Posted in Commentary with tags GM on March 16, 2022 by itnerd
According to the J.D. Power 2021 Initial Quality Study, owners see app user experience as the third-most problematic feature of a new vehicle. The study found that users ranked remote controls, navigation assistance, service monitoring and statistical/diagnostic information as the most desirable features on an automaker’s app.
To offer a digital solution, GM Canada announced the launch of Maps+, an app-based navigation solution available across Canada, upgrading capabilities for select model year 2018 and newer Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac vehicles, powered by Mapbox. Maps+ will be available to GM vehicles as part of select Connected Services plans as a simple in-vehicle app download. The Maps+ launch is a prime example of GM’s commitment to delivering the best in-class customer experiences throughout the lifetime of the vehicle while enabling a safer drive.
GM Canada announces the launch of Maps+, an app-based navigation solution, powered by Mapbox, upgrading capabilities for select model year 2018 and newer Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles.
The features of Maps+ include:
Cross-App Integration
Use voice commands to get directions with Alexa Built-In
Navigate favourite songs and podcasts in one simple interface
Personalization
Favourite locations and points of interest
Predictive keyboard entry when searching for points of interest
Modern map designs with day and night mode options
Shortcuts for search categories, such as coffee, food, fuel, parking, recent spots and favourites
Contextually Relevant Services
Routing based on real-time traffic and daily updating map data
Speed limit alerts, road hazard alerts
Routing to nearby stations if vehicle is low on fuel
Notifications and alerts when a faster route is found
Maps+ will be available on select vehicles through select Connected Vehicle and Premium subscription plans. Current eligible Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac owners will be notified when their vehicle is eligible for Maps+.
Cradlepoint, the global leader in cloud-delivered 5G and LTE wireless network edge solutions, today announced a partnership with Extreme Networks, a leader in cloud-driven networking solutions. The combination of Extreme’s fabric networking solutions and 5G/LTE routers and adapters from Cradlepoint enables enterprises to deliver 5G to campus networks and securely extend the network to remote locations over a Wireless Wide Area Network (WWAN).
As highly distributed environments become more commonplace, 5G WWAN connectivity is critical for keeping remote locations always secure and connected, leading to increased integration of 5G solutions with existing Wi-Fi networks. Cradlepoint and Extreme make it easy to deploy these wireless networks at scale. Traditional wired remote locations can be costly to deploy, manage and adapt, and difficult to provide segmented IoT device connectivity. The integrated solution from Cradlepoint and Extreme enables customers to simply deploy secure, fully-connected remote locations, and fabric solutions that enable flexible IoT device deployments.
As part of Cradlepoint’s Technology Alliance Program, Cradlepoint and Extreme customers can now take advantage of the joint solution that includes:
Diverse path high-availability with both failover and Day-1 connectivity; and
Ability to simply extend the Extreme fabric to remote locations over the Wireless WAN for improved automation and security
To learn more how businesses are leveraging Cradlepoint and Extreme Networks to extend reach and optimize operations, register for the upcoming webinar https://cradlepoint.com/resources/event/automation-network-edge-with-56-lte-and-fabric/ on April 6th from 1-2 p.m. ET. Motor City Wash Works, one of the largest global manufacturers of automated car washes, will discuss how it implemented its turnkey, as-a-service car wash technology system, using Extreme and Cradlepoint solutions.
Posted in Commentary with tags Cisco on March 16, 2022 by itnerd
After two years of rapid digital transformation and firefighting in response to the pandemic, technologists are now ready and primed to drive the next critical wave of innovation in their organizations. To achieve their goals, IT teams are seeking out solutions which will give them full visibility across their IT environment.
They’re looking for a unified view on availability and performance up and down the IT stack, building on their current application monitoring tools. They want full visibility into performance for compute, storage, network and public internet, from the customer-facing application all the way into the back end. For many, they want solutions that provide full visibility into cloud native environments, including the increasing deployment of microservices and container solutions.
In a new study of 1,200 IT professionals worldwide, including Canada, Cisco AppDynamics found that appetite for full-stack observability has markedly increased over the past year, and an overwhelming majority of Canadian IT professionals (92%) said 2022 will be a pivotal year for their organization on the journey towards full-stack observability as they look to unlock the power of data in an application-driven world.
Other key takeaways from Canadian IT professionals in the report include:
91% of Canadian IT professionals believe the shift to full-stack observability will be transformational for their business.
More than half of Canadian organizations (60%) have started out on the journey to full-stack observability, and a further 35% are planning to do so in the next 12 months.
86% of Canadian IT professionals accept that organizations that fail to make significant strides in their journey towards full-stack observability in 2022 will face competitive disadvantage versus their peers.
A full copy of AppDynamics’ Journey to Observability report can be found here.
Research Methodology
To gauge the extent to which technologists have succeeded in implementing their full-stack observability strategies, and to understand their priorities for the future, AppDynamics has undertaken comprehensive global research, from board-level directors and CIOs, through to senior and mid-level IT management.
This research entailed:
Interviews with 1,200 IT professionals in organizations with a turnover of at least 500m (with the exception of Colombia, where organizations with a turnover of at least $100m were included in the sample.)
Interviews were conducted in 14 markets – Australia, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, France, Germany, India, Japan, Mexico, Russia, Singapore, United Arab Emirates, United Kingdom and United States.
Respondents worked across a range of industries, including IT, financial services, retail, public sector, manufacturing and automotive, and media and communications.
All research was conducted by Insight Avenue in December 2021 and January 2022.
Posted in Products with tags Chipolo on March 16, 2022 by itnerd
One of the smartest things that Apple did when they created the Find My network is that they opened it up to third parties so that you weren’t forced to only buy AirTags. Now the cynic in me says that this was only done to allow them to make a few extra bucks via licensing deals, and to blunt any suggestions of anti-trust, but it is still a great move by Apple. Because the problem with AirTags is that they don’t fit every use case. For example, you can’t put an AirTag in a wallet. Nor can you put it in a location where space is a premium and an AirTag would never fit into. That’s where the Chipolo CARD Spot comes in. It’s a card sized tracker that works on the Find My network. In fact, it only works on the Find My network. Let’s have a look at it.
This is the “mostly black” colour which sounds kind of like something that Google would do. It’s also the only colour available at present. The CARD Spot and one piece of paper is all that you get in the box. Which by the way is taped up so well that ripping the box apart to get the CARD Spot out is faster than cutting the various pieces of tape that keep the box sealed. But that would be a bad idea as the instructions to add the card to Find My are on the inner part of the box. And adding it is trivially easy. Here’s what I did on my iPhone running iOS 15.4:
Open the Find My app on your iPhone
Go to Items and click on the plus sign
Click on Add Other Item
Press the button that’s located on the bottom left corner CARD Spot until it makes a sound
Follow the onscreen prompts.
Speaking of prompts, if you’re running iOS 15.4 and presumably later as at the time of writing this review iOS 15.4 was the latest version of iOS, you’ll see this:
I’ve removed my personal information from this screen shot, but the message is clear. Don’t be a scumbag by using this to track people without their knowledge. And if you decide to be a scumbag, law enforcement will hunt you down like U.S. Marshal Sam Gerard tried to hunt down Dr. Richard Kimble. If that reference is alien to you, this will help.
After you click on that, you have to name it and you’re done. In short, the setup process is almost no different than an AirTag. Which is good.
Now let’s talk about the CARD Spot. It’s 2.4mm thick. Which makes it the size 2 credit cards stacked on top of each other. Thus making it perfect for your wallet or any other tight spot. It is IPX5 water resistant, which means that it is protected from water jets projected by a nozzle from any direction. It has a non-replaceable battery which lasts two years. More on that in a bit. And it has a 105dB speaker. Though when I tested it, the Noise app on my Apple Watch never got any higher than 88dB when the card was right next to my Apple Watch. Though 88dB is still plenty loud. And it’s 8dB louder than the AirTag that I tested. My wife and I put this to use immediately by adding these to our Ekster Aluminum Cardholder.
Now to be fair, the Ekster does have the option of adding this tracking card which also happens to be made by Chipolo to it which requires Chipolo’s own app to use. My issue with that was that you had to one more app to your phone to use their card. Now we have an option that lives within the iOS ecosystem.
Now over to that battery. Or more accurately, the non-replaceable battery. It’s slated to last two years. And when it dies, Chipolo will give you a 50% discount on a new one and remind you about the discount two years from now. On top of that they will make easy for you to send it back to them to recycle. But only if you register the CARD Spot using this card:
The big white spot is a QR code that goes to a website and fills in the serial number of the CARD Spot for you when you scan it with your phone. All you have to do is enter your email address and you’re done. While not having replaceable batteries isn’t ideal, this reduces the environmental impact that one of these cards will create in two years. Though the next version of the CARD Spot that Chipolo ships needs to have replaceable batteries as Tile figured out years ago that not having replaceable batteries in their products was a liability due to the environmental impact of creating eWaste. Another reason why Chipolo may want to get a move on having replacement batteries is that competition is inbound in the form of the AirCard by Rolling Square which promises replaceable batteries in a package that’s only marginally thicker than the Chipolo CARD Spot. As an aside, I’ll get one in to review once they do start shipping.
One thing that I should point out is that the Chipolo CARD Spot is Bluetooth only. Why should you care? Well, AirTags use Bluetooth and Ultra WideBand. That give you the advantage of not only finding your items over a longer range as well as leveraging the Precision Finding feature of the Find My app. Assuming that you have an iPhone with an Ultra WideBand chip. So in the case of the CARD Spot, you don’t have the ability to use those features. Which means that if you lose an item that has the CARD Spot on it, you can only get the general location of the Item, and then use the Play Sound feature to play a game of Marco/Polo to find it. This makes the CARD Spot more along the lines of a Tile tracker. Which to be clear isn’t a bad thing. But I would love to see the next version have Ultra WideBand functionality to increase the ability of the CARD Spot to help you find your lost items.
The Chipolo CARD Spot goes for $35 USD for one or $60 USD for two. The latter has free shipping on top of that. If you’re in the iOS ecosystem and you need a tracking device that is thinner than an AirTag for use in the Find My network, this is the one to get. At least for now.
This morning I woke up to Firefox wanting to do an update to version 98.0.1. So I dutifully did the update that it requested. And when I checked to see what changed, I saw this:
Those are Russian search engines. That immediately got my attention as I was not aware that Firefox used any Russian search engines. I am going to go out on a limb and suggest that Mozilla is concerned about mis-information being spread via having those search engines in Firefox. Which these days is a legitimate concern.
I’m now waiting for the announcement that Firefox is banned in Russia as a result of this move.
I have just come across a new report that delves into the latest available stats and facts surrounding 5G in the USA by WhistleOut. Interestingly, although WhistleOut data shows that most Americans (62%) have a 5G compatible phone right now, diving into the data from additional sources like SpeedTest.net indicates that not even half (49.2%) of Americans with 5G devices use a 5G connection regularly.
This gap between adoption and actual usage shows how far the US still needs to go before 5G coverage is as ubiquitous as previous network generations.
More 2022 5G statistics covered in the report:
The median 5G download speed is 93.73Mbps, which although not lightning fast by any means, is still nearly double the national median for download speeds of 54.4Mbps.
1 in 3 Americans (31%) don’t have a 5G phone plan.
In 2022, 88.7 million Americans will use 5G networks.
About 1% of cell phone users use devices that operate on a 3G network connection, which means roughly 3.2 million people use 3G devices that will soon be made obsolete.
The U.S. states with the most 5G availability are Illinois, Texas, Nevada, Hawaii, New Jersey, and Rhode Island. 5G users in these U.S. states spend more than 25% of their time with an active 5G connection.
Starting today and in the course of this month, all users can download and share published Idea Pins on social channels including Facebook and Instagram. These Idea Pins will be downloaded as a watermarked video that stitches all the Idea Pin pages together, and ends with an end card that displays the creator’s name and username.
Now, with Idea Pin Sharing and Downloading, a creator’s original Pinterest content can go even further reaching new audiences on and off Pinterest. To share an Idea Pin to Facebook or Instagram stories: Select the “FBStories” or “IG Stories” icon in the share menu, which will initiate a download. Once the download finishes, it takes the user to the Facebook or Instagram app with the story creation flow open and the watermarked Idea Pin video pasted in. It can then be edited and posted.
Pinners can still share content to other social platforms. The download option provides the ability to quickly save and upload watermarked Idea Pin content onto other platforms like Snapchat and TikTok.
Idea Pins are Pinterest’s native publishing format that was first introduced to creators in 2020 and rolled out globally in 2021. Idea Pins are a multi-page canvas to share unique ideas, tutorials, passions with others. They last forever, and are a way for creators to grow an audience on Pinterest. In Pinterest’s “Watch” tab Pinners find a full-screen feed of Idea Pins to scroll through and engage with fresh content from brands and creators, so Idea Pins continue to be discoverable by everyone.
Creating on Pinterest is different. Creators on Pinterest are tastemakers. Pinterest is an environment that’s deliberately engineered to feel more positive – where people get inspired and bring a creator’s ideas to life. That means more actionable engagement, instead of vanity metrics. Ideas are discoverable instead of disappearing in a chronological feed.
Top 3 Best Practices for Idea Pins:
Instructional and actionable – Use videos, images, text to walk people through the steps and make it easy for them to take action on the Idea.
Use Video – Video is great for telling a story and to connect with the audience. Start with a video on the first page. It’s your best chance to stand out and hook your audience.
Make it Personal – Idea Pins are not for sterile, polished content. Let your brand voice shine with our editing tools such as stickers, music controls, video filters and more.
Pinterest’s profile highlights -. With profile highlights, Creators are also able to add Idea Pins to the top of their profile, enabling them to show off their most engaging and immersive Idea Pins.
GM Canada announces Maps+ The Newest App-Based Navigation Solution Across Canada
Posted in Commentary with tags GM on March 16, 2022 by itnerdAccording to the J.D. Power 2021 Initial Quality Study, owners see app user experience as the third-most problematic feature of a new vehicle. The study found that users ranked remote controls, navigation assistance, service monitoring and statistical/diagnostic information as the most desirable features on an automaker’s app.
To offer a digital solution, GM Canada announced the launch of Maps+, an app-based navigation solution available across Canada, upgrading capabilities for select model year 2018 and newer Chevrolet, Buick, GMC, and Cadillac vehicles, powered by Mapbox. Maps+ will be available to GM vehicles as part of select Connected Services plans as a simple in-vehicle app download. The Maps+ launch is a prime example of GM’s commitment to delivering the best in-class customer experiences throughout the lifetime of the vehicle while enabling a safer drive.
GM Canada announces the launch of Maps+, an app-based navigation solution, powered by Mapbox, upgrading capabilities for select model year 2018 and newer Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac vehicles.
The features of Maps+ include:
Cross-App Integration
Personalization
Contextually Relevant Services
Maps+ will be available on select vehicles through select Connected Vehicle and Premium subscription plans. Current eligible Chevrolet, Buick, GMC and Cadillac owners will be notified when their vehicle is eligible for Maps+.
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