How Nest aims to own your smart home

Alphabet, the mama-bird parent company of Google, is hoping 2016 is the year Nest leaves the, well, you know what.

Nest, which makes thermostats, smoke detectors and security cameras that connect to the Web, has operated pretty much independently since Google bought the company in 2013. And that was before the company formerly known as Google pulled apart its various divisions to turn them into individual companies.

So while the pieces of Alphabet will begin the new year figuring out how to brand their websites or set up marketing plans, Nest can hit the ground running with its audacious but often understated mission: making the smart home a reality for you and me, and not just the muckety-mucks in Silicon Valley.

For Nest, the key to owning the smart-home market involves more than just selling you a thermostat or smoke detector (although it would very much like for you to buy those, too). Its ambition rests on making sure all your Web-connected products can communicate and interact with one another. For example, if your Nest security system senses someone lurking, it can tell your Internet-connected lights to switch on. The dream is digital, domestic nirvana.

"It's not about whiz-bang party tricks," said Greg Hu, who heads the Works With Nest program, the software initiative that wants to create inter-device harmony. Instead, it's about creating interactions that can save you money or keep you safer, he said.

How to Watch Tonight's Republican Debate Online

 Guess what, cord cutters? Your democracy has not completely abandoned you! (At least, not this week.) Some concessions have been made by the corporate media gods of old, who have taken a brief respite from wasting away in the bowels of their decaying mountain fortresses and casting aspersions upon the peasants below who think they can simply disregard decades-old media delivery paradigms.

Tonight's GOP debate on CNN will be available to watch online without a cable provider's permission.

A release from the network says "CNN will offer a live stream of the Republican Presidential Primary Debate on Tuesday, December 15, from 5PM to 11PM ET. All users will be able to watch live CNN TV on CNN.com's Home Page and on their mobile devices without logging in."

That means that anyone will be able to watch tonight's GOP showdown from a connected device regardless of their current cable company contractual status. This is the right decision. There is no good reason for public affairs programming (which will potentially affect the future of the world's largest army and economy) to be held for ransom by cable companies.

There is, however, one super terrible reason to require a pay TV login: Survival of a dying business model.

Cable companies are little more than warlords who rule over the citizens of specific ZIP codes (who may be left with limited—or even just one—ISP option). Against these companies' wishes, technology has evolved to make them less necessary as TV mediums. While cable companies should feel free to mind their bottom line, they should not be allowed to use important public affairs programming to do so. End of story.

I wish I could say that CNN's open-streaming decision was purely altruistic, but there is a somewhat more self-interested motive at play. This year's presidential debates have pulled in stratospheric ratings (not to mention record ad revenue), both of which are undoubtedly magnified when the feeds are open to the growing number of cord cutters. (The debate ratings boom probably owes less to a sudden surge in civil participation than it does to this race's inclusion of an leather-bound attention sponge, though the Dem debates have also performed very well.)

Now let us just hope that CNN does a better job of mass live-streaming than it did on its recent Democratic debate, which was plagued by a steady parade of technical hiccups.

CNN is far from the only major brand to botch a major live-streamed event, but these messes should not cast a shadow on streaming technology as a whole. There are plenty of mass live-streaming broadcasts that go off hitch-free. The technology is sound; any problems are typically a lack of preparation on the content provider's side.

Americans deserve the opportunity to judge their future wannabe leaders, regardless of whether their local ISP warlord approves or not.

Microsoft reverses course on OneDrive, restores 15GB free tier

Last month, Microsoft announced a number of unpopular changes to its cloud storage service, OneDrive: The unlimited storage plan offered to Office 365 Home, Personal, and University customers was reduced to 1TB; the 100GB and 200GB plans were eliminated, to be replaced by a 50GB plan; the free storage plan was slashed from 15GB down to 5GB; and the company declared it would no longer offer a 15GB bonus to customers who synched their camera rolls with OneDrive servers.

Customers were anything but happy about these changes, and Microsoft appears to have gotten the message, at least in part. A Microsoft spokesperson has apologized for the way the previous change was communicated, stating:

“We realize the announcement came across as blaming customers for using our product. For this, we are truly sorry and would like to apologize to the community. While we are not changing our overall plans, we’d like to clarify what we are doing for customers impacted by the changes and share a new offer which we hope will go a long way in making the situation better for our biggest fans.”

First, the 1TB limit on the old unlimited accounts will still apply, though users with more than 1TB of storage online will have a 12-month grace period to migrate it to different services or upgrade their plans. Customers not happy about this can ask for a full refund on the service. Free accounts, similarly, are still being trimmed to 5GB.

Microsoft is making two changes to its previous strategy. One, existing OneDrive customers now have the option to opt-in and keep their previous 15GB of storage + 15GB camera roll (if previously applicable). Current users can opt into this plan starting now and running until the end of January. Two, existing free users with more than 5GB of data on OneDrive will receive a free year of Office 365 Personal. Microsoft claims it will email customers about this offer early next year.

It’s interesting to note the difference between these two approaches. If you want to keep your 15GB to 30GB storage locker, you have to opt into doing so — which means the vast majority of people will never notice the offer. Microsoft is certainly aware of this. When it comes to giving away Office 365 Personal, however, the company is going to be proactive and reach out to users to tell them the offer is on the table. This offer will also come with the 1TB of online storage normally provided.

As a long-run strategy, this makes perfect sense, since getting more people to use Office 365 may mean more long-term revenue for the company. It’s telling, however, that Microsoft would rather give away a free year of a product it sells for $70 (and up to 1TB of storage) than provide free OneDrive users with an extra 10GB of data apiece.

Dogs too have a conscience: Study

Your pet dog and probably many other animals have a conscience too, according to a surprising new study that found the canines know who they are. 

The ultimate proof of possession of a consciousness of self, of one's body and one's own identity, is evaluated based on the individual's ability to use his own reflection to notice and touch the presence of a mark applied under anaesthesia or during a period of distraction on face, head or other parts of the body. 

This test is known as the "mirror test" and many have often observed experiments with children or chimpanzees that easily identify themselves into the mirror and touch repeatedly the mark left by the investigator on their body. 

The new study conducted by Roberto Cazzolla Gatti, associate professor at Tomsk State University in Russia showed that the "sniff test of self-recognition" when applied in multiple individuals living in groups and with different ages and sexes, provides significant evidences of self-awareness in dogs.

Closing Up

Republican presidential candidate Donald Trump just said the US should consider "closing up" the internet to curb radical extremism. Trump, a man that routinely claims everyone in charge of the US is stupid, believes that as president he could just call up Bill Gates to help him shut off the internet. Trump floated the idea at a campaign rally at the USS Yorktown in South Carolina tonight as a way to stop ISIS "jihadists" from recruiting Americans to commit acts of domestic terrorism. The idea is so dumb it almost has us, too, at a loss for words.

"We're losing a lot of people because of the internet," Trump said. "We have to see Bill Gates and a lot of different people that really understand what's happening. We have to talk to them about, maybe in certain areas, closing that internet up in some ways. Somebody will say, 'Oh freedom of speech, freedom of speech.' These are foolish people."

It's unclear if Trump was suggesting the US government censor certain parts of the web or if he lacks a basic understanding of how the internet works.

Spotify mulls going 'paid only' for new music releases

Music-streaming giant Spotify is toying with the idea of allowing musicians to reserve new releases for paying subscribers, although it balked at doing so for Coldplay's latest album, according to a person familiar with the matter.

Such a move might push some users of Spotify's free version to upgrade to a $10-a-month subscription. Artists and record labels have pressured Spotify to pay more for the music it streams.

A 'paid-only' window might also increase album sales if it led more music fans to purchase music rather than wait months or years for it to become available via cumbersome free options involving ads or the use of computers instead of phones or tablets. It's also possible it could tempt more people to seek out pirated music.

The person familiar with the discussions wasn't authorized to speak publicly about the matter and spoke on condition of anonymity. Spotify's deliberations were reported earlier by The Wall Street Journal.

Spotify has argued its freemium model has been a highly effective tool for gaining new paying subscribers. The company is the global leader in music streaming, with 20 million paying customers and 75 million total active users.

But artists like Taylor Swift have said the free service devalues their work. Last year, after failing to win an exception to have her music only on Spotify's paid tier, she pulled all her music from the service, instead distributing it to paid-only streaming services such as Apple Music. Similarly, Adele withheld her latest album '25' from all streaming services, which may have helped it achieve 4.5 million album sales in its first two weeks in release.

Spotify spokesman Jonathan Prince said in a statement that "we explored a wide range of promotional options for the new Coldplay album and ultimately decided, together with management, that Coldplay and its fans would best be served with the full album on both free and premium this Friday."

The album was released for sale last week.

Spotify is "100% committed to our model because we believe that a free, ad-supported tier combined with a more robust premium tier is the best way to deliver music to fans,'' Prince said.

While it publicly has taken the line that its free and paid services must have the same music to attract new users, in negotiations, Spotify has expressed a willingness to test out different ways of releasing music, according to two people familiar with such talks.

However, with few new big releases coming up this year, it's unclear when Spotify might start those tests.

Spotify's free service is unusually generous, allowing users who are willing to tolerate a few ads to select an entire album for free playback on computers, or on mobile devices so long as the tracks are shuffled out of order. Other services like internet radio giant Pandora randomize playback, making it impossible to listen to a single album all at once.

Spotify has already experimented in smaller ways with reserving music for paying customers. Earlier this year, the company didn't initially make the 10-minute track 'The Globalist' from Muse's June release 'Drones' freely available, one of the people said. That track is currently on both Spotify's free and paid tiers.

A stream from a paying subscriber earns artists and labels roughly 10 times what they'd receive from a non-paying user, one person said. Artists and labels are thus extremely interested in limiting streaming plays to paying subscribers. That option is less attractive for Spotify, which is still trying to use its free service as a hook to lure new users.

Streaming, while quite popular, still only appeals to a fraction of the listening public. Only about a third of survey respondents in more than a dozen countries had listened to a free music streaming service in the last six months, according to the 2015 Digital Music Report by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry.

There's another danger in creating a paid-only window for some artists, at least from Spotify's perspective. If the tactic catches on, it might create a rush for the exits that makes the free service less attractive to new users.

Delhi's odd-even vehicle formula will follow dates, to be implemented from 8am to 8pm

The Delhi government's odd-even formula will be implemented from January 1 to January 15 in the first phase and will follow dates.

Delhi's transport minister Gopal Rai on Tuesday announced that the odd-numbered vehicles will ply on odd dates, while the even-numbered vehicles would ply on even dates.

The rule will be enforced from 8am to 8pm only and there will be no restrictions on Sundays, the minister announced.

 

There will be a pollution check at 200 places. DPCC will collect samples to check for pollution levels after the new plan comes into force.

The Delhi government announced that it will recruit volunteers to help in sensitising citizens.

Civil defence volunteers will also be roped in, Delhi's transport minister said.

All CNG buses registered in Delhi, including private buses, school buses, of which 9,000 are available, will also be inducted. For this a meeting will be held on Wednesday.

Delhi government also announced that notices have been served to all thermal power plants in Delhi to close down within seven days.

The government will hold the next review meeting on December 10.