Potential Apple Maps car sighting back in February. (YouTube)
As Apple continues on its daunting task of improving Apple Maps’ reputation, the company is looking to the streets. Specifically, it’s trying out that whole Street View thing Google has been doing, sending out vehicles equipped with cameras to snap photos of the world’s highways and byways.
“Some of this data will be published in future Apple Maps updates,” the company’s site says, including a list of locations where the vehicles will be snapping photos between June 15-30.
In case you’re new to how maps work when they include a street view, Apple is reassuring people they won’t be put on blast to the world.
“We are committed to protecting your privacy while collecting this data. For example, we will blur faces and license plates on collected images prior to publication,” the company explains.
Apple Maps debuted in 2012 and was met with almost universal derision for its inaccuracies, glitches and general bugginess. It was so bad that Apple CEO Tim Cook offered a formal apology, urging users to download third-party applications to navigate while the company tried to smooth things out.
In another sign that Apple is still hopeful someone out there is using its Maps, the company announced at its Worldwide Developers Conference keynote on Monday that had updated the app to include transit directions. And, it added, there are people out there using it, with Apple claiming it receives 5 billion requests from users per week.
Comcast is investing hundreds of millions of dollars in improving its public image (and hopefully its customer service), and part of that revamp is taking place in the newly relaunched Comcast support forums, where customers can get help from the people best poised to answer their questions: other Comcast customers.
Granted, there are also several Comcast employees answering questions on the new forums — including one who uses my “Have a Comcastic Day” photo from 2007 as his avatar, so at least he’s got a sense of humor — but the focus seems to be on a community of customers with know-how who can assist other customers in a wide variety of issues.
“We’re fortunate to have a small but passionate group of independent Experts who are customers just like you and are committed to help you with whatever question you might have,” writes Jared Schultheis, Comcast’s Executive Director of Customer Service Strategy & Operations. “These experts have helped us keep the community lively, and we hope this redesign is something they appreciate, too.”
The company is trying to encourage helpful customer feedback with a list of “Top Kudoed Authors” for non-employee posters who get the most virtual high-fives for their responses.
Comcast says it has also improved its forum search ability to suggest topics in real time as you type.
Any change that Comcast makes to respond to customers’ problems more efficiently is a good thing, even if it relies in part on other customers stepping up to help out.
Not a Boston goat, but a goat enjoying his work nevertheless. (jasonschwarz)
We’ve learned recently that all you need to get people pumped up about a landscaping plan is hire a couple of four-footed workers to do what they already like doing, munching away on vegetation. After a successful season last summer using ruminants as landscapers, Boston is expanding its plan this year, adding more goats at more city locations in need of tending.
Picking up where it left off last summer, Boston is contracting one herd of goats to continue clearing out overgrown brush and invasive plants at an urban wild in Hyde Park, reports the Boston Globe, while two other groups will be munching away at George Wright Golf Course.
A spokesman from the city’s Parks and Recreation Department said officials were impressed by how last year’s herd chomped through vegetation we humans don’t like at parks, like poison ivy and buckthorn.
“Because of the success last year, we decided to continue the Goatscaping program,” he said. “It was a dreary-looking space filled with poison ivy. Six weeks later it was an opened-up field.”
The park goats will head to work on July 6, while their colleagues will head to the golf course two weeks later. Golfers won’t get to just hang out with the caprine workers, as the goats will be sectioned off by solar-powered electric fences. After the park goats finish up on July 31, they’ll join their pals at the golf course.
Goats can be awesome in these situations because some spots are hard for humans to get to and in major need of tending, the parks spokesman adds. Plus, goats are silent, but effective.
“Bringing in the goats will let us open those areas up, and we won’t have the noise from the heavy machinery,” he said. “They eat these plants and remove all of the harmful oils and seeds and produce a clean and natural fertilizer to the landscape.”
The co-owner of Goatscaping Co., the company that rents out the goats to the parks department, says the animals have been a hit.
“The biggest surprise for us was how much the neighborhood embraced it,” she said. “People just really enjoyed it.”
Portland and Chicago have both used goats and other animals in the past for similar work, clearing out overgrown shrubbery to the general delight of all. Machine lawn mowers just aren’t as cute.
Back in 1992-93, my senior year of high school, every supermarket and convenience store in the Orlando area seemed packed to the gills with Crystal Pepsi. But almost as quickly as the clear cola appeared on the scene, it had vanished into the ether to join other failed fizzy drinks in the soda afterlife. But some still hold fond memories of Crystal Pepsi’s brief time among mortals and it looks like the product may be due for a return from the grave.
AdAge notes that competitive eater (and Crystal Pepsi fan) Kevin Strahle recently Tweeted that he’d received a letter from Pepsi (on Crystal Pepsi letterhead no less), saying that “We’ve had customers ask us to bring back their favorite products before, but never with your level of enthusiasm and humor.”
The letter concludes by teasing that “We definitely hear you and your followers and we thing you’ll be happy with what’s in store… Stay tuned.”
A rep for PepsiCo confirmed to AdAge that the letter was genuine but would only say that “Crystal Pepsi fans are going to be happy with what we have planned,” without providing any actual details on what that plan might be.
However, it’s worth noting that Surge had only been off store shelves for about 12 years when it was brought back (momentarily) from the dead. Also, the drink had been on the market for about six years before being killed off. Compare that to Crystal Pepsi, which has been gone for more than 20 years and never really got past the initial marketing push.
The description now simply reads, “Turg looks like an experiment that’s gone very, very wrong! Part frog, part chicken, this Mixel has the longest tongue of them all.”
In yet another example of a company offending a whole lot of people in just a few words, LEGO is apologizing for branding a toy in their online store as a “back-of-the-bus window-licker.” “Window licker” is known as a derogatory term for people diagnosed with learning disabilities.
The toy named “Turg” is part of the Mixels line, and was described as looking like an “experiment that’s gone very, very wrong,” reports the BBC. “Part frog, part chicken, part back-of-the-bus window-licker, this Mixel has the longest tongue of them all.”
We get it, he has a long tongue — but he could’ve easily been licking something else, like ice cream. Or a lollipop.
Those options would’ve gone over much better for the company, as the backlash over the phrase has people calling the company out on social media. For example, here and here.
“It is unacceptable that a toy company like Lego have used a term that offends people with a disability such as this, especially as the toy is aimed at children,” a representative from Mencap, a charity for people diagnosed with learning disabilities told the BBC. “I have a learning disability and I know that it makes me feel different,” she said.
“Hate crime and bullying are a daily reality for many disabled people and the use of language like this only makes it worse.”
LEGO has now pulled the phrase and issued an apology from the company’s vice president for the UK and Ireland.
“Lego Mixels’ aim is to inspire creativity using quirky fictional characters to help children express their imaginations,” Fiona Wright says in the statement. “We have very high expectations of our products. This also includes the text we use to describe them towards consumers. We are sorry that wording which could be considered offensive has been used, as this has not been our intention at all.”
She says the company has looked at its processes “to make sure this does not happen again.”
The city of Keene, NH, had tried to bring a civil case of tortious interference against the Robin Hoods, claiming the group’s actions were preventing the enforcement officers from doing the work they were contracted to do. The city said the lawsuit wasn’t intended to stop the anti-meter protesters from filling up expired meters or from videotaping officers, but to hold the Robin Hoods responsible for the more allegedly obnoxious aspects of their protest.
A trial court had dismissed the city’s complaint, saying the defendants’ actions were permitted by the First Amendment as the protest was taking place in a proper public forum and involved a genuine matter of public concern.
But in appealing that dismissal, the city contended that certain behaviors — “following closely, chasing, running after, approaching quickly from behind, lurking outside bathrooms, yelling loudly, and filming from close proximity” — are not protected by the First Amendment, and that this conduct made the defendants liable for the enforcement officers being unable to do their job.
The defendants countered that “Even those activities that did not involve speech [are] expressive conduct entitled to First Amendment protection,” and thus shielded from tort liability.
In its ruling [PDF], the New Hampshire Supremes agreed, explaining that so long as the non-verbal acts are non-violent, they are considered protected speech, even if they have a negative impact on business.
“Although certain aspects of the respondents’ speech — such as referring to the PEOs in a derogatory fashion — may ‘fall short of refined social or political commentary, the issues they highlight… are matters of public import,'” explains the ruling. “Indeed, the Supreme Court has concluded that the content of protected speech ‘cannot be restricted simply because it is upsetting or arouses contempt.'”
The court held that it’s important that non-violent expression is protected because the mere threat of tort liability for engaging in free expression may undermine “the free and robust debate of public issues,” and “pose the risk of a reaction of self-censorship on matters of public import.”
That said, the court also ruled that the trial court wrongly dismissed the city’s request to consider an injunction against the Robin Hoods.
In appealing this issue, the city had argued that the lower court failed to balance considerations of public and workplace safety against the Robin Hoods’ First Amendment rights. Even if the court felt the tortious interference claim was unfounded, it should have considered providing some sort of buffer between the officers and the defendants, contended the city.
The Robin Hoods claimed that the city did not attempt to show that the defendants were violating any sort of ordinance or criminal law, and so the trial court was right to disregard the injunction request. The city responded by pointing out that an ordinance against this sort of protest would have a much more chilling effect on free speech than a simple injunction.
In the end, the state supreme court ruled that the trial court had erred when it “denied injunctive relief without considering all the factual circumstances of the case.”
“In light of the City’s allegations that the challenged conduct threatens the safety of the PEOs, pedestrians, and the motoring public,” reads the ruling, “we hold that the trial court erred when it failed to consider the particular factual circumstances of the case and whether an injunction should issue based upon the governmental and policy interests asserted by the City.”
That doesn’t mean that the trial court has to issue an injunction, just that it now has to consider the arguments for and against the injunction separately from the issue of the tortious interference lawsuit.
Here’s a 2014 story about the Free Keene meter-feeders from The Colbert Report:
When quasi-relevant electronics retailer RadioShack declared bankruptcy earlier this year, one worry for consumer advocates was that the company would sell the bushels of consumer data that it has collected on people while selling them batteries. The new owners of the RadioShack brand, General Wireless, agreed to strict terms for consumer data, which now includes segregating data from purchases of AT&T and Verizon Wireless merchandise.
It makes sense that the two largest mobile carriers don’t want General Wireless marketing to their customers: reopened RadioShack stores are a joint venture between competing mobile phone company Sprint and General Wireless, an affiliate of the Standard General hedge fund. If anyone is going to market to someone after the purchase of an AT&T or Verizon phone, it
In the final agreement, RadioShack agreed not to pass along customer phone numbers to the new owners, and which data they will hand over depends on how recently the customer did business with RadioShack. Now the two mobile companies have imposed another limit on which data can be handed over: transactions that include Verizon and AT&T’s items must also be held back from the database that Standard General receives.
