hardware since launch. After Amazon started selling re-purposable, hackable Dash buttons that could be used to fire off custom scripts on the internet, one modder built a button that automatically placed his favorite Starbucks order as he was walking out the door.
If you’ve still got a Dash button around the house and don’t know what to do with it after the end of the month, Amazon is encouraging people to send the buttons into its recycling program (which covers the costs of shipping/disposal.)
Source: TechCrunch
The esports organization alleges that pro Fortnite player Turner Tenney has caused it “serious damage.”
Source: CNET
Ken Paxton is the 15th attorney general to push back against the merger.
Source: CNET
Six years of study and 206,726 images of the sky brought you this incredible galactic map.
Source: CNET
You shell out way too much as a college student. Here are some student deals that let you hold on to some of your cash.
Source: CNET
If you’re among those whose data was compromised by the Equifax data breach, you’re probably not going to get the $125 promised by the FTC settlement. If you want to make Equifax pay, you’re better off choosing free credit monitoring.
Source: Digital trends
Regulators in Germany are investigating how Google treats conversations recorded by its Assistant service.
Source: CNET
Direct-to-consumer plant retailer Bloomscape has raised $7.5 million in Series A funding, with several high-profile D2C startup founders signing on as investors.
Founder and CEO Justin Mast told me that his family has five generations of experience as greenhouse owners and operators, and that he first tried to get Bloomscape off the ground more than a decade ago. Since then, Mast has worked at other startups, but he said, “Bloomscape was the one that got away. I would find myself dreaming about it.”
The current version of the startup launched just over a year ago, and has shipped more than 100,000 plants since then. The company is headquartered in Detroit, and ships plants from its greenhouses near Grand Rapids, Mich.
When asked what’s wrong with the existing brick-and-mortar plant-buying process, Mast said convenience is a big factor, particularly once you start talking about plants that are too big to carry in one hand — he said Bloomscape’s packing and shipping methods can accommodate everything from a 10-inch aloe plant to a five-foot bird of paradise.
Bloomscape also helps people care for their plants through its Plant Mom service, allowing customers to ask for advice from an expert. The Plant Mom is, in fact, Mast’s mother Joyce, who has more than 40 years of horticulture experience.
Mast said the service is designed to replicate his own experience texting his Mom for help when his plants weren’t doing well: “We wanted to figure out how to do this in a way that didn’t feel like tech support, that actually felt convenient, warm and helpful.” (Bloomscape has since hired other experts to support her.)
Mast added that he sees the free service as “this tremendous opportunity to create value,” particularly since “people who feel confident that they’re going to be able to keep their plants alive go and buy more plants.”
Ultimately, Mast’s vision is for Bloomscape to be involved in “plant life in every area of the home and garden.”
The new round was led by Revolution Ventures, with participation from Endeavor, as well as Allbirds co-founder Joey Zwillinger, Away co-founder Jen Rubio, Eventbrite co-founder Kevin Hartz, Harry’s co-founder Jeff Raider, Quora co-founder Charlie Cheever and Warby Parker co-founders Neil Blumenthal and Dave Gilboa.
“Plants are a highly fragmented, fast growing industry, but the market has been slow to come online – warehousing and shipping living things is hard,â€� Revolution Ventures partner Clara Sieg said in a statement. “Drawing on five generations of horticultural experience, Justin and the Bloomscape team combines the ease of e-commerce with care and maintenance resources in a beautifully branded, consumer-centric experience that empowers even the least green thumbed among us to be successful plant parents.â€�
Source: TechCrunch
In the summer of 2018, parts of San Francisco’s public utilities turned gold. Manhole covers, drainpipes and gas line covers were gilded in protest by a pair of street artists, Erick Schmitt and Nick Bushman, and quickly became an obvious metaphor that  “the San Francisco Bay Area has become an enclave unattainable to all but the most privileged.�
In his 1990 book, City of Quartz, Mike Davis envisioned another enclave of exclusion and elitism: Fortress LA. With San Francisco gold-plated, who’s to say Los Angeles is far behind?
As someone in the tech industry now based in LA, I am acutely aware that my field is seen as part of the problem. When we set up shop, we quickly realized that we must keep our community top of mind. We’ve all got to learn the lessons of gold-plated San Francisco.
The most important differentiation for tech companies to make is that gentrification doesn’t necessarily mean revitalization. The difference is evident in some of LA’s quickly changing neighborhoods and has invoked fierce reactions. Anti-gentrification activists in Boyle Heights and downtown have succeeded in their efforts to close at least one art gallery. They’ve picketed businesses like Weird Wave Coffee. Detergent attacks during gallery openings, anti-gentrification graffiti and harassment via social media have put owners on edge.
Activists have a point. Local communities don’t often see the benefits of gentrification that newer, more privileged people do in those hip new wine shops. Too often, they’re taking the place of family businesses or driving up the cost of living beyond the point where locals can compete. What’s more, families displaced by rising costs of living are at a much higher risk of becoming homeless.
Research shows that homelessness in LA has risen by a staggering 75% since 2012, with elderly people and single-parent households most affected. The majority of this displacement is attributed directly to the surge in rental prices brought on by gentrification.
Los Angeles doesn’t need to become another San Francisco.
As opposed to gentrification, revitalization is a collaborative effort, where the city’s urban planning department, existing community members and business owners (incoming and long-standing) decide on improvements that can create more equitable change for all involved.
In 1994, author John Elkington proposed something called a “triple bottom line.” Corporations, he said, should add a second and third key performance indicator of success: their people and their impact on the environment. I agree.
Initiatives that begin in the brains of company boards or directors intended for the communities they inhabit often miss a crucial partner — the communities themselves. Businesses can be positive for a community; make sure to do it responsibly.
Businesses should work with communities to execute a project that will have a direct impact on their lives. Instead of coming to the community with a solution, engage the community to help ideate and problem solve together. Smaller commitments that can be sustained over the long term have more impact than grand gestures that disappear within a few months.
In the words of Gina Belafonte, co-director of Sankofa, the social justice organization based in New York and LA, “The process in which it’s executed is the problem. They don’t look to the community for the solution. They try to just bring up solutions to the community. You need to give them not just buy-in but the feeling that, ‘This is our park, this is not a park that was brought here for us. We designed this park, we were part of the team to work with the architects to design that building.’ �
A brand’s strongest ambassadors are the people who work for it. Many will be living in the neighborhoods struggling with changes. Incentivizing employees to get involved in community work or working with local schools can be a way of counteracting criticism.
We’ve all got to learn the lessons of gold-plated San Francisco.
One of the clearest opportunities, especially for tech companies moving into areas with low levels of science, tech, engineering and math levels (STEM), is in education where it’s badly lacking in public schools. The advantage here is twofold: the investment is designed to grow the talent pool from which your company can only benefit, and the positive impact is obvious to the community in the short and long term.
There are other opportunities for engagement: coding classes for public school students, scholarship opportunities for state and community college students and training programs for those interested in switching careers. Helping existing community members train for the kinds of jobs your company offers will allow locals to bridge the income gap so central to the destruction of existing communities.
Finally, one of the thorniest issues is gentrification’s role in disrupting local culture. The makeup of a place naturally changes when newer, more affluent residents move in, and, unfortunately, there are no easy solutions to this.
What’s at stake isn’t necessarily the loss of the community but the successful meshing of what came before with what is coming now. Drum circles, mariachi bands, block parties — these neighborhoods have histories, customs and rituals. Understanding what those are upon entering a new community is maybe the most important step a company and its new employees can take.
There are the surface solutions: investing in local galleries, sponsoring cultural programs and arts organizations. But then there are the less obvious opportunities, such as maintaining the architectural style of the neighborhood in the design of new office space, including the work of neighborhood artists in company projects or creative initiatives launched by your brand.
Ultimately, Los Angeles doesn’t need to become another San Francisco. This isn’t about finding comfortable ways of appeasing locals for the sake of positive PR. It’s about being more adept at stemming the turbulence that accompanies change and harnessing it in a way that benefits the community.
After all, empathy doesn’t simply apply to a company’s decision making, staff and customers. It applies to the communities we call home.
Source: TechCrunch