Car parking apps have become a confusing nightmare – and seem to typify our lost productivity. CC-licensed photo by Sam Saunders on Flickr.
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It’s Friday, so there’s another post due at the Social Warming Substack at about 0845 UK time.
A selection of 9 links for you. Applied. I’m @charlesarthur on Twitter. On Threads: charles_arthur. On Mastodon: https://newsie.social/@charlesarthur. On Bluesky: @charlesarthur.bsky.social. Observations and links welcome.
What parking apps tell us about the UK • How to Survive the Internet
Jamie Bartlett:
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I read one study which found drivers typically touch their screen 200 times simply to park. The streets of modern Britain are littered with confused motorists, staring at their phone, wondering why they need a PhD in computing just to park the car. Dreaming of happier times when all they needed was card or cash, and could then happily go about their day.
Parking apps are merely a symptom of a bigger problem. You could apply the lessons across our entire economy.
First, we confuse automation and app-building with progress. The built-in assumption is that it will, as if by magic, make life simpler. But how? And for whom? It’s not always the users of said technology.
A recent survey of over 1,000 motorists in 2023 found that 83% preferred card or cash payments to apps. Other polls find something similar. A decent chunk – older drivers, those with additional needs – felt discriminated against because they can’t always use them at all.
It doesn’t surprise me. I’ve met people who are now afraid of driving, in case their destination provokes a series of uneasy interactions with their phone.
It’s not just parking apps. Plenty of people dislike customer service bots, online banking, pub apps, online sign-up forms – but feel they have no choice. Because this is how we do things now. Get with the programme Rita or get left behind! Re-train!
There is an alternative of course, which is simply leaving things as they are. But we don’t do that here. That would not be ‘forward looking’ or ‘progressive’. That would not be ‘modern Britain’.
It would be understandable at least if our apps and endless online demands always worked. But our 5G is patchy; our internet speeds middling; our websites crash; the train plug sockets are out of action, etc.
There are so many hidden costs to digitisation, and most are passed on to the consumer. I call this ‘techno-admin’. Large firms use automation to cut staff and reduce administrative overheads, especially when it comes to customer service. But what they have actually done is outsource the admin work to the customer. We are the ones now form-filling, changing passwords, self-serving, and (this is the worst bit) fixing errors. I sometimes wonder if the UK’s productivity problem – which has flatlined since 2010 – is partly caused by a surge in techno-admin.
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This is absolutely a big, and exhausting, thing. In its dying days the Tory government said it would unify parking apps. This was the National Parking Platform, which had actually been in progress since 2019, and is still not rolled out.
But Bartlett’s general point is also correct: the balkanisation of effort is as distracting, and delaying, as trying to write something while having emails pinging into one half of your screen. Where’s your productivity gone? Into the void.
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Motor tech firm behind London buses project enters administration • BusinessCloud
Jonathan Symcox:
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The startup behind a government project to convert London buses to hydrogen fuel cell power has entered administration.
Aeristech Limited, based in Leamington Spa, is a manufacturer of high-powered compressors for hydrogen fuel cells. Begbies Traynor has been appointed as its administrator.
Last year Project HEIDI was awarded £6.3m in government funding for a hybrid powertrain project intended to transform the future of public transport via cutting-edge electronics and energy recovery technologies.
It was match-funded by participants in the project – Aeristech, Bramble, University of Bath and Equipmake – to a total of £12.7m, with the aim of retrofitting these hydrogen fuel cell electric systems into London’s red double-decker buses.
Aeristech was commissioned to design, develop and deliver a 20kW turbo-expander air compressor that will recover heat and pressure with frictionless oil-free air bearing technology and a high-speed 90k rpm motor and controller.
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Folks, I think it might be time to acknowledge that hydrogen isn’t going anywhere as a replacement fuel source. The “replace gas in boilers with hydrogen” (yikes) scheme got shut down; now this. Looks like we’re hanging it all on fusion. In which case.. oh dear.
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Why smart home devices should carry software support expiration dates • The Verge
Jennifer Pattison Tuohy:
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The good news is that most smart appliances are designed to carry out their primary function without an internet connection, so the simple fix when they’ve reached the end of their “smart” life is to disconnect them from Wi-Fi and carry on. This should make sure your aging smart thermostat doesn’t become the equivalent of an extra on The Walking Dead — no longer alive but capable of great harm.
However, in most cases, devices like Wi-Fi routers, smart speakers, and streaming sticks won’t work unless they’re online. If these devices aren’t getting security updates, you should stop using them immediately. Just this week, Taiwanese router maker Zyxel said it wouldn’t patch two actively exploited vulnerabilities found in its routers and told customers to stop using them.
But how are you supposed to know when your smart home gadget has reached this fragile state? And wouldn’t you have liked to know this was going to happen before you purchased it? Ideally, companies need to publicize how long they’ll support products and warn consumers once their devices are no longer secure.
A new survey from Consumer Reports published this week shows — somewhat unsurprisingly — that over 40% of Americans had no idea that their smart gadgets might lose software support one day. And nearly 70% of the 2,130 people surveyed believe that smart appliances such as fridges, washing machines, and ovens should continue to work even after losing support.
The consumer advocacy publication is calling for companies to provide a minimum guaranteed support timeframe for any connected product — an expiration date, so to speak.
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Perhaps you’re thinking “wait, I didn’t see that Zyxel warning in The Overspill earlier this week!” That’s because I didn’t notice it. Like most people wouldn’t have. Great that we now have a new form of planned obsolescence, eh?
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Apple prototypes tabletop robot with lifelike movements ahead of rumored launch by 2027 • MacRumors
Joe Rossignol:
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A team of robotics researchers at Apple have designed and prototyped a lamp-like robot with lifelike movements, according to a blog post and accompanying video published last month on the Apple Machine Learning Research website. The lamp, which reminds us of the cute Pixar mascot Luxo Jr., may hint at Apple’s future plans.
The video shows the robot interacting with a person in a lifelike manner. For example, the person asks the robot what the weather is like that day, and the robot looks out the window before responding with the forecast. The person says they will probably go for a hike that day, but the robot looks sad when it finds out it is not invited.
In a different scenario, the robot responds to the person’s hand gestures by moving to provide desired lighting for iPhone photography.
In another, the robot pushes a mug on a desk towards the person to remind them to drink water.
Later in the video, the robot observes the person building a 3D printer and projects a relevant tutorial video on the wall.
And finally, the robot plays music and dances along to it as a social companion.
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The intention of a robot that reacts “emotionally” – which the researchers say is the purpose – is.. fine? But I don’t get how it’s an improvement on normal lights (such as an Anglepoise) or a screen or a HomePod.
Still, never mind – Apple’s put this on a rush schedule, so we’ll see it in only two years.
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DeepSeek is “TikTok on steroids,” senator warns amid push for government-wide ban • Ars Technica
Ashley Belanger:
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Lawmakers are now pushing to immediately ban the Chinese chatbot DeepSeek on government devices, citing national security concerns that the Chinese Communist Party (CCP) may have built a backdoor into DeepSeek to access Americans’ sensitive private data. If passed, DeepSeek could be banned within 60 days.
DeepSeek shocked the world when it debuted last month. Rumored to rival OpenAI’s o1 reasoning model despite costing significantly less to develop, DeepSeek’s open source model is free to download. That propelled its popularity, making DeepSeek the most-downloaded app in the US.
As DeepSeek was rapidly installed on an increasing number of US phones, research emerged yesterday suggesting that DeepSeek is linked to a Chinese telecom company, China Mobile. In an analysis shared with AP News, Ivan Tsarynny, the CEO of Feroot, revealed that DeepSeek apparently hid code that sends user login information to China Mobile.
China Mobile, lawmakers noted, was “banned by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) for use in the United States.”
“It’s mindboggling that we are unknowingly allowing China to survey Americans and we’re doing nothing about it,” Tsarynny told AP News.
Tsarynny’s analysis prompted bipartisan legislation announced today from US Representatives Josh Gottheimer (D-N.J.) and Darin LaHood (R-Ill.). Their bill, the “No DeepSeek on Government Devices Act,” will be introduced today to address what they consider an “alarming threat to US national security.”
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Wouldn’t be a Congressional session without a bit of bipartisan panic about something foreign. By the way, how’s that TikTok US forced sale coming along?
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How Onlyfans took over the world • Knowingless
“Aella”:
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Onlyfans lends its design towards isolating the men from each other. If you’re a horny dude, the existence of other horny dudes is a fleeting shadow, a ghost only hinted at implicitly through seeing ‘like’ counts on photos or occasionally subscriber count numbers, for the rare girls who make it public.
From the girls’ perspective, OF is designed to make this easy. There’s a bunch of settings for mass messages and filtering of who gets those messages, so that a thousand brand new men may at once receive the blessed ‘hey babe, u up?’, a virtual realgirl gazing directly into their own eyes, just him and her, horny, together, forever.
…“You have to set your monthly subscription price to $5”, [Leo, who set up Onlyfans] said. I didn’t like this idea, I was at $19 and didn’t want to seem like I was devaluing myself. “No, we have the data. Girls’ incomes steadily increase as you drop the subscription price, up to about $5, but below that they decrease again.”
He was running a very different business model than me. I saw a monthly subscription price as an important part of my income, but he viewed it as trivial. The real money was in the DMs [direct messages], upselling was the goal. The purpose of a $5 monthly sub price was to be low enough to get as many men as possible, but high enough to filter out the men who were too stingy to spend anything in DMs. You didn’t want your minimum wage warehouse workers wasting valuable time by trying to sell to a guy who wasn’t going to put out, after all.
I couldn’t see it at the time, but he had touched on the same principle that caused camgirls to earn more through tips (as opposed to a flat minute rate). Building your business model around a monthly subscription results in a ceiling on how much each guy is willing to pay. If your model is custom-milking every guy with direct, responsive connection, the sky’s the limit.
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Another example of the internet creating business models that just couldn’t be done before it.
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Could the bird flu become airborne? • The New York Times
Carl Zimmer:
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Dr. Herfst and his colleagues discovered that a few mutations allowed H5N1 to become airborne. Genetically modified viruses that carried those mutations spread from one cage to another [unconnected one] in three out of four trials, making healthy ferrets sick.
When the scientists shared these results in 2012, an intense debate broke out about whether scientists should intentionally try to produce viruses that might start a new pandemic. Nevertheless, other scientists followed up on the research to figure out how those mutations allowed influenza to spread through the air.
Some research has suggested that the viruses become more stable, so they can endure a trip through the air inside a droplet. When another mammal inhales the droplet, certain mutations allow the viruses to latch on to the cells in the animal’s upper airway. And still other mutations may allow the virus to thrive in the airway’s cool temperature, making lots of new viruses that can then be exhaled.
Tracking the flu among humans proved harder, despite the fact that roughly a billion people get seasonal influenza every year. But some studies have pointed to airborne transmission. In 2018, researchers recruited college students sick with the flu and had them breathe into a horn-shaped air sampler. Thirty-nine% of the small droplets they exhaled carried viable influenza viruses.
Despite these findings, exactly how influenza spreads through the air is still unclear. Scientists cannot offer a precise figure for the percentage of flu cases caused by airborne spread versus a contaminated surface like a doorknob.
“Very basic knowledge is indeed missing,” Dr. Herfst said.«
Flu seems to be different from Covid: the latter is surely airborne, but flu seems to be both. (Thanks Joe S for the link.)
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French train passenger fined €150 for using phone on speaker • The Local, France
Emma Pearson:
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A passenger on the French rail network SNCF has revealed that he received a €150 fine for using his phone on loud speaker within a train station.
The passenger, named only as David, told French TV channel BFM that he was on the phone to his sister while waiting at Nantes station when the SNCF staff member told him to switch his phone’s loud speaker off, or risk being fined.
When he argued, he was served with the €150 fine, which has been increased to €200 because he did not pay it immediately. David says he intends to hire a lawyer to contest the fine.
SNCF confirmed the fine, although its version said that David had been in a waiting room of the station.
A company spokesman told Le Parisien that he was issued with the fine for disturbing other passengers, saying: “If he had played music at a high volume, it would have been the same thing.”
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Got off lightly. There are people in the UK who would like to institute the death penalty for sodcasting, as it’s known.
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Total cost of ownership of heat pumps and policy choice: the case of Great Britain • ScienceDirect
Jan Rosenow, Jacob Barnes et al:
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Using Great Britain (GB) as a case study, this paper examines the total cost of ownership (TCO) for heat pumps versus gas boilers. TCO is calculated using official energy statistics, field trial data, and residential energy prices, alongside scenario analyses on business as usual, shifting levies from electricity bills to general taxation or to gas bills.
Findings reveal that heat pumps provide cost savings for units performing at an above-average efficiency under standard tariffs but yield significant savings with smart tariffs. Results indicate that a carbon tax on gas, matching electricity permit prices, has limited impact.
However, shifting levies from electricity to general taxation significantly enhances TCO compared to gas heating, with even greater incentives when levies are shifted to gas heating.
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The researchers are at the universities of Oxford, Cambridge and Exeter. Their suggestion could be tricky to implement – shifting green taxes from electricity tariffs to the general tax burden or to gas tariffs would not be popular until you had a lot of heat pumps already installed.
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| • Why do social networks drive us a little mad? • Why does angry content seem to dominate what we see? • How much of a role do algorithms play in affecting what we see and do online? • What can we do about it? • Did Facebook have any inkling of what was coming in Myanmar in 2016? Read Social Warming, my latest book, and find answers – and more. |
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The Overspill: when there's more that I want to say 