Uber has been embroiled in a frantic search for a new CEO ever since its former CEO Travis Kalanick stepped down in June. At long last, on Sunday, Uber chose a new CEO, The New York Times reports. Two anonymous people with inside knowledge of the search told the paper that Expedia chief executive Dara Khosrowshahi was offered the position.
After Uber faced accusations of workplace sexism and sexual harassment, it hired several female executives to reform its culture. It also searched for a female CEO, offering Facebook chief operating officer Sheryl Sandberg and YouTube chief Susan Wojcicki spots in the running, people with knowledge of the search told The Washington Post. But woman after woman reportedly passed up the opportunity.
Those who spoke to The New York Times said the final three candidates in the running were Khosrowshahi, former General Electric chief Jeffrey R. Immelt, and Hewlett Packard Enterprise chief Meg Whitman. Whitman, however, has denied that she was ever in the running for the position, tweeting in July, "Normally I do not comment on rumors, but the speculation about my future and Uber has become a distraction. So let me make this as clear as I can. I am fully committed to HPE and plan to remain the company's CEO."
Khosrowshahi and Immelt reportedly gave presentations on Friday, then Whitman did on Saturday. The board initially wanted to pick Whitman, but on Sunday afternoon, the members changed their minds.
Khosrowshahi has been Expedia's CEO since 2005, and before that, he was chief financial officer of Match.com's parent company IAC, Yahoo! Finance reports. The Iranian immigrant made the news earlier this year for getting behind a lawsuit to end Trump's travel ban, Fortune reports.
Uber has not yet publicly offered him the job, and he hasn't yet publicly accepted it.
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As she dropped off her twelve-year-old daughter at coding camp, Kim Bryant became aware that, despite the bucolic setting of the Stanford University campus, things might not go smoothly for Kai. Although there were 200 kids in the program, Kim was able to total the number of girls enrolled “with my fingers and toes.” And, she noticed, “the class was pretty white, too. Lily white.”
Her response to this observation started Kim on her six-year journey: to change the world of tech to include more people like her daughter. “I’d seen a light in her eyes that I didn’t want to see put out prematurely,” Kim recalls, thinking back to what inspired her to turn a wild idea into a reality.
Kim’s quest reveals why you must own all of you, even and especially the parts others disparage. In doing so, she shows the first step in what I call “the power of onlyness,” which is to claim the power of one’s own narrative.
I first met Kim at a conference in Boston, and she was talking about Southern cooking. She described herself as a “down-home girl,” and when I asked what exactly that meant to her, she responded with a question of her own. “Do you know Memphis?” she asked. “Growing up there had an indelible impact on my life because of its history, a history that is not so pretty. MLK’s assassination in Memphis made me realize that there are some things worth dying for. And, to be clear, I’m from North Memphis. Not many role models there. Not too many kids got out.”
Our origins are part of what informs our perspective. This is not to say that we’re defined by our pasts but, rather, that the context of our particular background shapes what we notice and respond to, which in turn makes us who we are today. It’s Steve Jobs childhood where he spent long hours with his father, dismantling and rebuilding electronic devices in the family garage. It was these experiences that gave the little boy his mechanical prowess. Kim’s “only” has been deeply influenced by growing up in Memphis and what she believes is worth fighting for.
Kim beat the odds by being accepted at Vanderbilt University as an engineering major. “The thing is,” Kim explains, “I was almost always the only brown or black person when I went to school. Almost always the only woman in class.” She loved math and science, yet felt deeply alone in those courses, which may have accounted for the fact that her freshman grades were dismal—culminating in a 1.3 GPA.
But she found friends in the black student union, “one of the few places on campus where I felt I really belonged.” Kim got involved in student activism while Vanderbilt was still invested in South Africa, and she and her friends wanted to end apartheid. They organized protests, wrote a manifesto, and implored the university’s president to make policy changes. At one point , the Wall Street Journal showed up on campus, and Kim’s activism was displayed on the front page. Kim’s mom saw the story, and became worried about her scholarship being revoked.
“I heard her, I swear I did. But I also knew it was important to do something.” Her efforts paid off, and Vanderbilt became one of the first schools in the world to shift its investments in response to apartheid. Kim’s success gave her resolve on the academic front. By the time she completed her BS, she had boosted her GPA from nearly failing to a solid B.
Soon after graduation, Kim landed a job DuPont. She was the exceptional person who “got out” of Northern Memphis; she thought it meant real change.
Her DuPont manager, however, undermined her when he introduced her to the team by saying: “With Kimberly coming on, we got a twofer,” point to Kim being both a woman and a person of color. Her deepest hope that her ideas, and not her color, would matter was already being squashed. What had been highlighted was her being different, her “otherness.”
"New takes and fresh ideas are what fuels progress and, without them, we all miss out on the solutions that humanity most needs."
The effect of being the “only one” is well known. In 1977, change expert Rosabeth Moss Kanter did a study that showed when individuals are members of a group that represents less than 15%, they experience three things that constrain their ideas: First, they feel highly watched and thus have a burden of performance pressure. Second, they feel isolated and excluded from social settings (where relationships and trust are built). Third, they feel tremendous pressure to assimilate to the group’s norms. While demographics like age, gender, race, and sexual orientation don’t negatively affect the quality of ideas, being a token does, because what is noticed first is the “otherness” of being different rather than the distinct set of ideas that the person has to offer, their “onlyness”.
When then happens – and it happens too much – we all lose. Because new takes and fresh ideas are what fuels progress and, without them, we all miss out on the solutions that humanity most needs.
It’s no surprise then that Kim was so sensitive to Kai being the “only black girl” in coding camp. Nearly twenty years after the “twofer” comment her DuPont manager made, little has changed regarding women in technology. If anything, the situation has only gotten worse. Forthe most part, the percentage of computing occupations held by women has been declining since 1991, when it reached a high of 36 percent; it’s in the mid twenties now.
Although Kim’s introduction at DuPont underscored her separateness, she was still proud to have been hired there. Her employer provided good benefits, including mentoring. Kim’s mentor was another female engineer ten years her senior. Eventually Kim identified a role she wanted to move into: “It was only a rung or two above my relatively entry-level one, but I could see myself growing in that direction.” At her next mentor meeting, she brought it up. “I want to be an area manager in a few years. What do you think I should be doing now to prepare?” It was a standard, well-reasoned question to ask of a mentor. She hoped to get advice on what to study, soft skills to develop, or how she might volunteer.
Instead, her mentor told her, “You can never achieve that. No, not you. You will not be that.”
This only made Kim more determined. But it wasn’t just her resolve that mattered. “It only made me want to prove her wrong,” Kim recalls. Her ability to choose a response — to decide for herself what to accept as true for her and what to deny — was key to unlocking her own capacity. She vowed to herself, “I will be bigger than you can imagine for me; I will be as big as I can prove to myself to be.” Within five years Kim had risen beyond the level her mentor had told her was unachievable.
Kim’s story — Down-Home Girl, Rebel on the Front Page, Twofer, and Saying No to the Mentor — shape how she came to her dent of creating Black Girls Code.
“At some level, I thought the situation Kai faced would be different,” Kim explained. “But there’s still a dearth of African American women in science, technology, engineering, and math professions . . . an absence that cannot be explained by, say, lack of interest in these fields.” Kim knew that it was not “enough to create change for just one person,” because that would only perpetuate the existing culture. Kim’s own experience taught her that she needed to create change on a larger scale.
So, she started gathering Kai and her friends around her kitchen table, borrowed some used computers, designed some curriculum, and got to work. Other moms joined in and the program quickly had chapters in many cities.
Choosing the name Kim picked for what became her organization was the final clarifying moment. “Using the word ‘black’ scared me a little at first. Too many people see that word and see it as a negative,” Kim says. She asked a fellow attendee at the BlogHer conference for advice. Analisa, a Filipina entrepreneur, appreciated the challenge immediately. Kim recalls the moment when Analisa “stopped shuffling what she had been looking at, looked straight at me, and said, ‘It’s what you’re trying to do for your community, so call it that.”
Black Girls Code has already trained over 10,000 girls who will be able to fill the 1.6 million new coding jobs expected by 2040. By then, Kim aims to have taught one million girls to code.
Kim could have denied the strength of being black, but she didn’t. By claiming that spot in the world only she stood, she not only solved something for her daughter, but her community. And, this is the power we now each have. Others can define something as marginal when it is actually meaningful. Until you define it — even as you need to re define it — you claim for yourself and ultimately others with whom you join, that which only you can offer.
No matter what your age, or gender, or color, or so on, your ideas have a shot. To reshape industries. To advance agendas. To right wrongs. To invent things. To address age-old problems. To simply get things done. Stories, like Kim’s, not only give us hope but show us a pathway to the future.
For iPhone users, Apple's annual September announcement event is a lot like Christmas morning. It only rolls around once a year, is much anticipated in the months, weeks, and hours leading up to it, and usually comes with "presents" you'll want to blast all over social media. Those presents, of course, are whatever latest and greatest iPhone models Apple unveils to top its existing lineup.
In 2016, Apple announced the water-and-dust resistant iPhone 7 and 7 Plus on September 7, just after Labor Day weekend. This year, according to Dow Jones, it's looking like the big day will hit a bit later, on Tuesday, September 12. The Wall Street Journal reports the event may be held in the Steve Jobs Theater, a circular, 1,000-seat presentation space enclosed by glass walls that is one of the pinnacles of Apple's new campus, Apple Park. Apple has not yet confirmed the date or location.
Among the many iPhone 8 rumors, here are a few of the most exciting: wireless charging, facial recognition, and an all-glass body with a bezel-less design to allow for a larger screen. Many of these speculative features sound similar to the Galaxy Note8, which Samsung announced last week.
It's also likely that Apple will announce a new Apple Watch and possibly a 4K Apple TV. We may finally get more insight into when iOS 11 will roll out to the public (it's currently in beta), so that everyone can access the new App Store, Live Photo editing tools, and peer-to-peer payments in iMessage. And prepare yourself for annoyance of echo effect.
You'll also get to hear the new Siri, whose voice has gotten a more human-like upgrade in advance of her starring role in Apple's upcoming smart speaker, HomePod, which was announced in June and will be available this December.
If Apple sticks with its release schedule the iPhone 8 will be available a little over a week after the announcement. But with a rumored $999 price tag, you may need to wait until the actual Christmas morning to get your hands on this one.
Refinery29 has reached out to Apple for comment.
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The first day of fall isn't until September 22, but it's a universally acknowledged truth that Labor Day weekend is summer's last humid hurrah. After, cold hard reality hits: summer hours come to an end, pumpkin spice lattes return, and soon enough we'll have to return to layering.
Whether you're heading to sandy beaches or taking a staycation, this coming weekend should be your best, most relaxed long weekend yet. Nothing — especially not email — should get in the way. Unfortunately, this is easier said than done. For those wishing to avoid coming back to an inbox packed with unread messages, checking in from your phone while beneath a beach umbrella may seem like the best option. But, as Arianna Huffington points out in a recent post for the Harvard Business Review, doing so defeats the purpose of recharging.
Huffington has found an internal company solution. At Thrive Global, she enacted an email tool called Thrive Away, which automatically replies to an incoming message with a note saying when the employee will be back and letting the sender know they should reach out at that time. Then, the email is deleted from the employee's inbox. (The tool was originally created and put in place at HuffPost in 2015.)
Not everyone works at a company where unplugging is practically part of the mission statement. Still, there are realistic ways to make disconnecting easier.
If you're that person who has email notifications on your phone, turn them off as soon as your out-of-office message is active. Simply go to your phone's Settings > Notifications > Mail.
Old habits die hard, though, and even turning off notifications probably can't keep the avid email answerer from sneaking a peek. That's why it's worth downloading Boomerang's useful Inbox Pause tool, a free extension for both Gmail and Outlook. Inbox Pause does exactly what it sounds like — it temporarily halts the arrival of messages for whatever length of time you designate. While the mode is activated (it's easiest to set it up from your desktop), anyone who sends you a message will receive an auto-reply to let them know your inbox is paused. You can also make exceptions to allow emails from certain individuals, such as your boss, to get through even when pause is turned on.
Alternatively, you can follow Huff Post's method and set up a filter within Gmail that will send all incoming messages to the trash, after sending an auto reply to the sender informing them this is happening. But for the email addicted, this all or nothing approach may be a bit too extreme.
If the idea of missing an important email is going to create more of a vacation distraction, opt for Inbox Pause instead. It will keep emails at bay so you can kick back and enjoy the last sunny days of summer. And read them all in September, with a pumpkin spice latte in hand.
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Mark Zuckerberg’s social network just got bigger by one adorable degree. The Facebook founder announced on the social media platform that he and his wife, Priscilla Chan, welcomed their second daughter, August. She joins older sister Max, who will turn 2 in November.
To celebrate August's arrival, Zuckerberg and Chan penned a heartfelt letter to her on Facebook. Of course, the note was accompanied by the Facebook life event “August was born.”
In the letter, Zuckerberg and Chan write about "the world we hope she grows up in" and, in classic mom and dad mode, emphasize their wish that she won't "grow up too fast."
“Childhood is magical,” the letter reads. “You only get to be a child once, so don't spend it worrying too much about the future. You've got us for that, and we'll do everything we possibly can to make sure the world is a better place for you and all children in your generation.”
The note also includes a lot of new parent humor: "I hope you run as many laps around our living room and yard as you want. And then I hope you take a lot of naps. I hope you're a great sleeper."
This letter marks a tradition in the Zuckerberg-Chan family. When Max was born, her parents also penned a note. It was in that letter they announced their plans for the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative and their plans to give 99% of their Facebook shares to the advance their mission. "Max, we love you and feel a great responsibility to leave the world a better place for you and all children."
Earlier this month, Zuckerberg announced he plans to take two months of paternity leave, so he has time with his new baby girl. Congratulations to the new family of four!
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Hurricane Harvey ripped through Texas this weekend, killing at least eight people, and rain continues to cause flooding throughout the area. If you're looking for ways to help those affected by the catastrophe, it's important to make sure you're donating to organizations actually helping victims. And because cyber scams are common after disasters, the Department of Homeland Security (DHS) issued a warning Monday to watch out for “malicious cyber activity” trying to take advantage of people's charitable giving after the hurricane.
"Users are advised to exercise caution in handling any email with subject line, attachments, or hyperlinks related to Hurricane Harvey, even if it appears to originate from a trusted source," the DHS warning said. "Fraudulent emails will often contain links or attachments that direct users to phishing or malware-infected websites."
To make sure you don't fall for a hurricane-related phishing scam, the DHS says to avoid following unsolicited web links in emails, opening email attachments, and to keep your antivirus and other computer software up to date. If you receive an email from what seems like a nonprofit seeking donations, contact the organization directly to make sure it really exists (you can also check to see if it's listed on this national charity report).
In general, it's best to always be skeptical of random emails with attachments or links, as they're often easy ways to spot a cyber scam. But it doesn't hurt to be extra vigilant when there's an even higher risk than usual of phishing scams circulating.
If you're donating your money to help victims of Hurricane Harvey, you want to make sure it actually gets to the people who need it. To start, check out this list of local and national organizations assisting Harvey victims if you want to give financial help.
And remember: Don't open sketchy emails or send your money to people or organizations you've never heard of.
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Update: August 29, 2017: Get ready to go gold. Beginning today, you can sign up for Tinder Gold, the dating app's premium service, to see who has liked you in addition to getting all the extras already available with Tinder Plus. The service was previously testing in select countries only.
This article was originally published on June 28, 2017.
If you're a serial swiper (we see you, people in elevators/the subway/in restaurants when your date is in the bathroom), you might like this news.
This morning, Tinder announced that it is launching a velvet-rope, VIP-type experience called Tinder Gold. The premium service will give users access to all the features already included in Tinder Plus — like Passport, Rewind, Unlimited Likes, five Super Likes per day, and one Boost per month.
The brand-new part? A feature called Likes You. Likes You lets you see who's swiped right on you instantly, so you can match — and actually start talking — faster. "As this test feature is integrated, double opt-in will continue to be an essential part of the Tinder experience, meaning both users have to swipe right for a match to be made and for them to be connected," according to a statement from Tinder.
"Tinder Gold members are interested in taking advantage of all the features Tinder has to offer," Brian Norgard, the company's chief product officer, said in a statement. "They’re using the app to meet new people, and Likes You makes that easier and more efficient than ever by letting users know when someone is interested. Likes You builds on previous features like Boost to help users optimize their time — and go from matching in app to getting together in the real world."
Tinder Gold will start testing in Argentina, Australia, Canada, and Mexico in the next few days, and Tinder hopes to roll it out to users in other countries soon, according to a company blog post.
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Furnishing a room from scratch can feel like a shot in the dark: Even after you've contorted yourself on the floor trying to measure different spaces, and then found Ikea furniture you think will fit those specifications, it's hard to picture how things will really look in your apartment — until, that is, you've ordered, unboxed, and assembled.
So it felt like something close to Hogwarts-level wizardry last week when Michael Valdsgaard, Ikea's Leader of Digital Transformation, opened an app on his phone and plopped various pieces of (virtual) furniture onto the empty rug in front of him. Without measuring anything, Valdsgaard was able to select a chair, then a bed, and see how both 3D, true-to-scale pieces, "fit" on his rug on his screen.
This version of magical, virtual furnishing is part of Ikea's upcoming Place app, one of the first apps to use Apple's new ARKit technology. The software, part of iOS 11, makes it easy for developers to create augmented reality experiences that anyone with an iPhone can use and play with.
IKEA Compressed
Augmented reality (AR for short) has been hailed as the future of technology because it has far fewer barriers to entry than virtual reality. Part of that is because AR doesn't require you to invest in a bulky headset or hold controllers — you only need your phone. If you tried out Pokémon Go when it launched last summer, or you've used world lenses on Snapchat, you've already experienced AR. The rapid success of both speaks to how much we like playful, virtual enhancements to the world we live in. It's exciting to see our worlds transformed, and the fact that you only need your phone for this to happen means AR can also be extremely practical.
Whereas virtual reality places you in a virtual world, such as on a beach in the middle of nowhere, augmented reality brings virtual objects and characters into the world around you. On Apple devices, ARKit is the tech that makes this interaction between the virtual world and real world possible.
Of course, Ikea isn't the only company making use of the software. In addition to furnishing your new kitchen from your phone using AR, you'll be able to shoot virtual zombies in The Walking Dead: Our World, an app from Next Games and AMC, and create animated GIFs that fill up a friend's entire room in Giphy's Giphy World app.
For The Babysitter
Apple also isn't the only company to bring AR to smartphones. Today, Google announced its own version of ARKit called ARCore, which will let developers create augmented reality apps for Android devices. Apple's ARKit-built apps will come to your iPhone as soon as iOS 11 officially rolls out to the public sometime this fall; ARCore, meanwhile is rolling out as a preview starting today.
If The Walking Dead AR app is any indication of what's to come, you can probably expect Netflix, HBO, and Amazon to release their own AR apps that will immerse you in its shows. Who knows, you could find yourself spotting White Walkers outside your apartment as the cold winter months begin.
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When Louisiana was hit with catastrophic floods a year ago — an event regarded as the "worst U.S. disaster since Hurricane Sandy" — 84,000 people took to Snapchat over 96 hours with submissions to the app's Our Story. It was a powerful, first-hand glimpse at the tragedy for those who weren't there and couldn't fathom what was taking place.
Now, as Houston continues to face fierce floods and rainfall from Hurricane Harvey, Snapchat has shown its value in unexpected ways. On Sunday, the University of Houston's Houston Public Media advised trapped Houstonians to use the app's Snap Map to monitor what was going on around them. If you head to Snap Map right now, you'll see that the Houston area is covered by a bright red heat spot — an indication that huge volumes of Snaps are being submitted at once. Tap that and you're met with sobering glimpses at what's happening in Houston: Residents attempting to wade through water up to their hips; dogs alone in front yards; a YMCA building is completely flooded.
Our Story - Harvey
Over the course of 86 hours — from Thursday morning (when preparations for the storm were underway) through Sunday night — between 250,000 and 300,000 Snaps were submitted to the Hurricane Harvey Our Story. A massive 100,000 Snaps were submitted to the Story yesterday alone. This is considerably higher than the number of Snaps that have been submitted for other natural disaster news stories, a Snapchat spokesperson said. The app is continuing to receive thousands of submissions by the hour. On Sunday, it added a link to the ongoing Harvey Our Story that connects people to the donations page for the Red Cross.
The extent to which the Harvey Our Story has aided in relief efforts is unclear. But the tragedy does show how Snap Map, a product launched just over two months ago, can be used in times of disaster. It's a first response social media tool without parallel — so long as users are submitting Snaps publicly, anyone can see areas where power has gone out, where people are trapped, and when rescues are taking place — all in real time. (Though there are of course privacy concerns about a tool that shares so much private information.)
For those who are in Texas and want to show only select family members and friends they're safe, go to the Map's settings, and specify which friends can see your location. Like Facebook's Safety Check, it's a way to let people know altogether, rather than fielding individual inquiries.
For more ways you can contribute to Houston relief efforts, head here.
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Six cybersecurity firms came together today to announce that they successfully took down a network of apps that turned Android smartphones into cyber weapons.
Mashable reports that the malware, called WireX, was hidden in about 300 apps available for download in the Google Play Store. While they appeared to be pretty unassuming ringtones and video-playing apps, the programs were actually using smartphones to attack websites via a complex botnet intended to fake internet traffic and overload websites.
According to security site KrebsOnSecurity, the attack reached about 70,000 phones. However, Mashable notes that the number could be much, much higher. The site also notes that Google has been working to remove the malicious apps from the store and has already started the long process of pulling each one it can find.
"We identified approximately 300 apps associated with the issue, blocked them from the Play Store, and we're in the process of removing them from all affected devices," a spokesperson told Mashable. "The researchers' findings, combined with our own analysis, have enabled us to better protect Android users, everywhere."
Gary Davis, chief consumer security evangelist at McAfee, explains that Google's security breach puts many people at continued risk, since so many different phone manufacturers and service carriers use the platform. Because of that scope, it's difficult to offer consistent security updates across the board. Experts found WireX earlier this month and it's taken until now to get a hold of it.
“Seventy thousand was a safe bet," Chad Seaman, a senior engineer at Akamai told KrebsOnSecurity. "We saw attacks coming from infected devices in over 100 countries. It was coming from everywhere."
Davis also fears that WireX will set precedent for new attacks, since hackers now know that hiding their malicious code in safe-looking apps is an easy way to spread their software.
"The growth in mobile has made it a lucrative target for the bad guys," Davis added. "We expect to see more of these attacks and other types of attacks in the future as cyber criminals continue to realize success."
Experts say that an easy way to see if an app is legitimate or not is to check out its reviews. If anything there seems off, like tons of reviews that seem like they were written by robots or no reviews at all, it's best to stay away. They also note that this is only the beginning: This sort of cyber attack is only in its nascent stages and could grow to be more problematic in the future.
For an image to receive the coveted status of becoming an official emoji, it needs to satisfy multiple requirements set forth by the Unicode Consortium, the nonprofit that reviews all emoji applications.
Among the factors taken into account are: expected usage level, image distinctiveness, and compatibility with apps that regularly use emoji, such as Snapchat and Twitter. But it's also important that the emoji have references beyond its most literal meaning. The example that Unicode offers applicants is a shark, which can be used as the large saltwater fish, or, more creatively, to describe a card shark or loan shark. (Whether or not Unicode predicted how users would interpret the eggplant — which is, at heart, just a vegetable — is up for debate.)
But beyond metaphorical meanings, there are also the emoji that we think mean one thing, but were actually intended for other uses. The peace sign? Nope, it isn't actually a peace sign. The angry face blowing steam? Nope, it isn't actually angry.
Click through to see 18 of the most surprising meanings behind your favorite emoji. If your mind is blown, you'll definitely want to check out the full dictionary here.
This article was originally published on August 16, 2016 at 5:20 p.m.
Looks like: Someone who is very sad.
Is really: A pensive face.
Use after: Watching the latest episode of Westworld or reading a fan theory about the show.
Photo: Apple.
Looks like: Someone who is really pissed off (hence the steam coming out of their imaginary nose).
Is really: A triumphant face.
Use after: Finishing a tough workout, winning an argument, or giving a kick-ass presentation at work.
Photo: Apple.
Looks like: Someone excitedly getting to work.
Is really: A person bowing deeply or apologizing.
Use when: Acknowledging that your friend was right and that you should have tried the new Thai place instead of the sushi spot you picked instead.
Photo: Apple.
Looks like: A flower with a pink design.
Is really: A fish cake, often made of pureed white fish in Japan.
Use when: You're actually eating a fish cake in Tokyo, or to tell someone that you're craving a pastry or cake (minus the white fish).
Photo: Apple.
Looks like: Someone who can't believe what they're hearing or seeing.
Apps can often prove unnecessary (how many ones for creating a to-do list do you really need?), but one area where they tend to excel is travel.
There are so many nuances to think about — planning flights, translating another language at a restaurant, settling costs after the trip — that having some help on your phone is a must.
It doesn't matter if you're taking a road trip, going backpacking, or heading to a resort for some spa time: Having easy access to input from travelers who have come before you can be both educational and rewarding. You might have taken a more scenic route if you'd downloaded Yonder in advance, or saved hundreds of dollars on your flight with Hopper 's fare tracking. And when you're unsure of how to plan your daily itinerary in Bangkok or whether you're supposed to tip at dinner in Bali, the Google Trips app is your savior.
We've rounded up the top travel apps that will make every stage of your trip easier and more enjoyable. In this case, the right downloads are just as important as packing well. Bon voyage!
Check back each month for the latest travel apps we love.
Lonely Planet's new Trips app is part Instagram, part travel journal. It incorporates the social discovery elements of Instagram — you can find travelers to follow and see where they've explored recently — but is also a beautiful place to document your own adventures. You can create a story about your latest trip, adding photos, text, and maps to bring it alive. Bon voyage!
Trips by Lonely Planet, available on the App Store.
Packing for a quick overnight is easy. Packing for a week-long vacation to a foreign country — not so much. Packr canhelp. Create a new trip by entering your travel dates, destination, and activities. Then, let the app work its magic, creating an extensive list of everything you could possibly need. You'll also see the weather for your travel dates so you can plan more appropriately before heading to the airport.
Every travel lover should sign up for a code to join the new social network Marbl. After linking your Instagram profile to the app, you'll select your interests and choose at least three "bucket list" countries that you'd like to visit. From there, you'll see posts from other members of the Marbl community revealing hidden gems so that when you do head to one of your must-see spots, you'll know which coffee shop the locals go to.
Need a place to stay on the fly? Or just looking for cheap accommodations? Download Hostelworld. The app has listings for over 33,000 affordable accommodations in 170 countries. You can search by price, room type, desired facilities, and property type (bed and breakfast, apartments, camping, hotels, or hostels).
It doesn't matter if you're in an urban jungle or actual jungle: The Outbound will help you find the coolest outdoorsy activity nearby. Specify the activity — canoeing, rock climbing, photography, and straight chillin are among your options, or opt for curated picks. Either way, you'll get your nature fix.
When you've gotta go, you've gotta go. Flush exists for that very purpose. The app has over 190,000 public toilets listed around the world to help you find a spot in your time of need. It even has ratings so you know which ones are too dirty to go near and which ones are spotless.
Google has used its search expertise to create one of the best travel apps out there. Google Tripsis your pocket tour guide and the only one you'll need no matter where in the world you are. The entire app can be used offline (you can easily download all maps and tools), so you don't have to worry about losing service on a tiny road in the Spanish countryside.
Google Trips also pulls all your reservation information from your Gmail account, eliminating frantic searches for confirmation emails. For the world's top 200 cities, the app offers day plans: an itinerary of popular sites (factoring in the distance between them), mapped out for you. If you only want to follow that proposed itinerary for part of the day, the app will adjust to your schedule and help you find new spots to visit based on where you'll be the rest of the day.
Besides itineraries and reservation assistance, the app also includes essential facts, such as how much and when to tip, how to get from the airport to your hotel, and where to go in case of emergency — acting as a resource if you get into a sticky situation abroad.
Plus...
Photo: Courtesy Google.
Traveling with friends? Google's recent update to Google Trips make it easier to share your plans with friends. Just tap the arrow and you can share all your reservation details with your fellow travelers — or your always concerned parents back home.
Finding food at the airport can be a pain, but you can save time and get what you want with the Grab app. Search for the type of food you're in the mood for and Grab will show you the closest restaurants serving that food at the airport. You can order ahead through the app and, if you're traveling for work, easily transfer your receipts to Concur for expense reporting.
Lola Travel will take care of the hard work for you — finding a hotel and flights that are within your price range. After downloading the app, you'll create a profile, selecting what you prefer in a hotel room, which airlines you have miles with, and which hotels you like to stay at (you can also choose Airbnb). Then, a Lola agent will message with you about your trip, to help iron out details before and during, to make sure everything is on point.
Photo: Lola Travel.
If you want a very comprehensive way to compare all your travel options for getting from point a to point b, go with Rome2rio. The free app not only tells you bus, plane, train, and ferry routes, it also gives you an approximate price for each, meaning you can make the smartest and cheapest decision on the fly.
There are many apps that you can use to record different moments from your travels, but none are as all-inclusive and easy to use as Polarsteps. Allow the app to access your location and it will keep track of where you go and pull all of the information into a beautifully mapped journal of your adventure, complete with photos you took in different areas. All of the information is kept private, but you can choose to share your journey with friends, who can follow along. Plus, you don't need to worry about having service — the app will update when you're back online.
Finding activities to do is one thing, but finding activities that deserve a spot on your bucket list is another. If you want to know what the most bucket list-worthy adventures are in the place you're headed, download BUCKiTDREAM. The app lets you search by location or activity to find adventures that others have on their lists. Want to contribute your own or add a place to your list? You can do that, too.
Maybe you're looking for a good vintage shop in New York. Or perhaps you want tickets to the ballet in San Francisco. In either case, Mezi is here to help. The app is a virtual assistant who will help you find show tickets within your price range, book a new hotel room, and solve other travel needs as they arise.
Get insider info about the best spots to visit in 150 cities around the world with Stay.com 's app. The app has curated guides from local bartenders, chefs, fashionistas, and more. You can use their picks to assemble your own guide and save the locations to a map. Then, save those maps offline so you can view them even without Wi-Fi.
Citymapper, which works for most major cities in the US, Canada, and Europe, helps you plan your start-to-finish route, whether you're traveling by train, subway, bike, or car. But what really sets the app apart from Google Maps is the opportunity to share your ETA with someone else via text and let them track your location. Now you won't need to worry if you're running a bit behind on the way to the museum.
When you're driving in a strange city, it's hard to know how much time you should pay for at the parking meter. Destinations that seem nearby end up being farther than they appear and activities always end up taking longer than expected. Instead of worrying about extra fees or tickets, download the PayByPhone Parking app. The app, which works in most major cities in the U.S. and the U.K, lets you pay to extend your time via your phone, so you don't have to sprint back to your spot.
If you still prefer a hotel over Airbnb but don't want the standard experience you'd get at a big chain, find a boutique hotel through the Tablet Hotels app. You'll discover options that feel more local to the place you're in (like this Japanese hotel, located right on the borders of the Imperial Palace), and find exclusive in-app deals. You can earn everything from complimentary upgrades to drinks.
Trip.com has ideas for everyone. Select your interests when you first log in and you'll be presented with options for nightlife, outdoorsy adventures, historical monuments, or whatever else you're into. The best part: The app recommends ideas based on what the weather is at your location. So you can find something fun to do, even if it's rainy and gross outside.
Live out your rom-com dreams and travel like Cameron Diaz in The Holiday.Love, Home, Swap lets you specify what you're looking for (in my case, a ski lodge that has Wi-Fi and can house at least two people) and provides a full list of pad-swapping options. We can't promise that Jude Law will meet you on the other side, though.
If you're traveling by bus or train, Wanderu is the app to use. It's partnered with Amtrak, Greyhound, Peter Pan Bus Lines, and others to help you get the best deals whenever and wherever you're going.
Airports aren't the most relaxing places on earth, but airport lounges are a step in the right direction. LoungeBuddy will help you find the best lounge in your current airport (or the one you're heading to), and will show you reviews, amenities, and cost. For lounges that do cost money (some are free), you can pay for access directly through the app.
Trying to decide on a beautiful place to visit? Instagram is a logical place to start looking, but may prove challenging to pore through. Instead, use Sherpa. This invite-only app lets you browse (and share) photos you've posted to Instagram by geotagged location. Simply scroll through the feed for the app's most recently highlighted trips, then tap to scroll through the photos taken there. You'll definitely find some inspiration here.
Sherpa: The Social Travel Guide, available on the App Store.
Photo: Sherpa.
Stay on top of checking into your flight, gate changes, delays, and more with App in the Air. You can connect the app to your email account so that it automatically uploads your travel data. Then, you'll see information about weather and traffic leading up to your flight, as well as airport specifics. The best part is that it brings all of your flight details into one place, so you won't be hurrying to switch from your weather app to your e-ticket to your flight confirmation email.
Hopper has already earned raves from travelers and industry experts as the go-to app for finding the cheapest flight. In fact, Apple named it the best travel app of 2015. The app predicts when airfare prices will go up and lets you know when's the best time to book. But it's the app's latest update that really sets it apart: Now, Hopper's little bunny mascot tells you which flights are inconvenient (long layovers, airport changes), so you won't accidentally book that Bangkok trip with a next-day arrival.
Agoda ranks high on our list of accommodations apps because it offers a wide variety of options, from hostels to apartments to hotels. It's easy to filter your search by location, price, and requirements such as free cancellation or free breakfast. You can also get special booking deals that are exclusive to the app, and save your confirmation to your phone's wallet app so you don't have to worry about any reservation mixups.
Keeping track of who owes who what can create major headaches, but Splitwise makes it easy. Just create a trip, invite your friends (the app connects with your phone contacts), and add bills that need to be split amongst you. You can add pictures of receipts for your records, export the trip totals as a spreadsheet, and change currencies within the app.
No road trip is complete without Waze. The crowdsourced traffic app serves as a GPS and so much more. You can find the cheapest gas on your route, get automatically rerouted when there are troublesome road conditions, and share your ETA with friends. But the best part of the app is its traffic notifications, which are shared by fellow drivers and passengers so that you won't spend hours sitting in delays.
No matter how good a city's public transportation is, it can still be confusing when you're not a local. That's where Citymapper comes in. The transit app helps you find the fastest and easiest trip to your destination, whether it's by subway, bus, train, or taxi. You'll get real-time updates about delays; the app partners with multiple foreign cab companies to provide the most accurate travel options when you're abroad, too. While it's not available in all cities, most of the major ones (both U.S. and international) are covered.
The new app Whym is your answer to finding cool cultural events at the last minute. Intended for spur-of-the-moment travel, Whym helps you find cheaper tickets for museums, tours, and other city attractions. It's currently available in San Francisco, LA, San Diego, Las Vegas, London, Paris, Rome, and Barcelona.
Yonder puts a social-networking spin on travel. A community of enthusiastic and outdoorsy Yonderers post pictures and info about their own adventures so that you can find cool experiences wherever you are. You can see trending destinations, photos, and recommendations from locals that will help you get away from some of the more touristy, cliché options.
Google Translate just celebrated its 10th anniversary with a creative pop-up restaurant in New York that highlighted the app's coolest features. Our favorite: You can tap the camera icon and hold your phone over the piece of text you'd like to translate. This means that whether you're in New York or Paris, reading in another language has never been easier. Plus, the app just added 13 new languages, so now you can use it on your travels to even more exotic locales.
Facet is one of the coolest video platforms for travel. You can watch user-generated content from around the world, or, if you're on an adventure of your own, you can add a 10-second video for others to enjoy. Thanks to its new partnership with Departure Lounge, you can even book travel within the app. View a recording of the beautiful sunset in Cape Town, then buy your plane tickets pronto.
The Musement app is an easy way to find and book a range of events around the world, from a wine tasting in Venice to a skip-the-line tour of Doge's Palace. There are curated content selections (such as what to do on a rainy day), and also a "concierge" service that lets you ask a local expert for recommendations, reservations, and more.
Viator is all about giving you insider, VIP access to events on your vacation. The app has exclusive deals on prices, as well as the option to skip the lines at some in-demand tourist locations. It also offers same-day booking. The option to look for events on a day by day basis will simplify your planning.
Like Viator, Headout is a great app for getting discounts on day-of events. You can find stand-up paddle boarding trips, submarine tours, and more — and booking is easy and at your fingertips. Plus, if you invite friends to join, you'll earn credit when they book their first reservations in the app.
You check into your hotel and want to go for a walk, but where should you walk to? Use Detour, an app with curated, GPS-based audio walks in cities around the world. You'll see sites you might have otherwise missed, and get a taste of the local culture that you wouldn’t be able to get through tourist-geared walking programs. Plus, you can even listen to a preview of a tour to see if it’s the right one for you.
Finding parking in an unfamiliar city is usually a huge pain — not to mention pricey. ParkWhiz presents a helpful solution. The app not only identifies all the nearby parking, it also offers up to 50% off the garage price when you book in-app. Plus, you don't have to worry about losing a paper receipt, since everything is on your phone.
One of the little things that brightens each day is opening Snapchat and seeing which new filters are waiting for you to try out. You can go with a tried-and-true favorite such as the Coachella flower crown or become a one-eyed pirate for the day. But if you find yourself feeling like you'd like to try on more than the fifteen or so available filters, there's another app you need to download.
Snow, which launched in September 2015 from developer Camp Mobile, is very similar to Snapchat, but has far more (we're talking more than 100) filters.
Around our offices, Snow has induced laughs, squeals, and all sorts of childish giggles. It is pure, fantastical playfulness at its best. You can turn yourself into Minnie Mouse, a deer, a traffic cone (yes, really, a traffic cone), a puppy, a pineapple, a fried egg, a seedling — the options are endless, and oddly specific.
There are also cutesy animated characters, as well as color filters that you can choose from, which are similar to the ones available on Instagram.
Of course, not everything about Snow is perfect. There are some culturally insensitive filters such as a Native American headdress that, for obvious reasons, are best left unused. As with any social media, it's only fun so long as you stay respectful and considerate.
Like Snapchat, Snow faces that you send friends will self-destruct, and friends only have the option to replay a message once. There's also a Live category similar to Snapchat Story. Here you can post images that will last for 24 hours. But perhaps the best part of Snow, and something that is truly unique to the app, is that you can also share your filtered faces on Facebook and Instagram, in addition to sharing them with contacts of yours who use the app.
Click through to see some of our favorite app features and filters so far. Then try downloading the app for free from the App Store or Google Play to have some fun of your own.
This article originally ran June 30, 2016.
Snow's new scenic filters are geared towards different scenarios — there's one specific to food, another for the outdoors, and a millennial pink that's perfect for any scenario, but especially pretty for lifestyle shots.
Snow has a revamped Story section that looks very similar to Snapchat and Instagram Stories. Tap the "play" icon in the lower left-hand corner of the main camera screen. From there, you can watch featured stories and select which friends you want to have access to your Story.
Snow's latest filter is all about your hands. You'll see a new mask category that shows a heart over a hand. Select that and choose one of the eleven available options. Then open your hand in front of the camera to see a spinning pencil, foam finger, and other silly objects appear.
Access Snow's built-in self timer by tapping the three dots in the upper left-hand corner. You'll get a three second countdown that's useful whether you're taking an action shot, a selfie, or a portrait.
Snapchat has Boomerangs, but Snow has Gifs. Activate Gif mode by pressing the three intertwined circles along the bottom toolbar. Then, apply your filter of choice, film your gif, and pick a location or time tag.
Like Snapchat, Snow also lets you have group chats within the app. To access these from the main camera screen, tap chat in the bottom right-hand corner. You have the option to send video messages, choose from an extensive sticker collection, or, you know, just send a standard text.
Photo: Snow.
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Marc Jacobs wants you to get connected. On Wednesday, the designer released his first foray into wearables (and trust us, you will actually want to wear this) with the Riley hybrid smartwatch, that is as innovative as it is cool. Just when you thought you had seen everything smartwatches have to offer, Jacobs’ timepiece offers four different styles in the fashion-forward aesthetic the designer is known for, retailing at $175.
“I find technology hugely important to fashion,” Jacobs tells Refinery29. “But I don’t know how to engage with it as much as I wish I did.” So he did the next best thing and found people who could.
To celebrate the watch, Jacobs tapped David Hughes to photograph the campaign and a few New York-based influencers and professionals to act as his muses: Musician Alexis Jae, Youtuber Amanda Steele, dancer Charisma Glasper, editor and professor Amy Sall, plus, actress Ke’andra Samone to show us just how real people are able to put their smartwatch to work. Steele likes to use her smartwatch to take photos of her makeup looks with the remote camera button, and Jae uses hers to turn up (the volume), literally. The watch also boasts the ability to track your movements, give you your notifications, a find-your-phone ringer, auto updates, a second time zone, and sleep tracking.
Ahead, learn more about how the muses use their Riley hybrid smartwatch.
Alexis Jae
“The watch is so cute! I could use it for when I'm playing music and I'm too lazy to go on my phone or could use the mirror to fix or re-apply my lipstick.”
Charisma Glasper
“This watch controls my favorite things to do: selfies and music! While getting ready in the morning or randomly taking pics throughout the day, I'm set with my MJ Hybrid. And the best feature is Ring Your Phone for friends like me always misplacing their phone!”
Amy Sall
"The Marc Jacobs watch will help me reach my daily goal of making sure I make time reading and study.”
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Generation Z is the 20-and-under crowd of actresses, musicians, artists, and entertainers on the verge of ruling Hollywood. Meet the freshest faces in the industry and get ready to root for them as they rise to the top.
As peppy synth beats play in the background, Luna Blaise steps to the middle of the screen. Wearing ripped jeans, Converse sneakers, and a white T-shirt that says “Tokyo,” she launches into the opening lines of “Over You,” her first single. The music video, which is shot entirely in black and white, is simple: There are no theatrics or over-the-top costumes — it’s just Blaise singing and dancing. (Midway through the clip, she changes into a baggy sweatshirt with "No Filter" printed across the front. This sort of in-your-face irony is not lost on Gen Z, a demographic known for being extremely self-aware.)
Though the 5’6” Instagram star looks older than 15, her lyrics about falling in love for the first time are fitting for someone her age, full of references to prom and dreams of the future. It’s the stuff all great teenage years are made of, except that it’s unlikely Blaise is writing from firsthand knowledge: She explains that she has been homeschooled by her mom since she was 13 years old. This gives her the flexibility to turn her social media success into an acting and singing career.
“Trust me, I wanted to have the classic high school experience,” Blaise says. “But I guess that was not my path.”
Has sacrificing locker gossip and school dances been worth it? Over the past two years, Blaise has developed a loyal following of over half a million Instagram followers, an impressive number by any rising star’s standards. But that figure hasn’t translated to YouTube yet , where “Over You” has only accrued 243,700 views since being released this past February. There are also the personal challenges. With Instagram, Snapchat, and Twitter, constant contact between a star and their fans is expected and the lines between Blaise's job and her real life become increasingly blurry — something that's not easy to navigate as you're just coming in to your own.
“It’s work, doing social media," Blaise says. "Every day you have to make sure you post on this platform and that platform, and you have to make sure you’re active with all of your followers. It is a major job.”
Blaise explains that she never planned on being a social media star. When she was younger, she modeled for companies like Target, Macy’s, and McDonald’s, and transitioned into acting at the age of 12. In 2015, Blaise earned a recurring role as Nicole on the ABC comedy Fresh Off The Boat. At that point, her PR agent suggested she take her accounts public. Surprisingly, it wasn’t the primetime network TV sitcom that made her Insta-famous. It was the 2016 music video for a song anyone older than 16 has probably never heard of: “Sweatshirt.”
The single, recorded by Musical.ly star and Gen Z heartthrob Jacob Sartorius, is a throwback to a kind of John Hughes-style of teenage romance — boy sees girl, boy likes girl, girl is shy, boy professes love, boy and girl fall in love. (The sweatshirt part of the romance comes in on the chorus, out of Sartorius’ concern for his dream girl’s temperature: “Girl you can wear my sweatshirt, cuz you're the only one I hold and I don't want you to be cold.”) The music video currently has over 45 million views on YouTube. Blaise, who was only 14 at the time, doesn't sing or speak in the clip.
“I didn't really know how social media worked at the time, so when the video blew up, I was like, ‘Whoa, this is crazy, this is intense,’” Blaise says.
Blaise is unique because unlike many other pre-teen and teen stars, who have gotten their start through their YouTube channel or Musical.ly, she has largely grown and maintained her following through Instagram. One unfortunate side effect of Insta-fame was the flood of negative feedback, which was fast and furious as the video went viral. Blaise attributes it to appearing as Sartorius’ fictional love interest: he’s “this cute, little kid in social media [with] millions and millions of little girls who love him,” she says, and that wasn’t a recipe for winning fans. Teenage girls attacked her. Almost two years later, it still comes up: Google “Luna Blaise,” and one of the top related questions that pops up is “Who is Jacob Sartorius girlfriend?”
Instead of getting defensive, Blaise took the high road. Once people saw more of her on social media, they concluded she’s “not someone who is mean and involved in drama,” she says, and their comments took a turn. Now, Blaise, whose Instagram largely consists of Kylie Jenner-style selfies and posed snaps in front of colorful walls, reads mostly positive reinforcements below her photos.
Case in point: In response to a photo Blaise posted celebrating 500,000 followers, one girl commented, “Can you believe I used to hate you but now I love you??”
Blaise is Insta-famous, but she’s not your typical influencer. She’s not working with any brands, a key part of an influencer’s business. Right now, she doesn't make any money off of Instagram. When you consider that influencers with the same number of followers can make $2,000 to $3,000 per sponsored post, this is significant. Instead, Instagram is more of a tool for building her audience. Blaise's end goal is to become an established singer and actor, and while she isn't against brand partnerships, she wants to make sure she links up with ones that align with her image.
When asked what that image is, Blaise hesitates. This is fair — how many 15-year-olds can describe who they are, let alone talk about their personal brand?
“My brand is very...very teenager,” Blaise says. “Very light and happy, but then I also have my moody side. I don't really know.”
She turns to her mom for help, and Angelyna Martinez-Boyd chimes in with a more fully-formed answer: "Luna has an edgy looking side to her brand, which is completely who she is. Weirdly enough, she's got more of a New York edge as opposed to an L.A. edge."
Blaise has no plans to leave Hollywood for New York, but it could happen. Since she’s homeschooled, she isn’t tied to a specific school district. The majority of her friends are ones she’s met through the entertainment industry and on social media. “It’s literally like our high school,” Blaise says, explaining her friend group of fellow influencers on Instagram. “One person will start following the other person. You'll DM them and maybe one of your friends will be friends with them. You'll just click and connect.”
Still, for all of her success and the community she’s developed on Instagram, there are times when she thinks about what it would be like to have normal teenage years. The same goes for considering life beyond high school. When asked if she ever wants to go to college, Blaise says she does, but probably won’t.
“If that’s a job, being on my cell phone having fun, then that’s probably the best job I could ever ask for.”
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Taffy, a brand-new dating app, is hoping to make swiping for a mate (or hookup) a thing of the past.
While Tinder users may be accustomed to making decisions based solely on looks, Taffy won't show matches' faces until you've gotten to know them a little better. At first, users will interact with a blurry photo. The real thing gets revealed after what's supposed to be some meaningful interaction. It may seem strange, but the app's founder hopes to take dating away from the superficial.
According to Mashable, users initially see their matches as a blurred photo superimposed with a catchy headline. "Looking for a guy with a sense of adventure," for example. That adventurous guy would then hit up whoever put in the request and spark a conversation, sight unseen. Taffy offers up a bevy of different options, including "love," "chat," and "advice," so it's not strictly for dating. Users can utilize the app to make friends or just find people to talk to if they're not in the mood for love.
Photo: Courtesy of Taffy.
Like other dating apps, Taffy users can filter their results by age, location, and interest, but that won't change the fact that all initial conversations will be blurry. Taffy's founder, John Schenk, explains that the process "[puts] personality on a level playing field with physical appearances." He notes that after about 10 back-and-forth messages, the picture gets fully revealed, but adds that soon, the app's algorithm also looks at the quality of the conversation. Quick throwaway exchanges like, "Hello, how are you," won't make the cut.
The premise seems great on the surface, but users may not want to invest a lot of time into it only to see that they're not physically attracted to their matches. However, since Taffy just launched today for iOS (an Android version is still in the works), it's too early to see what sort of crowd it draws. Whatever happens, Schenk's refreshing approach to the wild world of dating does seem like a refreshing change.
In the lineup of virtual assistants available today — Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant, Bixby, Cortana — Siri is the OG of the group. Commonly referred to as a "she" (though it really is an "it"), Siri has been around since 2011, when it was introduced as part of iPhone 4s. Now, as Apple gets ready to officially release iOS 11 (and, according to rumors, new iPhones) to the public this fall, it's touting a new and improved Siri. One of the biggest and most noticeable changes: A new voice.
If you've talked to Siri in the past, as many of us have — Siri is used by over 375 million active devices each month and fields two billion requests every week — you know its voice has left much to be desired. Until now, answers have been monotone and lacked proper emphasis, and pronunciation mistakes have fueled many funny Tweets. With iOS 11, Siri sounds slightly more human-like: It has more inflection and changes in pitch, knows when to pause, and, with the female voice, sounds slightly brighter and peppier. You won't be fooled into thinking you're speaking with a real person when you're talking to Siri, but its new voice is less robotic. (Head here to compare a Siri recording from iOS 9 with one from iOS 11.)
This isn't to fault the woman who voiced the original American Siri, Susan Bennett. Bennett, who was never under contract with Apple, didn't know she was the voice of Siri until 2011 when a fellow voice actor emailed her after hearing the voice on an iPhone. When Bennett initially did the recordings in 2005 for the speech application company ScanSoft (now part of Nuance Communications), she thought she was just doing phone speaking work — the kind of recordings you hear when you call a company's customer service line.
For those wondering if Bennett came up with some of Siri's sassiest lines, she didn't. The phrases and sentences Bennett read came from provided scripts and were created to cover all manner of sound combinations. According to Bennett, every phrase had to be read in the exact same way, with identical pacing, tone, and pitch. "If I have any dead brain cells it's because of that," she told Refinery29 of the recording experience.
Of course, it's logical that a voice actor can't possibly read all of the answers a virtual assistant has to give, which is why something known as a text-to-speech system is used: This breaks up words into their various parts. Then, they can be recombined to form other responses.
Beginning with iOS 10, Apple started using more advanced, deep learning-based technology for the various Siri voices. An article penned by the Siri Team in Apple's Machine Learning Journal, explains this is what accounts for voices that are "more natural, smoother, and allow Siri's personality to shine through."
This new technology still required over 20 hours of speech recording — all provided by an unnamed new voice. "For iOS 11, we chose a new female voice talent with the goal of improving the naturalness, personality, and expressivity of Siri’s voice," the Siri team writes. "We evaluated hundreds of candidates before choosing the best one."
For her part, Bennett speculates the change could also be partially due to the fact that she (and other original Siri voices) didn't have a nondisclosure agreement with Apple. They could each promote themselves individually, making the voice less anonymous. But Bennett isn't too sad to see her voice leave iPhones around the world. Since she's still a working voice actor, it isn't necessarily a bad thing to disassociate herself from Siri.
"Unless you have a really unusual voice, people won't pay attention to your voice because they're listening for information, not the quality of the voice," Bennett says. "When that anonymous voice becomes a character or persona that lives in a phone, talking back and forth with you, you recognize it and anonymity disappears."
Apart from its new voice, the Siri coming with iOS 11 has gotten an IQ upgrade, the best part of which is its ability to directly translate phrases into French, Spanish, German, Italian, and Chinese. The new Siri will be available on iPhones, iPads, Macs, Apple TV, AirPods, and Apple Watch when iOS 11 rolls out this fall. Siri will also have a starring role on the most hyped Apple release of the year ( other than the iPhone): HomePod, a smart speaker coming this December.
Expect to hear a lot more from Siri and, as the battle for virtual assistant supremacy wages on, Alexa, Google Assistant, and the rest of the crew, too. At the very least, we can rest assured that there won't be any shortage of sources for cheesy jokes.
Ed. note: This piece has been updated to clarify that the Siri's new voice will be available when iOS 11 is officially released this fall. iOS 11 is currently in beta.
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The last long weekend of the summer is finally, and sadly, here. You may be asking yourself how you ever worked a full Friday before Memorial Day (bless the person who invented summer Fridays), and where exactly the last couple of months went. Weren't we just watching fourth of July fireworks?
But it isn't all gloom: Labor Day weekend brings blockbuster tech deals on everything from laptops to TVs and speakers. These are savings you probably won't see the likes of until Cyber Monday in November.
So before you jet off to savor the feeling of sand beneath your toes one last time this summer, shop these sales. Then sign off of your computer for good, until Tuesday rears its ugly head.
Microsoft
In addition to sales on wireless earbuds and PCs, you can save big on package deals for Microsoft's Surface line of products. With the Surface Pro Essentials Bundle, you get a Surface Pro, your pick of type cover and protective sleeve, a year-long subscription to Office 365, and an extended service plan to protect you against coffee spills. Depending on which type cover and Office 365 package you choose, you can save up to $159.
Microsoft Surface Pro Essentials Bundle, as little as $1,068 (originally $1,227), available at Microsoft.
Casetify
Give your phone a makeover with Casetify's limited edition Sarah Jessica Parker collaboration. Spend over $30 on the site and get 15% off with the code LABORDAY17. But act fast — this deal is only active for the next 24 hours.
Sarah Jessica Parker x Casetify, $29.75 (originally $35), available at Casetify.
Dyson
There's only a bit of summer left, but that doesn't mean you can't plan ahead for next year. From now through September 16, save on Dyson's powerful, super quiet fans.
Dyson AM07 Tower Fan, $319.99 (originally $399.99), available at Dyson.
BestBuy
Labor Day is BestBuy's major home appliance sale. While many of the products are bigger buys, such as fridges and ovens, there is also a massive sale on every baker's must-have: KitchenAid's best-selling stand mixer.
KitchenAid Tilt-Head Stand Mixer, $199.99 (originally $399.99), available at BestBuy.
Target
If frequent trips to the beach this summer has led to sand in unwanted places (i.e. your apartment), Target's Labor Day floor care sale can help. Save on scores of vacuums, including this cordless one from Dyson.
Dyson V6 Animal Cord-Free Stick Vacuum, $349.99 (originally $499.99), available at Target.
Dell
In addition to deals on PCs and speakers, Dell is offering massive markdowns on top TVs. Save $200 on this 4K Samsung Smart TV, and use it to stream reruns of Game of Thrones in all its big screen bloody glory.
Samsung 55" Curved 4K Ultra HD Smart TV, $799.99 (originally $999.99), available at Dell.
HP
Need a new laptop? HP has you covered with up to 50% off some of its best-sellers, including this touchscreen option with a 4K display.
HP Envy Laptop 15t touch, $679.99 (originally $949.99), available at HP.
JBL
Fall camping trips and hikes demand tunes. Save on JBL's waterproof portable speakers now through September 2.
JBL Charge 3, $129.95 (originally $149.95), available at JBL.
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In the words of acclaimed male model Derek Zoolander, "there's a lot more to life than being really, really, ridiculously good looking." Right now, one man might understand this better than anyone else: Alexandre Robicquet.
Robicquet is one of the faces of Yves Saint Laurent's new Y fragrance for men, but don't let the campaign fool you into thinking its his full-time job. Quite the opposite: Robicquet is a research assistant and graduate student in the Artificial Intelligence department at Stanford University. He works under Sebastian Thrun, the founder of Google X, a secretive research innovation lab. One of the research projects listed on Robicquet's Stanford profile describes using AI to detect early stages of cancer.
Robicquet also appreciates poetry. In an interview with Hunger, the AI researcher/model advises anyone looking to find their creative path to "Read the poem ‘If’ by Rudyard Kipling."
But this cancer-curing, poetry-reciting model is just like the rest of us with a job. Case in point — he gets the Monday struggle.
The Verge calls attention to the AI community's excited, if hesitant, response to Robicquet's YSL campaign and even questions what it means. Could Robicquet be the first artificial intelligence crossover star? The new double threat? In response to one tweet showing a photo from the campaign, a machine learning researcher notes that it resulted in "quite a buzz in our office today" and made "a few consider other career options."
Robicquet's career isn't exactly hidden in the video for the campaign, either. We see him briefly coding, and then seemingly presenting his research findings to an audience. The video also stars two other men, whose artistic careers fall in more expected realms. Loyle Carner, shown writing and recording music, is a rapper, and David Alexander Flinn, shown moodily walking around his creation, is a sculptor and filmmaker.
Fashion, beauty, and tech have become increasingly intertwined in recent years, but this instance of researcher as model feels like a small cultural moment for the tech community. While it's unlikely we'll start seeing coders walking the runway at fall fashion shows (or we might, who knows?), it isn't outlandish to think that we'll start seeing more of them in the public eye.
One thing's for sure: The stereotype of the lonely programmer in his dark basement is starting to break.
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First came the confetti, lasers, and fireworks, now come the echoes and spotlights. This is not a reference to Coachella (though these effects wouldn't be out of place there), but rather your iPhone's screen effects.
Screen effects, which Apple launched last year as part of iOS 10, let you send messages with playful, animated embellishments. After typing your message, press and hold the send button to launch "Send with effect" and toggle to "screen" on the right.
The beta version of iOS 11, available now to anyone who has enrolled in the free sign-up and downloaded the software, has two new effects: Spotlight and Echo. It's the latter of these that has gotten a lot of attention from beta testers on Twitter.
The echo effect multiplies anything you send, be it text, an emoji, or a photo. The recipient will see frame after frame of your image pile on top of each other — it fills the entire screen. This has the potential to be funny and incredibly obnoxious, while also raising some interesting questions should you open that echoing message in a public place: If you know someone is at work, you probably don't want to send nudes with an echo effect or even a single swear word.
Luckily, the animation (which you can, like others, replay) will end after about three seconds.
iOS 11 is dope for the echo screen lmao I’m bouta be mad annoying with it
The Slam and Loud effects that currently exist to enlarge your text bubble may quickly become obsolete, should echo roll out in the final version of iOS 11, but we'll know more about that on Sept. 12. Because if you want to make a message really stand out, you need only to have it appear 20 plus times on your recipient's screen. That should do the trick.
Word to the wise: Starting the Echo with one friend will likely ignite an Echo war of epic proportions.
It's true, this particular text effect could old really fast, especially with over-eager Echo users. If you're sending the heart emoji, though, it's a nice way to make your love resonate.
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