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Equity For Field Workers: A Leap Forward For The Sharing Economy?

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Dividends aren't just for execs anymore, as gig-economy startups find new ways to reward the people who provide the actual services.

Uber, one of the biggest transportation companies in the world, doesn't own its network of cars. Airbnb, the biggest hospitality company in the world, doesn't own the rooms where its guests stay.

These so-called "gig economy" and "sharing economy" companies provide the marketing and technology for the services they provide, but their users provide the actual services. And some founders don't think it's fair that only founders, full-fledged employees, and investors generally stand to benefit from the soaring valuations that this setup can create. So they're experimenting with models that give workers a share in the platforms through which they find jobs as freelancers or rent their homes.

One movement called urges founders to create cooperatively owned companies that operate like Uber and Airbnb. Unlike most companies, in cooperatives, every worker shares the profits (in the form of a dividend) and votes on decisions. Cooperative enterprises worldwide employ 250 million people and generate $2.2 trillion, according to the International Co-operative Alliance.

Some of these are online marketplaces: Stocksy, a cooperatively owned marketplace for stock photography launched by a founder and an early employee of iStockphoto, pays its photographers higher royalties than competing sites and this year, granted its 900 members a dividend for the first time. Loconomics, another cooperatively owned piece of the gig economy, points customers to such local service professionals as plumbers, hairstylists, and babysitters, much like what TaskRabbit does. Now, just one month after quietly launching with a handful of providers in July, Loconomics plans to charge members $30 per month to use its tools. This contrasts with competitors like TaskRabbit, which does not charge a fee, but does take a commission. As with most member co-ops, Loconomics' bylaws dictate that profits be distributed back to workers in the form of dividends.

But for the startup Josephine, which helps cooks sell food from their homes, the co-op model doesn't jibe with its concept. Co-ops by nature are governed by democracy, which Josephine COO Matt Jorgensen argues can be difficult to coordinate when you're moving fast to iterate on new products. "[The co-op model] adds a pretty extraordinary amount of overhead to the organization model," he says. Jorgensen argues that overhead is easier to manage for a company that specializes in familiar merchandise, such as stock photos, as opposed to a new concept like Josephine's homemade meals, which customers pick up from their neighbors' kitchens. "It's very different to be a marketing vehicle for a group of coffee sellers that are selling a known product on a known market than one that is trying to create new models," he says.

So Josephine has decided to give cooks the equivalent of 20% of Josephine, Inc. outstanding stock—a solution that several startups have landed on to create some value sharing without restructuring as co-ops.

The idea is that cooks who join Josephine are, like its early employees, sharing in the risk of a startup), so they should also share in the potential upside of that risk. The company will appoint a council of cooks to elect a representative to its board.

Juno, an Uber competitor that began recruiting drivers in December, similarly has reserved half of its founding shares for drivers, who earn equity based on how much they drive. Competitors Uber, Lyft, and Gett do not give drivers any equity. As of June, Juno had signed up 9,000 drivers in New York City, about 25% as many as Uber.

The office management company Managed By Q is different from most gig economy and sharing economy services in that it hires its field workers as full-time staffers rather than qualifying them as independent contractors. In March, Managed By Q announced that it would reserve 5% of its shares for workers. Employers outside of the startup world, like Proctor & Gamble and Shake Shack, have already instituted similar programs; Managed By Q demonstrated that this could work for the on-demand category.

While startups like Josephine, Juno, and Managed By Q might be more generous with their equity than most, some argue that the gesture doesn't go far enough to share value with employees. "The problem with simply sharing some of the equity is that someone is still profiting off the labor of others," says Janelle Orsi, the executive director of the Sustainable Economies Law Center. "So long as people can earn stock dividends, it maintains incentives to keep worker earnings low and to generally squeeze as much as possible out of workers. It's only a slight consolation for a company to say they are giving some workers some of it back in the form of dividends."

Jorgensen says he believes there's more than one model for shared prosperity. "We're trying to strike this hybrid where we're adopting the best from this participatory structure and a level of innovation and systems change," he says. "The best way we know how to do it is with founders making bold decisions and investors being willing to take risks with capital."


6 Steps To Finally Stop Complaining

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Are you a chronic venter? It may be holding you back. Here's how to stop spewing negativity.

While a venting session may feel good, a regular habit of complaining may be bad for you. Plus, it's a drag for others to have to listen to it.

"Our brain has a tendency to focus on the negative," says Emma Seppälä, PhD, author of The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your Success, and science director at the Center for Compassion and Altruism Research and Education at Stanford University.

As a result, we tend to focus on what is wrong, rather than noticing all the things that are right, Seppälä observes. "In fact, research shows that three times more positive things than negative things happen to us every day, yet it takes just one upsetting email to ruin everything," she says.

She says because people in the U.S. typically avoid negative emotions, being a regular complainer could be off-putting to coworkers or others. That doesn't mean you have to be a "grin and bear it" type, either, says "complaint expert" and trainer Will Bowen, author of A Complaint-Free World: How to Stop Complaining and Start Enjoying the Life You Always Wanted.

There are healthy ways to address issues and take action without slipping into regular bouts of negativity, Bowen says. Here is a six-step plan.

1. Catch Yourself

Sometimes, complaining becomes such a habit that we don't realize we're doing it, Bowen says. So, you've got to realize when you're doing it. You might find clues in others' reactions—listening to a complainer can be energy-draining, so they may show displeasure or annoyance on their faces, or in interactions.

Bowen has his clients use a simple rubber bracelet that they move from one wrist to the other when they catch themselves complaining. Attaching a physical action to the process helps them realize how often they're engaging in the behavior they want to change, he says.

2. Create Some Space

Once you notice when and how often you're complaining, create some space so you can analyze the triggers and what you're feeling, says psychologist Susan David, PhD, author of Emotional Agility: Get Unstuck, Embrace Change, and Thrive in Work and Life and cofounder of the Institute of Coaching, McLean/Harvard Medical School. Before you launch into a complaint, she suggests describing to yourself what you're thinking or feeling.

3. Be Specific

As you notice what you're feeling, hone in on the emotion so you can tell what's really upsetting you, David says. For example, if you're complaining about how annoying your manager is, being specific might help you realize that they are disorganized, which is having an impact on your ability to do your best work. While it's tough to create a plan of action to deal with someone who's "annoying," you can come up with strategies to deal with someone who's disorganized.

4. Take Action

Once you have identified the motivation behind your complaints, address them. Changing a complaining habit isn't simply positive thinking or being a pushover. Says Bowen:

I find that most complainers are doormats. In other words, they get to work and they complain about their family, and then they come home from work and they complain about work to their family. They never speak to the person who can actually improve. That's what they need to do.

Determine the outcome you wish or how to improve the situation, then work with the people who can do something about it. Of course, this is not always a perfect solution, but it will usually improve the situation more than just venting or stewing about it.

5. Establish New Habits

Whenever you try to break a habit, it's a good idea to create a supportive environment, Bowen says. Establishing physical spaces—"complaint-free zones"—where negativity isn't allowed can be useful, he suggests.

Seppälä advises being mindful of how often you use the word "but" in your language, which is often a component of complaints or negative conversation. Use your language carefully to be specific about what you mean, while looking for solutions to what's bothering you.

Photographer and model Michael Freeby actively avoids complaining. He says he goes so far as to keep two journals—one for positive experiences and thoughts, and one for negative experiences and thoughts. As he goes throughout his day, he says the journals provide a reminder about how he wants his interactions or experiences to be recorded, and tends to guide him to more positive language.

6. Practice Meditation

Meditation can have an impact on many areas of life, and complaining is no exception, Seppälä says. "Research suggests that continued practice of meditation can help you regulate your emotions," she says. "As a consequence, you become more aware of what you say, and how people respond."

If you've slipped into a habit of complaining, it may actually be a good sign, David says. It means that you still care about the situation and want to improve it. Channel those feelings to make things better instead of just ruminating about what's wrong, she says.

Related: What It's Like To Go Without Complaining For A Month

Apple's Angela Ahrendts, Maintaining Her Low Profile, Surprises At New Store Opening

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The retail executive posed for selfies before disappearing from view at Apple's new store in lower Manhattan.

Whither Angela Ahrendts?

Since departing Burberry for Apple's retail empire, the tech-savvy executive has been largely hidden from view. Instead, CEO Tim Cook does the talking.

Today was no different. Without any advance notice, Ahrendts appeared in the back of Apple's latest store, a two-story space tucked behind the Santiago Calatrava-designed ribs that define the "Oculus," a new mall and transit hub at the edge of the World Trade Center site. Unlike the store Apple unveiled in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, last month, this location keeps architectural detail to a minimum. Long, back-lit panels on the ceiling echo Calatrava's upward-stretching skeleton, but in most regards the store is a plain box outfitted with Apple gadgets and smiling staff in blue T-shirts.

For a brief quarter-hour at lunchtime, Ahrendts smiled for the cameras and took in the bustling crowds. Then, once again, she was gone.


[Photos: Celine Grouard for Fast Company]

Hackers Use Google's Ad Network To Spread "Fake Login" Malware

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So-called "overlay malware," which impersonates other apps' login screens, is becoming increasingly prevalent.

For years, security firms have warned of keystroke logging malware that surreptitiously steals usernames and passwords on desktop and laptop computers.

In the past year, a similar threat has begun to emerge on mobile devices: So-called overlay malware that impersonates login pages from popular apps and websites as users launch the apps, enticing them to enter their credentials to banking, social networking, and other services, which are then sent on to attackers.

Such malware has even found its way onto Google's AdSense network, according to a report on Monday from Moscow-based security firm Kaspersky Lab. The weapon would automatically download when users visited certain Russian news sites, without requiring users to click on the malicious advertisements. It then prompts users for administrative rights, which makes it harder for antivirus software or the user to remove it, and proceeds to steal credentials through fake login screens, and by intercepting, deleting, and sending text messages. The Kaspersky researchers call it "a gratuitous act of violence against Android users."

Overlay malware screenshots via Security Week

"By simply viewing their favorite news sites over their morning coffee users can end up downloading last-browser-update.apk, a banking Trojan detected by Kaspersky Lab solutions as Trojan-Banker.AndroidOS.Svpeng.q," according to the company. "There you are, minding your own business, reading the news and BOOM!—no additional clicks or following links required."

The issue has since been resolved, a Google spokeswoman said in an email, adding that there's no indication the attack ever affected more than one website. The company has said in the past that it works to block malware attacks from third-party ads distributed through its networks. The effort has become increasingly critical as Google and other advertising networks try to dissuade users from filtering out ads altogether with adblocking tools, which also aim to reduce ad-delivered malware and the web beacons used to track users across websites.

Researchers from Kaspersky have reported a 15.6% increase in the number of financial malware in the second quarter of 2016, compared to the previous quarter, as well as a continuing .

Beware Of Sideloading And Malvertising

The creators of such malware can charge would-be fraudsters thousands of dollars on underground hacking marketplaces for mobile malware tools that deploy such bogus login pages, often in conjunction with other features like the ability to intercept SMS messages, according to research by Limor Kessem, an executive security advisor at IBM Security.

Attackers then send phishing-style SMS messages to mobile users to encourage them to install apps containing the malware, sometimes even soliciting their phone numbers through pop-up messages on PCs in order to send a link to the malicious apps, she tells Fast Company.

"It's usually some sort of social engineering that would get them to install this application," Kessem said, though users should also be concerned about the rise in ad-distributed malware, sometimes called malvertising.

"Due to the popularity of malvertising and the ability of cybercriminals to exploit ad networks even on very well known websites... this vector is increasingly potent," she said. "Security professionals often recommend disabling/blocking ads to reduce the risk of drive-by infections."

When a phishing link is sent via text, it might be a bogus notification about a package delivery that needs to be tracked through a specialized app, an invitation to participate in an app-based poll, or anything else attackers can think up, said Jimmy Su, director of threat research at security firm FireEye. And if the phishing messages are effective enough, the malware can more than pay for itself.

One malware maker recently raised prices from $5,000 to $15,000, not including monthly service fees, after adding new features, according to Kessem.

"The initial version of this from last November was distributed on a Russian hacking forum, and they were advertising a service where they would charge a certain amount of money per month to provide this command-and-control [server] where they would store the logins and the passwords, and also the customization of the application," said Su. "Then we can see that these kind of logins and passwords can be purchased on the black market, and that's how the cycle of the economics works."

Screenshot of Svpeng trojan, via Kaspersky Labs

Generally, attackers have targeted phones running Google's Android operating system, which has a larger user count than Apple's iOS platform and makes it easier to install apps from outside the official marketplace—a practice often called sideloading.

"We've seen some malware on Google Play and on iTunes," said Domingo Guerra, cofounder and president of mobile security company Appthority. "However, for the most part, Apple and Google do a good part of removing it from the app stores."

So far, overlay malware has mostly targeted users in Europe and Russia, but there's no reason to think it won't become more prevalent in other markets, including the U.S., Su said.

"Both the localization and category of apps are going to expand," he said. "We already see localizations for particular countries and it will be customized for that particular language."

How To Stay Safe

For the most part, experts say, the best ways to stay safe from mobile malware and phishing attacks are similar to techniques users are hopefully already using to keep their PCs safe from hackers. Those include keeping operating systems up to date as much as possible, removing unused apps that could house vulnerabilities, and being wary of any kinds of unsolicited links or downloads.

"The same rules of hygiene and security hygiene apply in the PC and the mobile device," said Kessem.

Users should be particularly wary of any invitations to install apps from outside of official app stores, said Guerra. "Every legitimate app is going to be on Google Play or on iTunes," he said.

The trouble is, users not accustomed to smartphone malware may be at risk for infection until it sinks in that mobile devices are ultimately just as much a target for attackers as laptop and desktop computers, he warns.

"I unfortunately think it's going to get worse," he said. "As users, we're not thinking of these as computers, so we kind of trust it more than we should."

The Second Act Of The World's Most Controversial Car Designer

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Chris Bangle was the most infamous car designer during his 17-year tenure at BMW. Now, he's drawing cartoons in the Italian countryside.

Over the 17 years that Chris Bangle served as head of design at BMW, he became in equal measure one of the most famous and one of the most loathed designers working in the industry. Bangle drastically departed from the design language that BMW had become known for in the 50 years prior, and made enemies of purist BMW fans in the process—though many would later admit that the designs aged well. In 2009, he left the car giant and started up his own design consultancy firm.

Chris Bangle & Associates is headquartered in Clavesana, a small town in the Piedmont region of the Italian countryside. Bangle runs it with his wife, Catherine, and employs two secretaries as his only full-time employees. Otherwise, he hires a cadre of mostly local freelance designers to work on various projects, and taps into his network of designers and friends in a variety of disciplines to help on a case-by-case basis. For a recent project working on the design of a nursing home in Japan, for example, he pulled in a local Italian architect as well as a Japanese colleague who has been designing cars for 30 years. Together, they reimagined the common spaces in the home to be more interactive, adding in design elements like a pole topped with a sports car steering wheel that residents can hold on to while waiting for the elevator.

When Bangle moved from Fiat to run design at BMW in 1992, he was brought on to reimagine the company's design philosophy completely—and that's exactly what he did as his detractors will all too gleefully tell you. He was criticized harshly by car fans for taking BMW's sleek lines and tasteful design and replacing them with complicated, seemingly nonsensical, often boxy shapes. These were designs that hadn't been seen in car design before. (As he told David Kiley at Bloomberg, "We aren't copying anyone else's design language, not even our own, and I think that makes some people uncomfortable.") In founding his own firm, Bangle says, he wanted to do that for a variety of companies, working in areas as diverse as consumer electronics to packaging to environmental graphics to, yes, even car design.

"I wanted to found a design company of associates for the reason that I believe in co-innovating, with everyone from clients to engineers, marketing and end users," he says. "The clients we have are still classic design clients. But they are clients that want more than just product design, they want their own company to embrace design and grow along the way."

As a design consultancy, there aren't many projects Bangle can talk about in specific terms. According to the firm's website, it has consulted on projects for companies as high-profile and varied as Adidas, Mattel, and Samsung (to rumors that he plays a big design role for the latter, he's only said he's one of several people outside the company helping create product experiences for Samsung's customers). He mentions designing for an assisted living facility in Japan, and packaging for an alcohol company as well as a huge environmental graphics project, but otherwise remains relatively tight-lipped.

The other side of the firm speaks to Bangle's more eccentric side: He and his wife's long-time interest in art has culminated in various projects such as Arky Arch, a cartoon that follows the wacky adventures of an anthropomorphic Triumphal Arch. There's also the Big Bench Community Project—literally a series of giant benches in a park near the studio that dwarf sitters, much to the delight of tourists. These projects at times come out of client projects or serve as inspiration for the team in between work, and are under the purview of one of the dedicated secretaries.

As for client work, Bangle says that right now nearly his entire team of freelancers are busy working on one large project that involves the development of an electric car, the first car project in a while that he's felt truly excited about. Although it is still too early to know if the car will be an autonomous vehicle, Bangle says he's not currently involved in the race to build self-driving cars. But he is keeping an eye on it.

The autonomous car industry has stalled, Bangle says, because people are waiting to see what it becomes before it can move forward. Driverless functionality and ride-sharing, "dramatically changes the meaning of a car," he says. "We'll have to decide, what is [a car] to me? Something I make money on?" Tesla, he says, is doing the best work in this space ("You have to give props for their gung-ho approach"), but until it and other companies designing autonomous vehicles fully decide on the answer, there won't be any significant movement forward.

Bangle, always a firm believer that people a buy car because they are emotionally engaged with it, says that the design of autonomous vehicles still leaves a lot to be desired. "People have a right to be critics," of the current crop of driverless cars, he says. The jury is still out on whether autonomous cars will still require the driver to be paying attention, for instance, and the aesthetics of Google's self-driving car have been criticized for being unsophisticated. "I don't think it's moving forward as quickly as it could. The entire industry is holding its breath to see how this new paradigm will function."

Bangle has always been a bit of an evangelist about the emotional quality of objects (in fact, he tells a story about the origins of this design philosophy, which involve his mother attributing feelings to the dinner dishes, on the first episode of Arky Arch). It's an approach to car design that has made his designs for BMW both reviled by traditionalists and, eventually, an inspiration for other companies. It's also a design philosophy he applies to whatever he is designing or consulting on. "To me, it's all car design," Bangle says. "The way I describe car design, and transmitting emotion into the design process—it's all the same type of thing. I never left that side of car design. What I did leave is having a team of 500 people responding to you and that's been a big change."

True to style, it's even something he's imbued in his Triumphal Arch cartoon. "In a sense, [Arky Arch] is an enterprise I personally consider car design," he says. "The idea of using things in our life and giving personality and character without adding hands or eyeballs or feet. That's what car designers should be promoting as a skill set."

[All Photos: courtesy Chris Bangle & Associates]

The Quickest Way To Stifle American Entrepreneurship? Keep Out Immigrants

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Politicians talk about limiting immigration at the nation's peril.

Immigrants have a long history of starting successful businesses in the U.S.; more than 40% of Fortune 500 companies were founded by immigrants or their children. Yet despite this, we've been hearing a lot of talk about building walls and completely shutting some people out.

I've always believed that the best entrepreneurs are born and not made. And I've spent enough time around them to know.

Even though they wouldn't describe themselves in these terms, I was raised by two of the bravest, hardest-working entrepreneurs I know. My parents, who emigrated from the Dominican Republic, did everything from driving taxis and selling furniture door-to-door to running a makeshift food truck to make a better life for me and my siblings.

And I'm an entrepreneur myself. I sold my first company, an on-demand laundry startup, by the age of 21. Since then I've gone on to invest in real estate technology and found Cofound Harlem, a startup accelerator.

Rex_Wholster/iStock

Immigrants make up about 13% of the U.S. population—and yet immigrants, or their children, make up a disproportionately large percentage of entrepreneurs in the country: almost 30% of new entrepreneurs every year.

This includes some of the greatest entrepreneurs of our time. Google founder Sergey Brin was born in Russia. eBay was the brainchild of Pierre Omidyar, born in France to Iranian parents. And it's easy to forget that Steve Jobs's biological father hailed from Syria.

What is it about the immigrant experience that makes all of the above true, and are there lessons in there that any entrepreneur can learn from? On a recent episode of Open For Business, our eBay-sponsored podcast about building businesses from the ground up, we sought to better understand the nuances of this phenomenon. I spoke with immigrant entrepreneurs who are running high-tech firms and former Wall Street execs who left to start Main Street businesses.

Chinedu Echeruo, founder of HopStop

One person I interviewed, Chinedu Echeruo, emigrated from Nigeria and went on to found HopStop, the transportation app acquired by Apple in 2013. Echeruo was 16 when he emigrated to the U.S.; in Nigeria, he did everything from selling rabbits to re-inking used pens and reselling them to his classmates for extra money. Growing up in an environment that wasn't particularly abundant forced him to be resourceful, get creative, and spot opportunities where others saw problems. This mind-set stuck with him and eventually yielded HopStop, which exited to Apple for a rumored $1 billion a few years ago.

What did I learn? Among other key lessons: That being an outsider can be a huge advantage. Whether you're an outsider to this country, or maybe you're diving into a totally new industry, being an outsider can give you a perspective that others simply don't have. You may question the status quo and identify opportunities that others just don't see.

When you look at the data, the research speaks for itself. The Kauffman Foundation found that immigrants are nearly twice as likely to start new businesses, compared to native-born residents.

With over 560,000 workers employed by immigrant-owned engineering and tech firms, the private sector (and the entrepreneurial heart of it in particular) is the legitimate, ethical, economic engine of the 21st century. And despite the rhetoric we're hearing on the subject from the Trump campaign and others, the continued success of immigrants in the U.S. proves we are a stronger society because of inclusion, not exclusion.

John Henry is an entrepreneur and chairman of the startup incubator Cofound Harlem. He is the host of the podcastOpen For Business.

Have something to say about this article? You can email us and let us know. If it's interesting and thoughtful, we may publish your response.

This post was correct on August 16 to reflect that HopStop was acquired in 2013, not 2014.

Why Apple HomeKit Seems Boring Right Now

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The rollout of the company's smart home framework has been decidedly low-key. There's a very good reason for that.

HomeKit could become the quintessential product of Tim Cook's Apple, but right now it's kind of dull.

Apple has yet to tell much of a story around HomeKit since announcing the smart home framework in mid-2014, and there was little fanfare when the first HomeKit-enabled devices, such as the Ecobee3 thermostat and iHome iSP5 SmartPlug, rolled out last year. At Apple's WWDC conference in June, the big news around HomeKit was that the company would release a remote control app for smart door locks, lighting, and thermostats, similar to third-party apps that are already available. This is not the type of dramatic product launch for which Steve Jobs was famous.

But maybe it doesn't have to be. Apple is becoming a different kind of company now, one with a burgeoning interest in ever-evolving services. While the persistent iteration that led to the iPhone and other breakthroughs is still present, it's no longer happening behind the scenes. Ambitious connected services like HomeKit, Apple Pay, and HealthKit all involve lots of partners operating at scale, which means they must develop out in the open.

These services have the potential to evolve into lucrative businesses for Apple. But in the meantime, the process is going to seem a bit bland.

Faith In The Track Record

I spoke to several smart home device makers for this story, and all of them seem satisfied to be working with Apple on HomeKit. At the same time, they're short on examples of how HomeKit will push smart home adoption into the mainstream. Most acknowledge that while smart home devices are a growing business, they're still the domain of either tech enthusiasts or home fixer-uppers.

"So far, nobody has crossed into the masses yet," says Matt Swatsky, director of product management for smart dimmer maker Lutron. "Apple has historically figured out how to take products and get them to the masses ... They haven't done it yet."

Lutron

So what drew device makers to HomeKit in the first place? Mostly a belief that Apple's success in this area is inevitable.

"Clearly, the ability to work with a leader like Apple, you have to assume that those in the Apple ecosphere are very passionate about their products and devices," says Gary Schultz, who heads product development for iHome's SmartHome line. "It just makes sense that Apple and HomeKit are going to be leading platforms for the future smart home as it evolves, so it was a win-win."

A similar line emerged from Schlage, whose smart door locks were among the first HomeKit devices. The main attraction was Apple's demonstrated knack for intuitive products, says Rob Martens, Schlage's futurist and director of connectivity platforms.

"You could name any number of experiences they've provided, even buying an iPhone ... that end-to-end experience that they've provided gives what I would call adult businesses, adult manufacturers such as ourselves, a lot of confidence that they're going to do it properly," Martens says, referring to Schlage's decades of experience in the lock-making trade.

Of course, it helps that Apple sells a lot of iPhones. Because the its hardware is so prevalent, the company can start assembling a smart home platform even without an anchor product, akin to Amazon's Echo speaker or Google's OnHub router.

"They have a different approach than others. Starting with a device that a lot of people have is not a bad way to get people interested in that connected home experience. There's not really an up-front purchase to get started," Lutron's Matt Swatsky says.

That's not to say smart home makers aren't at all interested in HomeKit's unique traits. Schlage's Martens praised Apple's work on creating a secure platform—device makers must include a custom chip for secure communications among devices—and the company's steps to minimize data collection.

"They have put some stakes in the ground in terms of what they believe are the right things to do and the wrong things to do, and we believe consumers are paying attention and are very interested," Martens says.

More broadly, the HomeKit framework is easy for device makers to work with in terms of talking to other devices in the home and helping users get set up, says Stuart Lombard, CEO of smart thermostat maker Ecobee.

Ecobee

"I think Apple has done a really good job of enabling people like us to create services on top of that platform. They'll deliver services, we'll deliver services, and in the end consumers will win."

If there's a common thread here, it's that Apple is doing a lot of thankless work around HomeKit right now, from rallying device makers to building a system around privacy and security. But with products like the iPhone and iPad, this work happened quietly in Cupertino, long before Steve Jobs brought the end result on stage. Now we're witnessing the construction in real time.

Where HomeKit Goes From Here

So here's the challenge for Apple: How does HomeKit get from a bare-bones product that appeals to a tiny (but growing) fraction of its customer base to something that's part of every iPhone owner's home? In other words, how does it stop being boring?

One argument goes that such a transformation won't be necessary, and that HomeKit will grow gradually as people replace failing dumb appliances with brand-new smart ones.

"As you go to homes, you see people talking to their homes, you see things in the home responding," iHome's Gary Schultz says. "Word of mouth begets any technology, and really, we're only 12 months into this journey."

Ecobee's Stuart Lombard says adoption is already moving from early followers to mainstream users, noting that 40% of new thermostat purchases are Wi-Fi-connected models. Smart homes aren't just the domain of wealthy people anymore; Ecobee customers have a median household income of $75,000, Lombard says, and more of those customers connect to HomeKit than to any other platform.

"It is not a rich and famous kind of product," Lombard says.

Still, smart home makers expect Apple to do more over time to push HomeKit forward. The upcoming Home app is the first step, allowing users to control appliances and set up automation routines from one place, and device makers are banking on Apple making that app more intelligent.

Home App

Lombard, for instance, envisions a system that automatically recognizes when you're on vacation, and rotates through lighting to look like someone's still home. It's worth noting that Nest has offered these kinds of advanced home and away automations for a couple years now, but Apple is building a broader framework that works with entire device categories instead of specific partners.

"Those types of use cases, where you solve customer pain points and make it easy for them, those are ones that work really, really well."

Schlage's Rob Martens also hopes HomeKit will learn to recognize when not to trigger certain actions. For example, if a motion sensor is set up to turn on the lights and play NPR on the speakers when the user gets home from work, that action should get bypassed if someone else is home already.

"It's definitely not a play for just the 'good night Siri' thing, in terms of making sure the door is locked, making sure the temperature is where I want it, et cetera," Martens says. "There's a heightened level of integration."

But as Martens notes, designing that system requires deep understanding of what each device can do. If a smart lock can tell the difference between someone knocking on the door and trying to kick it in, for instance, HomeKit should know how to communicate that.

"Building your solutions off of an incredibly solid foundation allows you to innovate at a much faster pace later," he says.

Those who are following the process of building up that foundation via HomeKit may find it dull, but that's how innovation tends to work.

Would Apple's partners like to see the company's marketing muscle kick in sooner? Perhaps, but they also realize that's not going to happen until the product feels complete. Only then can Apple perform its usual routine, and explain why HomeKit is something people didn't realize they needed.

"Before they put their weight behind it," Lombard says, "they really want to make sure they've got it right."

Read more stories from inside Tim Cook's Apple:

With Its Project Alloy Headset, Intel Wants To Usher In The Era Of "Merged Reality"

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The chip giant's CEO discusses its headset, plans to digitize sports arenas, and other news from IDF.

There was a time when you attended the keynote at the Intel Developer Forum conference in San Francisco to learn about what was new in the world of PCs.

These days, as the gravitational pull of the technology industry no longer involves everything rotating around PCs, IDF keynotes also serve a different purpose: They tell us how Intel is reengineering itself to succeed in an era when making most of the world's PC processors is a huge business, but no longer an engine of growth.

At this year's IDF San Francisco keynote, which Intel CEO Brian Krzanich hosted on Tuesday morning, you can pretty much predict one of the big topics: virtual reality. The company announced a headset platform called Project Alloy, and explained "merged reality," a term it has coined to describe the experience that Alloy is capable of creating.

Despite being from Intel, Alloy—unlike the Oculus Rift and HTC Vive—is distinguished in part by the fact that it doesn't rely on a PC for processing power. Instead, it's self-contained, with everything required to create the experience built into the goggles themselves.

"For 90% of what people do with VR, it's perfect, and it's untethered," Krzanich told me when I got a sneak peek at Intel's keynote plans from him. (High-end gamers might want something a bit more computationally powerful he says, and there may be a PC-tethered variant of Alloy at some point.)

Alloy is an open-source platform that any company can use as the foundation for a VR device; Intel will also work with some specific manufacturers to build headsets based upon it. It will run Windows Holographic, the AR/VR-enabled version of Windows that Microsoft recently said would be available for hardware beyond its own HoloLens. Intel expects products based upon it to be available next summer.

Keepin' It Real

Besides not requiring a PC, Alloy is designed to do away with the sensors that some VR platforms use to figure out where you're standing in the virtual world, and the handheld controllers they offer to let you use your hands to manipulate objects. Instead, Alloy leverages Intel technologies known as RealSense to let it figure out where you are and what you're doing with your hands, no additional hardware required.

RealSense started out as a suite of products designed to give PCs new forms of input, such as the Minority Report-esque ability to turn the pages of an on-screen book by swiping your finger through the air. "The keyboard and mouse have been around for decades now and hadn't really progressed," Krzanich says. "We started to talk about how else you could interact with your computer."

It turned out that PC users are pretty happy with their keyboards and mice. As a PC-based technology, "it's not clear RealSense will ever take off," Krzanich admits. But the technologies that Intel had been working on also had applications in VR, where positioning people, their hands, and even individual fingers in 3D space is a big part of making VR feel real.

Along with letting Alloy figure out where you are and what you're doing, RealSense allows the headset to identify objects in a room, such as a table—either to bring them into the VR experience or help you avoid crashing into them. You'll also be able to manipulate physical objects such as your own real-world tennis racket inside a virtual world. (Alloy could even depict your particular racket inside VR.) It's this experience—VR, with a sophisticated understanding of your real-world surroundings and the objects in it—that Intel calls merged reality.

(Merged reality is not exactly the same thing as mixed reality, the phrase Microsoft uses to describe the experience of using HoloLens—and I'm curious whether actual consumers will pick up on either of these terms.)

Digitizing Reality

At IDF, Intel also shared an update on its efforts to help organizations such as sports arenas capture real-world action in real time so it can be turned into a 3D replica and explored from any angle. The process, developed by an Israeli company named Replay Technologies that Intel acquired in March, records a scene with ultra-high-definition cameras, then turns the raw video over to a really, really powerful Intel-based computing system to crunch the footage and re-create it as a 3D space that can be rendered like a video game. "It takes a massive amount of compute power to do that—200GB per minute," Krzanich says, "It's a big compute program, and perfectly suited for Intel."

The NBA used the technology during the play-offs for 360-degree replays, but sports are just the beginning. "We're finding the applications for this are quite large when you fully digitize the real world and allow yourself to manipulate and work within it," Krzanich says. A mystery movie shot for VR, for instance, might "position the murder scene from different angles depending on who you are—including the victim."

In order to work more closely on the Replay technology with the entertainment industry, Intel will be opening a studio and lab in Los Angeles.

Machine Vision To Go

Beyond VR, Intel announcing a gizmo called Euclid at IDF. It will pack the computing power and sensors required for machine vision into a package that Krzanich says is about the size of a Snickers bar. Engineers can use it to easily add computer-based sight to their projects. "If you wanted to build a go-kart and make it self-driving, you could do that," he says. "It's a progression of the belief that when you add computer vision to devices, it really enhances their capabilities."

I ended my chat with Krzanich by asking him whether the fact that Intel hasn't dominated the smartphone era like it did the PC one has had any influence on its thinking about how to tackle VR and other technologies that make up the next wave. (Almost all current phones use processors based on technology created by ARM, a British firm.) He told me that one big lesson was that Intel needs to work with everyone else in the business on cross-industry standards rather than aiming to establish its own independent vision.

"We're trying to make sure we're part of the bigger ecosystem, with things like 5G [wireless networking] he says. "In areas that are emerging, we're making sure we're there at the beginning, and being innovative, too."


Set Sail As A High-Seas Solopreneur

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Does the current U.S. election cycle have you eyeing your options abroad? Here's how to be your own boss on the open ocean.

Righteously vowing to leave the country is now an established custom in election-year America. This year, some of that repining has taken on a more serious tone than usual. Whatever your own political hopes, expectations, or sweat-drenched nightmares, it's worth remembering that plenty of Americans live and work abroad already, for loads of reasons.

Most expat entrepreneurs settle down in a foreign city, while others take a nomadic approach, building their businesses from the road; still others leave behind the urban rat race to live and work from a beachside paradise. Those all come with their own challenges.

It's another thing entirely to board a boat and hit the open ocean, living a landless existence while still earning a living. But if you're really looking to get away from it all, becoming a full-time, seafaring knowledge worker isn't as outlandish as you might think. Here's why—and what it'll take to keep yourself afloat.

Why Ship Out?

Mario Salcedo has been living and working aboard cruise ships for the past 20 years, but not as a paid crew member. He works for himself as an independent financial consultant, hopping from one ship to the next and taking his business with him.

When Salcedo embarked on this lifestyle in 1996, he says his objective was twofold: "Transition to self-employment, and at the same time begin to undertake my lifelong dream of traveling all over the world." So at 47, he gathered the contacts he'd made and went into business for himself. He started by taking a few trial cruises to see whether he liked being shipbound and could still work productively that way. Soon enough, he got into the swing of things, settling on Royal Caribbean as his cruise line of choice.

Today Salcedo is a familiar face to crew members who often tape a sign to his workspace that says "Super Mario's Office." Explaining his routine to Condé Nast Traveler earlier this year, Salcedo says he plans ahead to control living expenses and keep things consistent. He books interior staterooms (they're cheaper than outside-facing cabins) two years in advance, allowing him to stay aboard the same ship for multiple voyages. He uses Royal Caribbean's loyalty program to pay a lower surcharge for single-occupancy rooms. Salcedo also keeps a condo in South Florida, but he touches dry land only around 15–20 days a year.

Mario Salcedo[Photo: courtesy of Royal Caribbean International]

For Salcedo, as for many "solopreneurs," the choice to become his own boss and live outside the U.S. was lifestyle-driven. "I continue to practice my profession but mix it with lots of free quality time," he tells Fast Company, "sort of like a permanent working vacation."

Jeanna Barrett, who left a 12-year career in San Francisco in order to work as an independent marketing strategist in Belize, likewise says that one of the biggest perks—and, initially, sources of anxiety—was how much less she needed to work in order to support herself. "When your costs of living come down dramatically," she writes for Fast Company, "it's easy to keep your daily workload pretty short and still earn enough income to support yourself comfortably."

Salcedo has trimmed his client base to just 10 high-value clients and works no more than five hours a day, from a small table he sets up on the pool deck. Barrett works from the beach and goes swimming at lunchtime.

Letting cruise ships tote you around the world isn't the same as captaining your own vessel, of course, and it goes without saying that you should know how to sail if you prefer a more solo experience. But if you're sold on the benefits and nautically qualified to take advantage of them, these are some of the practical steps you'll need to take next.

Pick A Flag, File The Paperwork, And Hang Onto Your Passport

For some people, the appeal of living at sea is political. "Seasteaders" like Peter Thiel, Donald Trump's highest-profile backer in Silicon Valley, propose building offshore, libertarian utopias free from the reach of government. For others, the reasons are more pragmatic. "I had a client once who was hiding out from the PLO [Palestinian Liberation Organization] because he had been threatened with assassination," says John Kimball, chair of Blank Rome LLP's maritime practice group. He also mentions the illegal commodities trader Marc Rich, later pardoned by President Bill Clinton, and the securities fraudster Robert Vesco, who some say faked his own death in Havana in 2007 and escaped to Sierra Leone—both of whom dodged prosecution in part by sailing in international waters.

If you aren't trying to make a political point, escape violence, or evade arrest, there are still a few decisions to make. First, says Kimball, you probably shouldn't renounce your citizenship—a notion that sometimes occurs to people who are keen on shirking dry land for good. That'll make pretty much all ports, medical help, political asylum, and fresh milk for your floating fridge a lot harder to gain access to.

Second, you'll need to pick a flag to sail under. Like being a stateless person, stateless ships create "all sorts of international-law problems," Kimball explains. However, plenty of vessels fly "flags of convenience," where you can have a state that's at least recognized, but imposes very minimal obligations for taxes and safety requirements, he explains. According to Kimball, the Republic of the Marshall Islands, Panama, Liberia, and Nigeria are popular options for those reasons. But he's quick to caution that none "could ever really come to your aid if you were in trouble because they don't have the resources."

In the U.S., the Coast Guard is in charge of vessel documentation, which Kimball says is pretty straightforward (although third-party companies like this one can help you navigate it for a fee). The cost of registering your boat starts at just $133 for the initial certification, but expenses can mount considerably from there depending on the vessel's size and the type of activity it's used for.

Finally, like Salcedo, you may not want to sell or stop renting property on land since you'll need a bank account in order to run your business, and that usually requires a permanent address. Then again, adds Kimball, "I do know people who have lived on boats in the Hudson River, for example." Otherwise, he says, since the U.S. charges income tax on expats regardless of their location, being your own boss at sea isn't much different than reporting to one in Vancouver.

Get Connected—And Used To Some Digital Hiccups

According to U.S. Navy Commander (Ret.) and Pace University professor Andrew Coggins, staying connected on the open ocean is easier, thanks to the airline and cruise industries. Over the past 10–15 years, they've successfully lobbied the government to open up more satellite bandwidth to the commercial sector in order to offer passengers phone connectivity and Wi-Fi.

Telecom companies that provide maritime services like Inmarsat, ViaSat, and others, sell data and voice packages for leisure craft and commercial vessels. Just as you do at home, that requires installing hardware provided by the carrier, then paying for a data plan, either at a metered rate or in flat installments.

Outside the U.S., Internet connections are generally less reliable—Barrett notes that there are some periods in Belize when her Internet just flakes out for a while—so you should probably be prepared for that to happen at sea, too. On cruise ships, the blog CruiseCritic points outs, connections still don't quite match those on land, so "there will always be some level of unreliability, especially the farther out to sea you sail."

And while the positions of the satellites that your onboard tech communicates with can make a big difference, Coggins adds that you're more likely to be within range if you chart a course within the sea lanes where most commercial vessels sail. CruiseCritic notes that the higher concentration of low-orbiting satellites over the Caribbean, meant to service cruise-goers, can make signals stronger there.

But Salcedo says the strength of your Internet connection may not be your biggest worry: "Health is number one." Even on a fully staffed cruise ship, the onboard medical facility can't cope with major health issues. If you're fending for yourself or sailing with just a small crew, the risks of a health crisis you can't attend to go way up.

Otherwise, says, Salcedo, "you have to have an extreme passion, addiction, obsession to be sailing on the ocean, with your living space smaller than what you would find on land. For the rest of your life."

Going Beyond Pitchers, Soma Launches A Water Bottle

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Soma—the more beautiful, sustainable alternative to Brita—goes beyond the pitcher with this new water bottle.

Ten years ago, when I was in college, plastic Nalgene bottles were all the rage. If you were headed to class or the gym and needed hydration on the go, one of the few options in the college bookstore were those blue or pink utilitarian bottles made by a company known for making lab equipment.

These days, however, the water bottle market has exploded. The annual sale of reusable beverage containers is more than $1.5 billion in the U.S. and the industry is only growing.

The market is very fragmented, with a wide range of different brands in play. You can find bottles made from every material imaginable and at a wide array of price points. Swell made a splash with elegant stainless steel bottles with funky patterns on them. LifeFactory makes glass bottles with silicone sleeves. For a simple plastic bottle, there's CamelBak or trusty Nalgene.

Soma, a brand known for creating beautiful water filter pitchers, is adding its name to this list with a glass water bottle that launches today.

Mike Del Ponte, Soma's founder and CEO, believes that the boom in water bottles has happened for two reasons. First, Americans have been more interested than ever in health and wellness, and a crucial part of that equation is hydration. Second, as part of the athleisure trend, a hip water bottle has become part of the current sporty look. "We're dressing like we just came from a yoga class, whether or not we're actually coming from a yoga class," Del Ponte says. "The water bottle has become a fashion accessory."

While the water bottle market is crowded, demand for water bottles does not appear to be slowing down. In fact, many people buy many water bottles for different activities or to match different outfits. You might have a heavy glass water bottle for the office and a lighter stainless steel one to throw in your bag. As Del Ponte studied the market, he believed there was room for another player, one focused on sustainability and minimalistic aesthetics.

The Soma design team mulled over every aspect of the design. They chose to make the bottle out of a lightweight glass because other materials, such as metal or plastic, can affect the flavor of the water. The cap is made from sustainable bamboo and carries some of the design elements from the brand's pitchers, which have wood handles. And the shape of the mouth was carefully constructed to make the drinking experience as pleasant as possible.

The silicon sleeves come in four colors: gray, white, eggplant, and teal. "While the pitchers are meant to stay in the kitchen, where the most common color is white, the colors of these bottles are meant to reflect the vibrancy of an active lifestyle," Del Ponte explains. "We'll be releasing more colors over time."

At $30, these 17 ounce bottles sit at the more premium end of the market, alongside Swell. They will be sold on the Soma website and at select retailers such as top yoga studios.

Although Soma has been known for its water pitchers, Del Ponte has been keen to build his brand around the idea of hydration, rather than a specific product. He wants the company to elevate every aspect of the water drinking experience with better design, sustainable materials, and an emphasis on giving back. (The company donates a portion of its profits to Charity Water.) In the upcoming months and years, Del Ponte says that the company will continue to design other products related to hydration.

Female CEOs Are More Likely To Be Targeted By Shareholder Activism

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Activist investors often try to unseat female CEOS, despite research that proves they typically outperform their male counterparts.

The gender gap in American C-suites has always made it difficult for women to reach the top spot in their firm, but new research suggests that they continue to face discrimination from shareholders even after they've taken the helm.

A recent study from the W. P. Carey School of Business at Arizona State University has determined that gender plays the biggest role when predicting whether a CEO will be the subject of shareholder activism.

Christine Shropshire, an associate professor of management at Arizona State, examined shareholder proposals at Fortune 1000 companies between 2003 and 2013. In her study she found that the rate of shareholder activism—a term given when shareholders try to take control of a company from the CEO—remained consistent across industries, company sizes, and levels of performance.

"Controlling for other reasons investors target certain firms, our models show that gender alone explains significant activism specifically toward female CEOs," Shropshire said in a statement. "All else held equal, female CEOs have a 27% likelihood of facing activism, while their male counterparts have a near zero predicted likelihood of being targeted," she said.

Only 5.1% of Fortune 1000 and 4% of Standard and Poor's 500 companies are led by female CEOs, and women represent just 3% of new CEOs in the United States. Research indicates that women are also more likely to be forced out of their own companies as opposed to leaving after a planned succession or merger, with 38% getting the boot compared with 27% of men.

Shropshire theorizes that female CEOs are subjected to more shareholder activism than their male counterparts because they are perceived as weaker, and thus easier to push around.

"There have been several previous studies that find a negative market reaction to the appointment of a female CEO. At the time the female CEO is announced, the stock price drops," wrote Shropshire. "Those effects aren't just to the firm that is announcing its female CEO. There are negative spill-over market effects for other female-led firms at the same time."

The Female CEO Paradox

These market effects are paradoxical, however, given that research has demonstrated how companies with women in the C-suite deliver 34% greater returns to shareholders. And while they only represent 5% of Fortune 1000 companies, female CEOs generate 7% of the list's total revenue.

There is another major advantage female CEOs bring to their shareholders, and while less tangible and quantifiable, Shropshire specifically noted its importance in her study.

A Disproportionate Amount of Attention

"Historically, female CEOs garner far more media attention than their male counterparts and not for corporate performance and policy decisions alone," Shropshire writes in her paper. "For example, as Silicon Valley's most prominent woman in a male-dominated profession, Yahoo CEO Marissa Mayer's appearance, pregnancy and parenting are frequently discussed—yet these topics rarely surface for male CEOs."

But while gender labeling in press materials leads to more coverage, it also increases the likelihood of that female CEO facing shareholder activism by another 31%. The persistent mention of a female CEO's name in media coverage, the study found, leads to a more than 96% probability that her company will be targeted by activism.

As Shropshire pointed out:

"Especially with new CEOs, investors face asymmetric information and challenges in how to evaluate them, and that makes shareholder activists more likely to respond based on stereotypes and status threats. Press releases, analyst ratings, and media coverage fill in those information gaps. If mindful of the language they use, firm communications can help offset the increased activism we find at the female-led firms."

Apple Is Doomed And 7 Other Myths About The Company

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Yes, Apple under Tim Cook is different from the Apple of Steve Jobs. But one thing's the same: rampant misconceptions about the brand.

Why do we talk about Apple so much? Why do we love it or hate it, or sometimes both?

It might be because Apple is the most valuable tech company (and brand) in the world. It might be because its products are aspirational; that is, we believe some kind of status is conferred upon us when we carry one of the pretty things around. I'd argue that it's also largely because of the Apple story, and it is a good one:

Started in a garage by enigmatic visionary. Company rides the first wave of the personal computer to "household name" status. But the wave flattens, and then Hard Times. Enigmatic visionary is sent away, into exile. Company nearly dies. Brilliant founder returns, pulls company from ashes. Iconic new products happen. Superstardom. Then brilliant founder dies, and a mild-mannered chief operating officer takes over.

The Apple story itself has a mythic quality. So maybe it shouldn't surprise us that myths are constantly floating around about the company. Here are the big ones and an explanation of how they depart from reality.

Apple Is Doomed Without Jobs's Vision

Apple may be well into a new stage of its history, and it's certainly not doomed. What people usually mean when they say "Apple is doomed" is that the company no longer has the ability to conceive of and produce highly innovative, market-disrupting products like the iPod, iPhone, and iPad.

It's way too early to claim that. When I ask my friends who work for Apple if the company still has the "vision thing," they get this knowing little grin on their faces and then laugh a little. We'll be learning a lot more about Apple's "vision" next year when more information becomes available about its "Project Titan" car project and about its future efforts in virtual reality.

Apple's financials don't look like those of a doomed company. Even as iPhone sales have stagnated over the past year (largely because of slowing smartphone replacement rates and market saturation), the company routinely records revenues that dwarf those of other tech giants. In the June quarter, Apple pulled in $42.4 billion, Alphabet $21.5 billion, Microsoft $20.6 billion, and Facebook $6.4 billion.

Tim Cook Lacks The Right Stuff

People often suggest that Apple CEO Tim Cook lacks that mysterious Jobsian quality that will take Apple to the next level of innovation, relevancy, wealth, etc.

In his recent Fast Company feature "Playing The Long Game Inside Tim Cook's Apple," Rick Tetzeli points out that in the five years under Cook, Apple's revenue has tripled, its workforce has doubled, and its global reach has expanded significantly (think China, India). "He will never be as flashy as Jobs, but he may just be the perfect CEO for the behemoth Apple has become," Tetzeli writes of Cook.

You could argue that success is only the result of very good execution around products that already existed when Cook took over. But even that flavor of argument smells funny. The first wholly new product released during the Tim Cook era, the Apple Watch, is still in its first generation and actually sold more in its first year than the iPhone did in its initial 12 months. The Watch could end up being a blockbuster, especially as Apple adds more health and fitness capabilities.

Steve Jobs welcomes attendees to WWDC 2007.[Photo: Flickr user Ben Stanfield]

Every Little Thing He Did Was Magic

Steve Jobs was indeed a visionary product maker, but not everything he touched turned to gold. Jobs had as many product fails as successes (it's just that his successes were monsters). Remember the circular mouse that came with the first iMac in 1997? Or 2001's PowerMac G4 "Cube" that Apple discontinued after one year? Or the iTunes social recommendation network Ping? There are others.

Apple Must Maintain A Very Limited Product Lineup

When Steve Jobs returned to Apple, he cut 70% of the products that Apple was working on. No more printers. No more Newton PDA. He laid off 3,000 people. Jobs famously drew a matrix with four quadrants: "Pro," "Consumer," "Desktop," and "Laptop." In his book Steve Jobs, Walter Isaacson gives Jobs credit for saving Apple by refocusing the company on those product areas. That's probably true.

But the belief that Apple had to have a shockingly limited product lineup to succeed has held on. And in the age of radical consumer choice it's not nearly so true as it used to be. Apple now sells several flavors of desktops, laptops, tablets, and phones. It sells the Apple TV streaming device. It's added the Watch, which comes in two sizes and with seemingly endless band and watch material combinations. And there's a good chance the company will release some sort of augmented reality device, as well as an electric car, in the future.

Still, Apple's product line is pretty limited when compared to rivals like Samsung. "We still have, for our size, an extremely focused product line," Cook said in his recent interview with the Washington Post.

"You can literally put every product we make on this table. That really is an indication of how focused it is," he said. "I think that's a good thing. Regardless of who you are, there's only so many things that you can do at a very high-quality and deep, deep level—personally and in business. And so we're not going to change that. That's core to our model and way of thinking."

iOS 10.[Photo: courtesy of Apple]

Apple Is "Behind" On Technology

Tetzeli points out that during its 40-year history, Apple has been seen as a laggard in music, video, the Internet, telephony, wireless, content creation, networking, semiconductors, software applications, touch screens, gesture controls, materials, messaging, news aggregation, social media, voice recognition, and mapping.

It should be well known by now that Apple's forte has never been rushing in on new technologies and being the first to introduce them to consumers. Apple hangs back. It studies new technologies carefully, and analyzes consumers' readiness to embrace the technologies even more carefully. When new technologies work well and are ready for mainstream acceptance, Apple integrates them with beautiful hardware and software design.

Case in point today is virtual reality. Apple is likely waiting to see if there's really going to be a mainstream demand for it. And I'd imagine that people like Jony Ive have a decided distaste for the current, clunky headset form factor the technology has taken. Once people understand what VR is and what the carrot is, and once it can be presented as a sleek product with attractive design, Apple might jump into the game. I'd say we're at least 18 months away from that.

Apple Can't Keep Its High Prices And Margins

Well, for the most part, it has. The company released a $399 smartphone, but its big sellers remain top-of-the-line phones like the iPhone 6s that sell for as much as $950 (iPhone 6s Plus 128GB version) with a profit margin of more than 40%.

The iPhone FamilyPhoto: courtesy of Apple

Apple Is Having Trouble Managing Its Suppliers

Tim Cook's job before becoming CEO five years ago was chief operating officer. His main function was scoring good deals from component suppliers for iPhone parts, and making sure the component supply matched the demand for iPhones. "There is a myth that now that Tim Cook is CEO and not responsible for supply chain that their supply chain is having some problems managing product rollouts and estimating demand," says Creative Strategies president and long-time Apple analyst Tim Bajarin.

"But I see the supply chain running very smooth and Cook is still deeply involved with helping manage and direct it," Bajarin says. In fact, a recent analyst report revealed that Apple is applying even more price pressure to its suppliers now that iPhone sales have cooled off.

Innovation Comes In Blinding Flashes

Even Apple's biggest product successes never really happened like that. The saying "today's overnight success was 10 years in the making" is more descriptive of how the company's products come to life. "The world thinks we delivered [a breakthrough] every year while Steve was here," Apple services chief Eddy Cue told Tetzeli in a recent interview. "Those products were developed over a long period of time."

Apple keeps a veil of secrecy around new products it's thinking about or working on. So we don't hear about the long lead times or get a glimpse of what it will look like when it's trotted out onto the stage at a future Apple press event. During that lead time, a million iterations take place to refine the original idea—the brilliance of a product often happens slowly during these baby steps, not in a single "voilà" moment.

There are undoubtedly many other Apple Myths. Tell me about your favorites on Twitter: @thesullivan.

Read more stories from inside Tim Cook's Apple:

Related Video: The history of Apple in under 3 minutes

Four Things To Do Outside The Office To Boost Your Creativity

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The best place to spark innovation on the job may be to get completely away from the office.

To be successful, businesses need innovation, and that requires creative thinking. Former advertising agency creative director Jack Foster says ideas are the "wheels of progress," and warns that without them "stagnation reigns."

"There's never been a time in all of history when ideas were so needed or so valuable," he writes in his book How To Get Ideas. "We live in an age so awash with information that at times we feel drowned in it, an age that demands a constant stream of new ideas if it is to reach its potential and realize its destiny."

Sounds good, but some days the lightbulb just doesn't go off. Fortunately, it's possible to become more idea-prone, and some of the exercises that take you there also take you outside of the office.

1. Taking A Bath

A lot of us get great ideas in the shower, but a bath does the trick, too, says Paulette Kouffman Sherman, psychologist and author of The Book of Sacred Baths: 52 Bathing Rituals to Revitalize Your Spirit.

"Studies in floatation (a type of therapy that involves floating in a chamber filled with a saline solution) have shown increased creative scores for college students and the like during floatation, and many writers and artists attest to having more inspiration near water," she says. They include prolific screenwriter Dalton Trumbo wrote while in the tub, and Agatha Christie, who liked to eat apples while soaking.

If you can't afford a trip to the spa or a weekend beach retreat, your bathtub will work just fine. Kouffman Sherman says her daily bathing ritual involves meditation and has helped her write 21 books.

"Many creativity experts say writers need an incubation space before they write and this involves getting out of their ego and critic," she explains. "Sacred baths allow you to do so. I would release my ego, worries, and blocks, and understand the higher purpose of what I wanted to say and how I was being of service. This was an incredible gift to me and made my creative work flow."

2. Observing

Ideas are all around you every day if you just take the time to stop and look, but many of us tune them out, says Tina Seelig, author of Insight Out: Get Ideas Out of Your Head and Into the World.

In her course on creativity, innovation, and entrepreneurship at Stanford University, Seelig sends her students to a local shopping center and has them look at stores with fresh eyes.

"We put together a detailed lab for them: Is the door open or shut? What is the font of the store's name? How long does it take for someone to come and greet you? How high are the ceilings? What are the floors made of? What's the soundtrack? What does it smell like?" she said in an interview with Fast Company. "Observe the world with really acute focus."

When you pay attention to the little things that are around you, you can recognize problems that can be turned into opportunities.

3. Working At A Coffee Shop

In a study that sounds like it came from Goldilocks and the Three Bears, researchers at the University of British Columbia held brainstorming experiments in three environments to measure the impact of noise on creativity. Participants worked in near silent environments that registered about 50 decibels, loud environments at 85 decibels, and medium-noise environments at 70 decibels. The mid-range spot—about the noise level of a coffee shop—turned out to be just right when it came to doing creative work.

Moderate background noise creates just enough of a distraction to force people to think more imaginatively but isn't so loud that it causes you to lose your focus. "Instead of burying oneself in a quiet room trying to figure out a solution, walking out of one's comfort zone and getting into a relatively noisy environment may trigger the brain to think abstractly, and thus generate creative ideas," write the authors in Journal of Consumer Research.

4. Walking

Mark Zuckerberg is known for his walking meetings at Facebook and there's a good reason why: Putting one foot in front of the other is linked with idea generation. Researchers at Stanford University found that the act of walking boosts creative inspiration, whether it's done inside or out.

The study involved experiments that gauged creative thinking within four different conditions: walking indoors on a treadmill, sitting indoors facing a blank wall, walking outdoors, and sitting outdoors. Researchers measured participants' "divergent" thinking, or the ability to generate new ideas. Creativity levels were consistently and significantly higher for those walking compared to those sitting.

"Many people anecdotally claim they do their best thinking when walking. We finally may be taking a step, or two, toward discovering why," study coauthor Marily Oppezzo said in an interview with Stanford News. "We're not saying walking can turn you into Michelangelo, but it could help you at the beginning stages of creativity."

Related Video: You never know when inspiration will strike. Watch our Out of Office supercut and see how easy it is to find your muse.

You're Making Big Career Changes Harder On Yourself Than They Need To Be

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When you're pursuing a big client or job opportunity, you can trick yourself into believing the other party has all the power.

Looking for a new job? Got a big pitch coming up? Reentering the workforce after an extended hiatus—or after getting fired?

It goes without saying that career transitions like these are tense experiences for anyone.

I coach creative professionals through many of these moments, and I often find that the biggest obstacles to each of them are self-imposed. Sometimes all it requires is widening your perspective a little in order to surmount some of the biggest career challenges. Here's what that takes.

How Stress Leads To Tunnel Vision—And Worse

It's usually in my very first coaching meeting with clients that I find a narrow set of concerns defining the conversation. The client typically:

  • Focuses on their perceived lack of credentials
  • Limits their view of the opportunity
  • Limits their search (or pitching process) to a single opportunity at a time

This is pretty normal. A study published this year in the journal Thinking and Reasoning suggested that stressful situations, such as running out of time (always a factor when you're job searching or pitching projects) can impair problem solving and increase the frequency of wrong guesses. This leads to tunnel vision that narrows our thinking, actions, and sense of our options.

My first goal is always to get the person I'm coaching to understand the power they have in the relationship with whatever prospect it is that they're going after. The assumption that the other party holds all the cards is startlingly common—and it's a belief many of us hold deeply without realizing it.

The reasons for that vary from person to person, but it's rooted in our unconscious acceptance that a prospective client or boss is an authority figure we need to stay deferential to in order to impress. But it's possible to steadily dismantle this implicit hierarchy through a gentle line of inquiry that first builds confidence and then addresses fears.

Ask Yourself How You Got Here

I start by asking my coaching client to tell me their story—what they do professionally right now, but also what events and experiences early in their lives led them to this career. I want to know about what part of their work they feel most connected to and what they feel that connection is rooted in.

Running over this narrative often starts renewing some of the confidence that big career moves tend to deplete. Then I ask about the challenges and opportunities they're facing—but in a way that turns the tables: "Why are they interested in you?" Trying to answer this question can help remind you that you've got something going for yourself—that the prospect thinks you're special—even if there are other contenders in the running.

The other thing I do early on in coaching sessions is ask clients what fee or salary they expect to receive. No matter what they say, I just take note of it for future reference. Interestingly, that number is consistently lower at the beginning of our work together and climbs higher later on, as they get more confident.

What's The Opportunity, Really?

It's often the case that what a potential employer or client says they want is far from the only need they have to fill. With enough knowledge of the company, many pitches, proposals, or even job descriptions can actually be recrafted in a way that gives you a leg up on the competition.

To do that, ask yourself these three questions:

  1. "Why do they want to fill this position at this time?"
  2. "How are their competitors succeeding (or failing)?"
  3. "What market forces are driving their actions right now?"

Few of us think to widen the lens this far when we're facing daunting career changes. And even those of us who do aren't always able to answer questions like these right away. If my coaching client doesn't know the answers, I encourage them to do their own research, but I also press them to talk to the prospect before their interview or first pitch meeting—and I do mean talk, either by phone, Skype, or in person, not via email. You may already have a formal meeting on the calendar, but reach out anyway and ask for a quick chat before then.

This is the first step to setting yourself apart from the competition. Once you've gathered all the information you can, it's time to change the context. Present your research and insights, then begin working with your prospect to redefine the scope of the project or job so that you and only you can meet their real needs.

What Else Is Out There?

Looking for a job or pitching new projects can definitely feel like full-time work itself. That might be one reason we limit ourselves to pursuing one gig at a time. The problem with that singular focus is it removes you from two things you need in order to succeed: a broader understanding of the context of the offer, and any reminder that you have options.

I've seen coaching clients get really desperate to nail down the offer at hand when, from my more relaxed perspective, it's clear that they could have more offers and even leverage multiple opportunities at the same time. If you find yourself doggedly focused on only one gig, spend 15 minutes of each hour you put into your main search on finding other possibilities. You'll want to have at least one other viable option to pursue alongside the main one you're gunning for the most.

With eyes wide open—both of them—the thinking, options, and range of actions that once seemed narrow can open up for you. With that comes more opportunity that you can go after and, most important of all, work that you actually want to do.


Ted Leonhardt is a designer and illustrator, and former global creative director of FITCH Worldwide. His specialized approach to negotiation helps creative workers build on their strengths and own their value in the marketplace. Follow Ted on Twitter at @tedleonhardt.

Huawei's Honor 8: A Flagship-Class Smartphone Without The Flagship Price

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China's biggest phone maker hopes a formula that works back home will play in the U.S.

In recent quarters, Huawei has been the top-selling manufacturer of smartphones in its home market, China. Part of its recipe for success has been a brand-within-the-brand called Honor, which—like Xiaomi before it—focuses on selling cool Android phones at reasonable prices to young people over the Internet. The brand sold $6 billion worth of phones in 2015, its second year of existence.

Here in the U.S., Huawei has had a low profile compared to other global phone makers, and the most notable thing about Honor may be that it made one of the best-selling products offered by Amazon last month during Prime Day. But now Huawei aims to make a bigger splash in this country with the Honor 8, the first Honor flagship model to ship here. (The Western-sounding, easy-to-pronounce Honor brand dominates, though the phone does say "Powered by Huawei" in teensy type on its back.)

In the phone business, "flagship" is usually a term you apply to a model crafted from luxe materials and containing top-of-the-line components, and historically, such handsets haven't come cheap. (The $650 iPhone 6s and $670 Samsung Galaxy S7 are classic flagships.) The Honor 8, which costs $400 for a 32GB model and $450 for one with 64GB, is part of a newer class of phone with flagship aspirations and reasonably economical prices. It's being sold in an unlocked version for use with AT&T and T-Mobile and will be available in early September; people who preorder from Honor's site, Amazon, Best Buy, B&H, or NewEgg will get a $50 gift card or rebate offer.

I've spent a little time with a pre-release unit of the Honor 8 provided by the company—not sufficient for a formal review, but enough to be favorably impressed. At first blush, it feels like a very credible competitor to the Galaxy S7 at a much lower list price.

Like most current smartphones, the Honor 8 looks a lot like an iPhone from the front; you might mistake it for one if it weren't for the "Honor" logo where Apple puts the home button. The metal trim around the edge is also Apple-esque. But instead of the iPhone's aluminum back, the phone has one made of shiny glass, manufactured using a process involving 15 layers that makes each unit slightly different and leaves the surface reflecting light in interesting ways as you swivel the phone in your hand. (In China, Honor says, fans take pictures of their phone backs and share them.) It's a striking effect that should makes this phone stand out from the crowd, especially in blue, a color that will be exclusive to Best Buy.

The phone has a 5.2" screen, making it a midsize model by current standards: bigger than an iPhone 6s, smaller than an iPhone 6s Plus. It's a sensible compromise that makes for a reasonably roomy screen on a phone that's still one-hand friendly.

I would say that the Honor 8's camera is its standout feature, except for the fact that it's notable for not standing out. Unlike the iPhone 6s and Galaxy 7 cameras, it's flush with the phone's backside rather than popping out slightly. And to be precise, it isn't one 12-megapixel camera but two. One of them is designed to capture vivid colors, the other takes a crip monochrome shot, and the two images get blended together into one photo. The camera also uses three types of focus—laser, contrast, and depth—depending on the shooting situation.

Some moderately priced phones that are otherwise impressive trip up on camera quality, but in my informal experiments, the Honor 8's camera seems excellent. It shoots without lag, has some interesting options like the ability to adjust depth of field after you've taken an image, and produces pictures that are worthy of the flagship moniker.

The Honor 8's fingerprint sensor is on the back, a location I found a tad unwieldy on Google's Nexus 5X, but here it worked well, recognizing my fingertip instantly even when I didn't press it precisely. (You can also program it to perform tasks such as launching a particular app when you double-tap it.) The phone has a USB-C connector and fast-charging capability, and a few nice touches such as a notification LED built into the earpiece and an infrared port that permits the phone to serve as a universal remote.

Software-wise, the Honor 8 runs Android 6 Marshmallow with Honor's Emotion UI interface, which remodels Android to...well, make it look a lot more like iOS. In the time I've had with the phone, which has an eight-core processor, it ran smoothly, felt zippy, and, iOS cloning aside, didn't display the sort of irritating, in-your-face non-improvements that some manufacturers slather on top of Android. Honor did do a few deals to bundle apps—weirdly, you can add Booking.com Hotels as an account type, right where you set up your Gmail, Facebook, and Twitter—but nothing that I'd classify as deal-killing bloatware.

A few features that might be on your particular checklist are missing, such as a water-resistant design and any sort of persistent display that leaves handy information visible when the screen's shut off. (Like an iPhone, the Honor 8 has an LCD display, a technology that isn't capable of that feat.)

Overall, this phone is a serious contender. Is that enough to make Honor a major brand in the U.S.? Not if its goal is to play at the same level as Samsung and Apple: Bypassing wireless carriers and selling direct and through e-tailers, as Huawei is doing with the Honor 8, is still a niche-marketing approach in these parts. But it's also one reason why the company is able to offer something that feels like a $650 phone for $400.

George Zhao, the president of Honor, told me that the company intends to follow the same basic strategy in the U.S. that's succeeded for it in China and elsewhere: cool design, serious components, appealing prices, online marketing, and a target audience of millennial fans. You don't have to be a millennial to find the Honor proposition attractive—and the Honor 8 looks like a great way to introduce it to this country.


How To Go On A Staycation Without Feeling Cheated

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Staying home can be relaxing, but only if you use your vacation time mindfully.

Every summer, the travel industry and others release statistics on how many vacation days Americans leave on the table. Foregoing compensation seems silly, yet there are rational reasons people might not want to travel.

It costs money, and while research shows people derive happiness from anticipating their vacations, and we post happier tweets the farther we venture from home, travel stress can quickly quash the bliss. Just ask any of the tens of thousands of people stranded in airports across the globe during Delta's computer system outage.

Are staycations the answer? "Vacations should really be an opportunity for us to rejuvenate mentally, physically, emotionally, and spiritually," says Paula Davis-Laack. "There's really a lot of stress that's involved in physically traveling from Point A to Point B," the founder of the Davis-Laack Stress & Resilience Institute tells Fast Company. If you take days off from work but stay home, "You're not getting sick from being in an airplane. You're not coordinating everything you need," she says.

Of course, if you get limited vacation days, staying home could also make you feel cheated. Here are ways to maximize the pleasure.

Lower Your Expectations

Unhappiness stems from a gap between expectations and reality. This is true for staycations, but it's true of vacations in general. Aim to make rejuvenation a regular habit in your life by getting enough sleep, exercising, and seeing friends and family. Then, "there's not as much of an expectation that simply taking one or two weeks out of the year is going to transform you into this less-stressed person you want to be," says Davis-Laack.

Plan (Probably)

Ruth McMahon, a frequent staycationer who lives in Illinois, says that the staycations she's enjoyed take a little bit of planning. "If you don't plan anything, then the days can get spent doing nothing more than just watching TV, and that is not as enjoyable in the long run," she explains. If you've planned a spa day, lunch with a friend, and a day trip to the beach, you can look forward to these events, just as you'd look forward to any other sort of vacation. For most people, this boosts the enjoyment factor considerably.

That said, if your life is tightly planned, and/or if you travel a lot for work, part of the appeal of a staycation might be the lack of plans. Tara Lynne Groth, a writer who lives in the Raleigh, North Carolina area, says, "I wanted my staycation not to have any plans. I wanted to be calendar-free. If I woke up and felt like hiking, then I went hiking." In this case, having a very loose list of things you might like to try can help with your morning brainstorming.

Act Like A Tourist

The truth is, somebody probably visits the place you live—or places within an hour or two—on their vacation. McMahon lives in the Chicago area, where there are many museums, restaurants, and other places she wants to visit.

Cross some of these off your bucket list, and open your eyes. Taking photos of the familiar will help you see things in a new light. And feel free to indulge in one of the modern guilty pleasures of vacations: bragging about it online. "You can still document and promote on social media," says Davis-Laack. The fact that you didn't spend big bucks on airfare and hotels does not change the fact that the view from the top of a local skyscraper is awesome.

Offload The Un-Fun

The problem with staying home is that you're still surrounded by the piles of dirty laundry and the books that need to go back to the library. You're also probably 20 minutes or so away from your workplace, which makes it easy to stop in if something comes up. So set ground rules for yourself.

Anne-Marie Morin, a physician, says, "I never work when we staycation. I can read a good medical article if I want to, but I do nothing that directly relates to my job." Likewise, she says, "I only do errands that I find enjoyable." If you love to garden, spending a morning perusing plants is great. Dropping off the dry-cleaning? Not so much. If you have so many personal to-dos piled up that they have become a source of stress, try to get them all done on your first day off so you can relax afterwards.

If you have a family, you want to spend vacation time with them. But keep in mind that with young kids, a staycation is basically the equivalent of how stay-at-home parents live. It's not really a vacation in that sense. You might consider leaving the kids in daycare for a day or two, or sending them to Grandma's for 48 hours so you can have some grownup fun as well.

At least think through how you'll keep the kids busy. "We have a theory that multiplying kids means less work for adults as they entertain each other," says Morin. "So we spend a lot of afternoons and dinnertime with friends and their kids," she says. It's a win all around.

Cement The Memories

Memories are malleable. Part of feeling like you had a great staycation is telling yourself, and others, that you had a great staycation. This is especially important when things go wrong, as they can. Groth felt like hiking one morning early in her staycation, but wound up with dozens of chigger bites from her foray into the woods. "The itching kept me awake every night that week," she says.

"Fortunately, I did unplug from the Internet and my calendar, and it was, of course, freeing not to look at a screen," Groth recalls. Despite the itching, she says, "with no urgency and no obligations, I felt relieved the entire week." Indeed, she's planning another staycation next month.

America's First Offshore Wind Farm Is Almost Ready

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Check out these photos of its impressive installation process.

A milestone for American renewable energy that has been almost a decade in the making is nearing completion off the coast of Rhode Island. The nation's first offshore wind farm is now rising and is expected to be completed this fall. Look at the photos above to see details of its impressive construction.

The five-turbine, 30-megawatt project off the coast of Block Island is actually tiny compared to the 100-plus turbine farms that are common in Europe. What will be the world's largest offshore wind farm, with 300 turbines and 1,800 megawatts, was just approved this week in the U.K. But America has been far slower to adopt offshore wind technology, with proposals stalled by regulators and lawsuits.

Deepwater Wind began construction on the Block Island Wind Farm in 2015. American companies, some from the oil and gas sector, built the foundations and laid undersea fiber cables. GE Renewable Energy is responsible for the turbines themselves, bringing the towers and blades from Europe, where they are made and assembled at a site in Providence over nine months. Each 650-foot-tall turbine has three blades, each weighing 29 tons each and longer than half a football field. The tower itself, broken into three sections, weighs 440 tons.

GE is out on ships now installing the wind turbine structures in a round-the-clock operation that they expect to last a total of about 25 days.

"The tricky part is the weather conditions," says Eric Crucerey, GE Renewable Energy's project manager, speaking by phone from aboard the 433-foot-long installation vessel at the Block Island Offshore Wind Farm site. The ship is jacked up to a stable platform and then uses cranes capable of lifting up to 800 tons. Too much wind, and they have to delay the work.

Offshore projects are much more expensive to build than onshore, but because it's windier off the coast, the projects can ultimately generate more energy once they are built. The Block Island Wind Farm, at a cost of $290 million, is expected to power about 17,000 homes and produce most of Block Island's energy needs (the island, isolated from the mainland, currently relies on diesel fuel.) But the project created plenty of controversy, both because opponents say they will pay too much for its electricity and from coastal residents who say the turbines will spoil their view.

Some hope the Block Island project opens the floodgates for more offshore wind. Massachusetts just passed a bill requiring utilities to source 1,600 megawatts of offshore wind electricity in the coming decades, and a number of projects are in planning stages up and down the East Coast. One is Deepwater Wind's 256-square-mile Deepwater One site, which could eventually hold up to 250 turbines. Overall, the U.S. Department of Energy estimates the technical potential for offshore wind in the U.S. to be more than 4,000 gigawatts, much more electricity than the entire country currently consumes.

Anders Soe-Jensen, CEO of Offshore Wind for GE Renewable Energy, says that costs for the technology will continue to drop, especially if the U.S. builds more and more projects. Ninety percent of all offshore wind is in Europe today, where there are 11 gigawatts installed.

"The U.S. is going to have the great advantage in that in Europe we have been trailblazing this road already," he says. "Mind you, we cannot compare directly. We [in Europe] are executing much more. We have a supply chain already that is geared for serial production. Serial production will always be cheaper than individual projects."

Have something to say about this article? You can email us and let us know. If it's interesting and thoughtful, we may publish your response.

[Photos: Deepwater Wind/GE]

7 Wearable Breakthroughs To Watch For In Rio

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Keep your eyes peeled for these innovative items.

As of writing, the United States has won 84 medals at the 2016 Summer Olympics in Rio, almost twice as many as any other country competing this year, and the most gold medals Team USA has ever won at a single Olympic Games. Most of the credit for this incredible record undeniably goes to the athletes. But America also has a technological and design edge when it comes to the Games: Our athletes tend to have the best and most innovative gear first.

You might miss some of these details while you're watching from the couch, so here's what to look for during the remaining days of competition, which wraps up next weekend.

Nike AeroSwift and AeroBlades

[Photo: Nike]

Usually, athletes try to get faster by getting sleeker, wearing tight-fitting uniforms or shaving their hair to cut down on wind resistance. As part of Rio 2016, though, Nike's taking the opposite approach. The company created AeroBlades: little patches made up of tiny hooks or spikes that runners can wear either as leg or arm sleeves, or as a Nicoderm-like patch they can stick to their skin. The AeroBlades subtly influence the way air moves over an athlete's body to essentially give them their own natural jet streams, pretty much the same way fins on a fast car or airplane work. It's an effective bit of gear that has helped some of the runners on America's track and field team win 11 medals so far, including four-time Olympic champion Allyson Felix.

Hykso Punching Sensors

[Photo: Hykso]

Data tracking is a big part of not just Olympic competition, but Olympic training. In the field of boxing, the newest wearable is the Hykso: a Y Combinator-funded sensor developed specifically for boxers. The Hykso—used by the U.S. and Canadian boxing teams—can tell what kind of punch a fighter is throwing, as well as measure their intensity and velocity. In sparring sessions, fighters are able to go to town on each other—then look at the statistical data afterward to get a better sense of their own (and their opponents') weaknesses. So far, the Hykso punching sensor has helped the U.S. win the bronze in boxing. Amateur pugilists can preorder a pair here.

Speedo LZR Fastskin Suits

[Photo: Speedo]

Ever since the international governing body banned "high-tech swimsuits" (that cover the entire body in non-permeable, highly compressive polyurethane) from the sport, Speedo has essentially had to make its LZR line of suits less effective than they were when they completely upended competitive swimming seven years ago. These advantages were seen as a form of "tech doping" by some commentators, and new rules dictate how much of a swimmer's body a swimsuit can cover and that it be made of permeable materials.

Nevertheless, Speedo continues to innovate with its LZR series, outfitting teams from not just the U.S., but Australia, China, Spain, Japan, Canada, and Israel, at Rio 2016 with two new suits: the Fastskin LZR Racer X and Fastskin LZR Racer 2. Both suits compress a swimmer's body to make them more hydrodynamic, resulting in faster speeds. This tech comes at the expense of convenience: Speedo says it can take a swimmer up to 10 minutes to get into one of the Fastskin suits. The Fastskins were designed based upon data from 330 elite swimmers, including Ryan Lochte, to make them more comfortable to wear. The theory goes that the more natural an athlete feels, the better their performance ought to be in the water. Sadly the swimming events are now over, but tech seems to have worked: American swimmers won 33 medals this year.

Nike Wing

[Photo: Nike]

In appearance, the Nike Wing sunglasses look like a hologram folded around the face; an early Lawnmower Man-era experiment in CGI, turned into a fashion statement. The Wing's single-piece, hingeless design, though, serves a purpose. It helps reduce drag for members of the U.S. Olympics track team, while also weighing four grams less than traditional eyewear. Useful for a runner in Rio's blinding sun, but if you're not a member of the U.S. track team, these shades will cost you a staggering $12,000 a pair.

Solos AR Cycling Glasses

[Photo: Solos]

A set of smart cycling glasses with a built-in HUD micro-display, the Solos AR Cycling Glasses have been used by the U.S. Cycling Team during training to let them know their speed, heart rate, power (in watts), and cadence (in rotations per minute), according to USA Today. The glasses can connect via Bluetooth to a cyclist's bike computer or their iPhone to provide further data analysis, and feature dual microphones and speakers so the cyclists can stay in touch with their coaches and be heard over the rush of the peloton. This is one of the few tech innovations on this list you can order for yourself, too.

Nike Zoom Superfly Shoes

[Photo: Nike]

Most of Nike's shoes at Rio 2016 aren't that different from the ones sold in stores, but there's one notable exception. Nike's premier shoe of the Rio 2016 Olympics is the Zoom Superfly. The upper part of the shoe is Flyweave, which is, of course, an old Nike staple—but that's not the interesting part. Rather, it's the spike plate on the bottom of the shoe that makes the Zoom Superflys innovative. Thanks to an algorithmically generated honeycomb pattern that maximizes strength while minimizing the amount of material needed, the spike plate on the bottom of these shoes is four times stiffer than normal, yet still weighs less than previous spike plates. The result? Sprinters get a better grip on the track as they run, without compromising on the weight of their shoe.

Whoop Strap

[Photo: Whoop]

Remember Whoop, the wearable fitness tracker for elite athletes worn by LeBron James we wrote about earlier this year? U.S. swimmer Ryan Lochte (otherwise known as Pizzerina Sbarro's sex idiot from 30 Rock) is also boasting a Whoop at this year's Olympic Games. Unlike most fitness bands, which mostly track movement, the Whoop can measure everything from how much athletes have strained themselves during a session, to how they'll perform next day, thanks to advanced sensors that provide an EKG-like level of detail. The Whoop also allows athletes to measure their fitness more accurately than other wearables, because an innovative removable battery solution means it never needs to be taken off to recharge.

Does The Internet Dream About Itself? Werner Herzog Wants To Know

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The legendary director on artificial intelligence, cyberwar, and why Elon Musk is a hard interview.

Werner Herzog's latest documentary, Lo and Behold: Reveries of the Connected World, is a meditation on technology and humanity that includes interviews with everyone from developers of the early Internet to astrophysicists to Elon Musk.

It's also a film with a strange genesis. Lo and Behold is the result of a collaboration with Netscout, a hardware company that was originally interested in Herzog making short films about what would happen if the Internet was disrupted.

Werner Herzog

"I immediately declined because I thought it was an attempt to hire me for a commercial," Herzog tells Co.Create. "I have had an attitude in all my working life that I've never done commercials because I feel uncomfortable with the consumer civilization in which we are living. I feel uncomfortable and I would not like to somehow instigate and promote consumerism even further."

"It turned out, no, it was much more like something I did for YouTube once about texting and driving. I was told it was something like that, and in fact I was completely left alone and could do whatever I wanted to do. [. . .] It was a very pleasant collaboration, and they loved the film when they were finished. We all watched it and they loved it. They were proud to be part of it."

When you watch Lo and Behold, it feels like an installment of Carl Sagan or Neil DeGrasse Tyson's Cosmos filtered through Herzog's sensibility in the best possible way.

"I'd Like To Be The First Poet On Mars"

In one of the film's most arresting scenes, Herzog is interviewing Elon Musk and asks him to take him to Mars.

According to Herzog, "I said if you were doing that, I would volunteer to be on board if you didn't find anyone who would volunteer."

"I said this to make the discourse a little bit livelier. He (Elon Musk) is not a media kind of figure. He's very, very well-thought but he makes pauses of one, two, or three minutes. It's an endless eternity on camera and of course I would be curious to go out on a mission to Mars. However, only if I have a camera on board."

Once on board, Herzog added, "The voyage itself would be interesting enough because it would take four or five years minimum until we are reaching the planet. I'd like to not be a documentarian on Mars, I'd like to be the first poet on Mars."

Elon Musk, in Lo & Behold

Autonomy, Self-Driving Cars, And Cyberwar

Lo and Behold also features an extensive segment on self-driving cars which includes Google and Udacity's Sebastian Thrun. Since Herzog famously avoids cellular phones in many cases, I was curious what he thought of the privacy aspect of these cars—which can be tracked by everyone from governments to advertising agencies.

"You have to think about it because it's coming at us," Herzog said. "But I have limited my access and ability to use the Internet so you cannot reach me by cell phone for example. I simply do not use one and I do not examine the world through an application on a cell phone. I examine it by reading, for example."

"Of course, if you drive with your cell phone or smartphone, even if it's switched off, some secret service in a foreign country would know where you are. They can know where we are sitting right now, and the radius would be around 10 feet. But they couldn't do it with me because I do not use a cell phone."

Since artificial intelligence was a repeated theme in the movie, I asked Herzog for his opinion of a recent DARPA-sponsored artificial intelligence hacking competition I attended.

"Of course we have to do it, because America is under massive gigantic permanent attacks, that are siphoning trillions of dollars of value in manufacturing, pharmaceuticals, weapons technology, you name it," Herzog said. "Every single field—trillions of dollars right now are being siphoned off. It's understandable that the Pentagon and government are trying to come out and get a grip on it. And it's in particular one specific country."

"Yes. You know which one, and it's not Russia. I believe Russia is much more naturally an ally to the West and to the United States than some other countries. But I am also convinced that everyone is spying on everyone else, even our friends. It didn't come as a surprise to find out that the Obama administration was listening into the Brazilian president, the French president, German chancellor, and on and on and on. It was not a surprise."

Does The Internet Dream Of Itself?

In Lo and Behold, Herzog asks one constant question of his interview subjects: Does the Internet dream of itself?

I asked Herzog if he thought the Internet dreams of itself.

"I don't have an answer like all the others, and all the experts," the director explained. "Nobody has a real answer. But I do believe that asking a deep question is sometimes more important than getting a straight answer. Nobody has the answer."

In terms of the answers he received, Herzog added that "Everything was a surprise. Not only artificial intelligence and the dreams of the Internet, but every single thing was a surprise. Of course it tends to be a new thing. When I look at this phenomena and talk to these people, first off, I really like them. Number two, I really have deep respect and sometimes real awe for what they have achieved. Of course they deserve it."

Power, Ambition, And Hillary: A Q&A With The Director Of The Thriller "Equity"

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Meera Menon talks about her film starring Anna Gunn as an ambitious woman blasted for a lack of "likability." Sound familiar?

"There's an idea that you have to work twice as hard to get half as far," says filmmaker Meera Menon. She's talking about women in the workplace, which is the central idea to Equity, the thriller she directed about a Wall Street investment banker named Naomi (played by Anna Gunn) navigating the hyper-competitive, male-dominated world of high-stakes finance. Though Naomi is confident and successful, she is passed over for a promotion, even as she takes the reins of a buzzy tech IPO. Her boss (a man) tells her that she is off-putting to clients. She runs afoul of a former friend (Alysia Reiner) who's investigating white-collar crime. And a vicious double-cross threatens to end her career and land her in prison.

Meera Menon

The rare movie to offer a female perspective on Wall Street, Equity was also written, produced, and financed by women—which is at least part of what interested Menon, a USC film-school grad whose debut feature, Farah Goes Bang, won the Tribeca Film Festival's inaugural Nora Ephron prize in 2013. Equity premiered at the Sundance Film Festival in January to strong reviews and is now in theaters. We recently spoke with Menon about the movie, her career, and her own encounters with bias in the film world.

How did you come on board to direct Equity?

I made a tiny feature right out of film school [Farah Goes Bang] and went around to festivals with it. I met a filmmaker named Mark Stolaroff, who runs classes he calls No-Budget Film School. Mark introduced me to Alysia and Sarah [Megan Thomas, one of the film's producers], who were looking for a female director. I read the script, loved the writing, and instantly responded to it. Naomi was a kind of female protagonist I hadn't seen before. She was challenging, empowering, complicated, flawed, strong. She was like Don Draper: mysterious, enigmatic, and smart, with a charisma and darkness to her you don't see in female characters very often.

Gunn and Lee Tergesen in Equity

The film is partly a contest of wills between a driven, capable woman who struggles to be "likable," and a wrongdoing man (played by James Purefoy) who seems to get away with anything. Do you look at your own movie differently now, in the context of our presidential election?

There was an article in Bustle about why Anna Gunn in Equity is like Hillary Clinton. It's something we're talking a lot about in the Q and A's [after screenings]. A lot of the issues [in Clinton's candidacy] are explored in this film. For Naomi, there's the issue of her likability, the issue of perception. Her boss tells her she's not getting promoted because she's rubbing people the wrong way, and it's a maddening statement she spends the rest of the movie trying to parse out. These questions of a woman in a position of authority and leadership are strikingly relevant right now.

As a female director, have you ever felt your power challenged?

Not directly. But you're not as easily validated as your male equivalent. I know many men, people I went to film school with, that got agents, managers, opportunities to direct straight out of film school—things that it just took me longer to get, even though I was doing as substantial, if not more substantial, work than them. So I've experienced bias in the system, but it's never been so direct or overt as a confrontation in a room.

Gunn in Equity

You've said you were surprised by how hard it was to get more work after winning the Nora Ephron award. Was that a rude awakening to gender bias?

Yeah, totally. Though in general, it's hard as a director to get your name out there. I try not to pin it on gender or ethnicity, two things that give me minority status. But it is something I wonder about . . . I try not to spend too much time on it.

What is the optimal amount of time for a person to wonder about bias?

I don't know. Personally, for me, I have to keep my head down, keep moving, keep working, in order to stay productive. But there are people like [Selma director] Ava DuVernay who are not only constantly doing great work, but also manage to be very vocal advocates for filmmakers of color and for women. I look at her and ask, "How does she do it all? Manage to be an advocate and practitioner at the same time?"

Gunn and James Purefoy in Equity

You cowrote and directed Farah Goes Bang. With Equity, what was it like joining a film that had already been substantially developed?

The process of making it felt like making a studio movie in terms of how many cooks were in the kitchen. My navigating that required me both to have a firm hand, while also making sure that everyone felt it was matching their visions of what the movie was going to be. It was interesting because I have aspirations to direct movies in the studio system. And I see directors get a little tripped up when they enter the studio system and have to balance having a strong vision of the movie with also pleasing the number of people who are equally invested in the movie. So I recognized early on that this was the job for a director who wants to scale up and get the bigger opportunities that I hope to get.

What was a concession you had to make while collaborating on this movie?

I was precious about things like angles that we wouldn't end up using. Maybe, if left to my own devices, I would have explored the relationship [between Gunn and Purefoy's characters] a bit more. I might've done a pass on the film where that was the spine, the central relationship of the movie, because I loved how Anna and James played off each other. But this is where it's good to have checks and balances. Because the intention of the script is for this to be a movie about the triangulation of these three women, and their choices in life.


This interview has been condensed and edited.

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