by AlexFunkhouser
Next week, SUP-X, the Startup Expo, hits TechLauderdale, this week, we take a look at Miami’s startup ecosystem.
First published in TNW by Conrad Egusa CEO, Publicize & Espacio Media Incubator.
Many may have been surprised when Miami made the shortlist for the Amazon HQ2 finalists, and even more so when Amazon’s search committee made a second trip to the city in the fall of 2018.
After all, the city is very different from the other large urban contenders New York City, Chicago, Dallas, and Washington DC. With its beaches, art deco architecture and multi-cultural flavor, Miami is generally characterized by its booming tourism and real estate industries.
However, in the same way as Miami earned its nickname ‘The Magic City’ for its rapid urban growth in the late 19th century, over the last seven years the city has placed itself on the map as a quickly growing international tech and startup hub.
Tech giants such as Google, Twitter, Facebook, Uber, Lyft and Spotify have all based their LatAm headquarters in Miami, and the city is now home to 139 startups and companies on the Inc. 5000 list – registering the highest startup density found in the US, at roughly 247.6 startups per 100,000 people. All of this contributes to Miami now being rated the second most entrepreneurial city in the U.S according to the Kauffman Index. Over this past year, I made a visit and was able to get a glimpse into the city’s startup scene…
Read the complete article here: https://thenextweb.com/podium/2019/07/15/an-entrepreneurs-guide-to-miamis-startup-ecosystem/
by AlexFunkhouser
Waze data can help predict car crashes and cut response time
Originally published in Wired.
HERE’S THE THING about car crashes: They are, blessedly, pretty rare. In the US, nine people are injured in motor vehicle crashes for every 100 million miles traveled in cars, according to data from the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration.
Here’s the thing about computer-based models: They’re not great at predicting rare events. “Accidents are going to be rare anyway, and models tend to miss rare events because they just don’t occur frequently enough,” says Tristan Glatard, an associate professor of computer science at Concordia University, where he’s working with colleagues to build models that might predict car crashes before they happen. “It’s like finding a needle in a haystack.”
Some good things might happen if someone could find that needle – if they managed to transform streets and roads into streams of data and predict what might happen there. Emergency responders might arrive at crashes a bit faster. Government officials might spot a problematic road—and fix it.
OK, it’s not quite predicting the future. But it’s getting eerily close. So even though it’s hard, and often expensive, and always complicated, cities, researchers, and the federal Department of Transportation are working to do just that.
In May, a team of medical researchers with UCLA and the University of California, Irvine published a paper in the journal Jama Surgery suggesting that places in California might be able to use data from the crowdsourced traffic app Waze to cut emergency response times. (Waze has a four-year-old program that gives cities traffic data in exchange for real-time information about problems its users might want to avoid, like sudden road closures.) By comparing the data from the Google-owned service with crash data from the California Highway Patrol, the researchers concluded that Waze users notify the app of crashes an average of 2 minutes, 41 seconds before anyone alerts law enforcement.
Read the complete article by AArian Marshall: https://www.wired.com/story/waze-data-help-predict-car-crashes-cut-response-time/
by AlexFunkhouser
First published in Wired Magazine by Klint Finley
CONSUMERS ARE HUNGRY for data. To give it to them, mobile carriers say they need access to more of the wireless spectrum that carries cellular data, broadcast programming, and all other wireless signals.
Carriers complain that the parts of the spectrum reserved for smartphone use are increasingly crowded, at least in urban areas. To keep up with the growing demand for mobile video and other smartphone applications, and deliver the faster speeds promised by 5G, carriers want access to more of the spectrum.
Last week the Federal Communications Commission published a plan to auction off unused wireless spectrum originally set aside for schools in the 1960s. Only about half of this chunk of spectrum, now known as the “Educational Broadband Service,” has been licensed to schools or educational organizations. Education groups and the wireless industry have been asking the FCC to license the rest for years. Under the new plan, schools and educational organizations that already have EBS licenses will be able to keep them or sell them to commercial carriers. Tribal Nations will get a chance to apply for the unassigned licenses; the remaining licenses will be auctioned off.
“Too much of this spectrum, which is prime spectrum for next generation mobile operations, including 5G, has lain fallow for more than 20 years,” the FCC proposal says. “We are replacing an outdated regulatory regime, developed in the days when educational TV was the only use envisioned for this spectrum.”
That’s not the plan education groups and broadband access advocates wanted. An earlier version of the proposal released last year would have allowed not only Tribal Nations but also schools and educational groups to apply for licenses ahead of the auction.
Read the complete article: https://www.wired.com/story/schools-phone-companies-face-off-wireless-spectrum/
by AlexFunkhouser
As WIRED’s Lily Hay Newman wrote last week, Sign In with Apple lets you use your Apple ID account credentials to sign into non-Apple apps. Like Facebook Login and Login with Google, it aims to “centralize a group of accounts around a more secure login that you’re more likely to actively monitor and maintain, rather than a one-off account you set with a weak password.”
Apple is using the same backend protocols for its sign-on system as others in the industry. Earlier this week, a senior developer advocate at identity management company Okta went through the early workflow for implementing Sign In with Apple and noted that Apple appears to be using industry-standard technology for the feature.
“Thankfully, Apple adopted the existing open standards OAuth 2.0 and OpenID Connect … While they don’t explicitly call out OAuth or OIDC in their documentation, they use all the same terminology and API calls,” Aaron Parecki wrote. “That means if you’re familiar with these technologies, you should have no trouble using Sign In with Apple right away!”
Read the complete article in Wired by Lauren Good
https://www.wired.com/story/sign-in-with-apple-mixed-reactions/
by AlexFunkhouser
In Miami’s famed mural district, Wynwood, a combination of art and technology is raising awareness about the threats of climate change. South Floridians are no strangers to stronger storms, so-called sunny day flooding, and rising seas. These augmented reality murals aim to educate and inform through art. Special correspondent Alicia Menendez reports.
View the article an video on PBS News Hour
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-miami-how-art-intersects-with-technology-and-climate-change
Listen to the full transcript
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/show/in-miami-how-art-intersects-with-technology-and-climate-change#audio
by AlexFunkhouser
Google RankBrain and SEO.
Google and its algorithms have often been shrouded in mystery, but its latest addition, RankBrain, can’t be ignored from an SEO perspective.
In fact, it’s the third most important ranking signal according to a senior Google analyst, Andrey Lipattsev.
And it’s one of the latest steps Google has taken to introduce artificial intelligence into its ranking efforts.
It works by analyzing searches, figuring out the best possible results for the user and then measuring the user satisfaction with those results.
This feedback is then used to improve the algorithm so that it can gradually learn and improve over time.
It can also measure how successful the results were by looking at how the user interacted with them and, again, learning from that feedback.
Read the complete southfloridareporter.com article: https://southfloridareporter.com/does-artificial-intelligence-mean-seo-is-dead/
