Your auld wan isn’t the same auld wan you were buying for a few years back. The Irish mammy of today might still believe there’s great drying out and have an amazing ability to plate up sandwiches in the blink of an eye, but she’s also much more tech saavy. My own mother enjoys the odd gadget here and there too, so today I’m going to smugly recommend some more tech-led gift ideas for mother’s day this year.
Keep in Touch: Amazon Echo Spot
One of the most popular gifts these days is anything with a bit of Amazon power. People would appear to be falling head over heels to have an Alexa assistant in their lives. The Amazon Echo Spot is another one of these devices with a particular trick up its sleeve. The Spot has a screen and a front-facing camera on it.
Why is this so good?
Well, my own mother and myself tend to video call more and more these days. Sometimes it’s WhatsApp but because I got her an Echo Spot, I can just drop into the sitting room and say hi. Dropping in is an Amazon specific feature where no-one has to pick up; my face just rather creepily appears in the sitting room.
While my own mam is fairly up to date with tech and capable of answering video calls, the Amazon Echo Spot is a great way to introduce video calling to a less techie mammy. You don’t need to have another device either as you can simply drop in from your smartphone using the Amazon Alexa App.
Mammys don’t want the old Nokia feature phones anymore. Mammys want to take pictures, share them on WhatsApp and even check emails or Facebook.
At the same time, Mammys don’t want you breaking the bank for mother’s day. So if you want to get your mammy a new smartphone this year without being hit by “ah now, that’s too much you shouldn’t have done that”, why not pick her up a Huawei P smart 2019.
Honestly, when I saw this phone for the first time I did one of those comical double takes.
The specs versus the price just doesn’t make sense at all. For example, you can pick up the Huawei P smart 2019 from Three Ireland on prepay for just €199.99. For that you get an AI-powered dual lens primary camera, a battery that’s plenty big with a 6.21-inch screen to match. Decent smartphones no longer have to be “mother angeringly expensive”.
Read the Signs: Get Her a Kindle
This is another tried and tested winner from the gadgets Marty’s mammy loves. The Kindle e-book reader has been a staple gadget from Amazon for years now. In recent years they’ve improved massively too, with users particularly liking the built-in screen lights which make it easier to read.
Kindle is also an empowering gift if your mother has hung up the reading glasses, cursing small print for ruining the reading experience. With Kindle you can zoom in and make the text bigger, ensuring your mammy can read easier than ever.
So there you have it. Not every mammy wants to be wined and dined with a trip out for afternoon tea. Leave your options open for some of this long-lasting gadgets instead.
OK, by now I presume everyone has at least heard of the Momo Challenge that was recently doing the rounds online. The creepy image was everywhere as the hoax went viral and was broadcast across the media, which in turn exasperated the problem. The face had been used and plastered across videos and hoaxes within content aimed at children. More specifically to self-harm. Personally, I think a lot of the media coverage tanked hard with their reporting on the issue which sent things into overdrive. So what the hell happened and what can people do to protect their kids online. Here’s my thoughts anyway:
So what was the whole Momo thing?
The Momo is an urban legend crossed with a social media “game” that contains a set of challenges that get “more difficult” as each task is completed and the game progresses. This game is not innocent but plays on the fears of children and parents.
The image is actually a model created in a Japanese special effects studio called Link Factory. It took off initially in 2016 as a creepy sculpture but in 2019 it became the internet viral story of the year. Only a couple of weeks ago you couldn’t scroll anywhere on social media without seeing something related to The Momo Challenge. This viral aspect was driven by media in the form of clickbait which then, in turn, played on natural parental fear thus creating a sense of fear for children online.
The UK Safer Internet Centre called it all “fake news”, and YouTube said it has seen no evidence of videos showing or promoting the Momo challenge on its platform. Kat Tremlett, harmful content manager at the UK Safer Internet Centre, said: “It’s a myth that is perpetuated into being some kind of reality.”
These hoaxes do exist and these rumoured games have done the rounds before, remember the Blue Whale Challenge? Anyway, Momo was supposably hacking innocent children’s videos to encourage kids, to harm themselves in various horrific ways until inevitably encouraging them to kill themselves. According to experts that cover the analytics concerning YouTube this is not the case, it’s not possible to “hack” the videos, any videos that could have been seen would have been creating themselves as a standalone videos. It’s unreasonable to suggest YouTube filter all content posted to the channel, it’s open so everyone can share and videos like this don’t break guidelines because sometimes people just want a good scare. That’s not to say if children saw it, it wouldn’t be concerning it would but what’s actually happened is the clickbait journalism created the perfect opportunities for people to make exactly that content. Reporting the content at the time probably would have done the job, the content would be flagged for review, checked and deemed not child friendly and viola.
Sometimes content can slip through the cracks, videos from more adult creators have previosuly slipped through onto the child friendly platform, they were all immediatly removed once the issue was flagged.
What can we learn?
Firstly, don’t take everything you read online as a given. I think we are in a time where social media and online reporting is in a strange place with the whole “fake news” culture. So it should go without saying that even if we are 99% sure what we are reading is from a legit source, we should still take a moment to check if what we are seeing is right. Reports that Momo hacked YouTube videos and replacing other characters or sections of the videos with these challenges. This isn’t true but when reports go out in this way some smartarses are likely to make videos targeted at this young audience and thus increasing the likeliness of seeing such content. The smarter option at the beginning, in my opinion, would have been to flag the issue early and have the content removed. Done and over before everything blows up. The content is normally automatically screened and blocked accordingly but sometimes something will fall through the cracks.
Anyway that’s one side of the story on the other hand some children could have seen some of this Momo content. That’s not good and I agree that we should do better to protect children at an early age from the darker aspects of the internet. Suggesting the services providers do can always stop everything is a big ask, anyone can make something and post it to YouTube as long as it’s within the guidelines. This type of stuff isn’t illegal, some people might want to watch crap for a bit of a scare or whatever but kids seeing it we don’t want. So we’ve been thinking about it and we have come up with a few things people themselves to protect their children online.
Tip 1 – Get iKydz
Really I can’t recommend this one enough. We all know kids are getting their hands on tablets or phones from a younger age which is great as their learning skills to last a lifetime. With the good, there is always the bad. That’s why Irish company iKydz is a great solution to control your child’s access to the internet without being overly intrusive.
We covered iKydz at the beginning of their journey as a small Irish Kickstarter and since then they have gone on to become readily available in high street retailers like Carphone Warehouse. So iKydz is a two part concept comprising of a “black box” which very simply plugs into your modem and an app which you download to your either your Android or Apple device.
From there then you can control your home internet off your smartphone, allowing or denying access on an individual device basis. It’s actually very practical, you can do things like set bedtimes on different children, add mealtime settings, block any content you deem unsuitable like adult content. You can also set schedules and timers so you can limit online gaming to certain times and block access to sites during homework time. A really handy device that gives you more control and safety. They also come in at a decent price with the standard box costing €99 and the Pro model which has extra ports for €139 in Carphone Warehouse or PC World.
Tip 2 – Talk to your childs school about CyberSmarties
I could tell you all about it, we’ve talked about them before and they have appeared on our podcast, we’re huge fans but here’s what was said about them on BBC’s Question Time….
Couldn’t agree more and that really just does hit the nail on the head. Why not suggest it to your kids schools as a safer alternative to Facebook. We think it’s a fantastic idea, their a great company whose already having an impact and we honestly think more schools should be taking their system on board.
Tip 3 – Keep an eye on their content
Obviously parents know their children and their capabilities best but with very young kids you want to know exactly what content they are consuming. As they become a little older we want to trust them more and to be fair some kids are bloody whizzes on tablets by the age of three. That’s life as children grow they will take over more interactions
You may still wish to stay physically nearby to offer assistance and to make sure they stay within appropriate boundaries. Older children still need monitoring and boundaries, but you may wish to install a program to patrol their activities. I think it’s fair to say here when it comes to your child you will know the level of monitoring you feel is appropriate versus their age.
Tip 4 – Keep the lines of communication open
An oldie but a goodie. Let your kids know that no matter what happens on the computer they can and should come talk to you about it. Sometimes kids might just break something, remove an antivirus, delete something important or stumble upon the wrong content. No matter what it’s better you know so you can fix the problem quickly.
Set up the boundaries and change them as the child develops but the open communication is key, it can protect your child, your computer and potentially your data.
Tip 5 – Secure games consoles
Not directly Momo related but a good tip nonetheless. Kids love their games and gamers are some of the most popular people on the planet right now thanks to the phenomenon of Twitch. The big streamers/e-sport players earn huge wages but it’s also coincided with a rise in gaming addiction, anyway that means you don’t want them burning through your wages on downloadable content like some of the horror stories we have heard. This means securing the PlayStation or X-box.
Martin wrote a proper article on the topic where he goes into full detail but essentially nowadays we download games straight to the console from the online store. That means paying with the debit card which means loading it onto the console. Now there are parental controls that can be put in place so when the little ones are downloading a new game, they can’t then accidentally use your card on in-game purchases. Take Martin’s advice and use the parental control, and if you want to know how then fire away.
That’s it really, I think if parents want to be safer with their children online it can be done. It just takes a little time and patience. hopefully this helps any concerned parents and if you have any tips or advice you would like to share, then please give us a shout.
This past Wednesday, Apple unveiled and released their second generation wireless AirPods 2, which they claim are “More magical than ever”. But when it comes to earphones, is there much more that you can really do with them?
Well, we’re here to give you the lowdown.
A more stable and wireless connection
This is what Apple claims to deliver with their new new H1 chip, an upgrade from the previous W1 chip. They likely rebranded it to “H” so as to avoid confusion with their low powered W2 and W3 chips that powers bluetooth and wifi in the Apple Watch. Nevertheless, the new AirPods supposedly switch between devices twice as fast as their predecessors and 1.5x faster when connecting to phone calls. So nothing too flashy, but we’ll take it. The new chip also allows the AirPods to know when you’re listening, so when you take them out of your ears, the music stops and plays music when you put them in. Apple also claims that the AirPods know when you’re talking and filters out external noise so your voice is clear when on calls.
More AirPods – Siri integration
Siri has also become more integrated into the AirPods. You can now say “Hey Siri” and give it numerous commands between changing music, to calling someone and asking it to “Turn down the music”. Although you can still touch the AirPods to answer calls, skip between songs and adjust volume if voice commands isn’t your thing.
Extras
With the new wireless charging case, you can now charge your AirPods wirelessly if you lay them down on a wireless charging mat. This is a good an indication that the new iPhone will likely come with reverse charging which Huawei and Samsung already offer on their flagship devices.
Given that the AirPods battery is relatively poor, this will be a welcomed feature. The new AirPods has a measly 5 hour battery life. I myself listening to easily over 5 hours of music and podcasts during a working day. granted, the AirPods will recharge in their case in 15 minutes which will give you another 3 hours of battery, but does this mean I need to carry around my charging case with me too all day? It’s a hassle I don’t really want to be honest. Although in practice, it might not be as much of a pain as it may sound.
The price tag
So with all of these upgrade, will they be worth the price tag? For the new AirPods, you’re going to be looking at €179.00. Which is fairly expensive for earphones when you could get a very decent set of headphones for the same price. But…. and there’s always a But when it comes to Apple. This does not come with the wireless charging case. That will set you back an extra €50 if you buy them with the AirPods. And if you decide to go with the standard case and buy the wireless case at a later date, you’re looking at €89.00 for it.
The Verdict
My final thoughts on Apples new AirPods 2 are…. meh. They through out the standard buzzwords to create hype for something you won’t even be able to differentiate from their original AirPods. “2x as fast”, “more powerful”, “magical”. For a price tag of €179.00, you’d be better off waiting for another pay check and get yourself a good pair of Bose Quiet comfort 35 II’s. If you’re after something that looks like AirPods but is built for Android, the imminent launch of the Huawei FreeBuds 3 should also tickle your fancy.
But if they do tickle your fancy, the new AirPods 2 are released already and can be bought on the Apple store now.
Seriously Facebook? Seriously? This is getting re-god-damn-diculous. Facebook once again made a balls of privacy. The passwords of millions of users were stored in plain text and were fully accessible by employees with internal access. You’ve no idea how frustrating this is for someone like me who is always trying to promote the best side of tech. Join me as I explain what happened along with why this is such a mess while also giving you an incredible tool called LastPass that will protect you from companies who clearly just don’t care about your privacy.
Facebook and Privacy Problems
As you may have detected from my intro there, I’m extremely annoyed and angry that Facebook has had yet another bloody password privacy issue. It seems that the light shone on the social media giant following the Cambridge Analytica scandal has also uncovered quite a few other demons too.
It’s not a breach. It’s not a hack. What Facebook did this time was basically not care about the basic rules and best practices when it comes to storing people’s passwords. But what does that mean?
According to Facebook, “hundreds of millions of Facebook Lite users, tens of millions of other Facebook users, and tens of thousands of Instagram users” had their passwords stored in plain text on systems accessible by company employees. The reason this wasn’t a breach or a hack is because Facebook maintains none of their employees did anything with the passwords. Sound Facebook.
Regardless of whether or not something happened with this data, it’s a disgrace that Facebook stores passwords of anyone anywhere in plain text.
Password Hashing
Plain text passwords are basically passwords saved in a format that’s nice an easy to read. Thing of it like saving a load of passwords into a Word document. That’s the level of security you get.
Password hashing is where your password is passed through a system which jumbles it up and makes it impossible to reverse; unless you know the key. It’s a rather simple process which renders your hacked password useless should it fall into the wrong hands.
Have You Been Pwned?
Now, I know what you’re thinking. You’re reading this safe in the knowledge that passwords falling into the wrong hands and hacks only happen to other people. Prepare to be shocked.
There’s a website called Have I Been Pwned which lets you see if your email address or password has been caught up in a hack. I’m in there. Both emails and a password I used to use. One password I used years ago was ‘shiloh’. Nice and simple that one. Why did I pick it? Well, it was in an X-Files game so I thought it would make a great password. Turns out I’m not alone. In the below screengrab, I’ve just checked ‘shiloh’.
This service is the very service which made me realised I needed to change how I deal with passwords. It’s hard to remember multiple passwords so I was doing what everyone does; using the same password for everthing.
The problem with using the same password for everthing is that when one site gets hacked and your password gets compromised, hackers will assume you’ve used it elsewhere. For example, if your Adobe password was found by hackers back in 2013 then could have used it to try log into your Facebook account and wrek havoc on your life.
So, how do you avoid this from happening? I’ve decided to employ a password manager.
What Is A Password Manager?
The safest password is a password you don’t know. It might have been Edward Snowden that said that but whoever it was, it makes a lot of sense. If a password is easy enough for you to remember, it’s likely pretty easy for a computer programme to decipher too.
The safest password is a password you don’t know.
Right now, for the vast majority of websites I visit and sign up to, I have no idea what my password is. For example, I have no idea why my Facebook password is. I’ve no idea what my Instagram password is. I actually have no idea what password I used to log into Goosed.ie when I’m writing articles. I do know they are all different passwords with a lot of charachters made up of letters, numbers and symbols.
The reason I don’t know any of my own passwords is because I use LastPass, a password manager.
Life With LastPass
It’s called LastPass because it’s the last password you’ll ever need to know. Once you know your LastPass password, their service will then manage all your other passwords. This allows you to have incredibly complex combinations and most importantly a different password for every single website that you sign up for.
It’s Called LastPass because it’s the last password you’ll ever need to know
When privacy mess ups like this latest craic from Facebook happen, you’ll see security experts advise that you change your password on the effective platform and anywhere else you use that same password. So, today you should be changing your Facebook password and everywhere else you use that same password. Take a moment to think about how horrible that is.
Because I use LastPass, today I updated my Facebook password and that’s me done. Secure until they mess up again.
I’ve been recommending LastPass to people for a while now and the first question I always get back is “but what if LastPass gets hacked”.
It’s a very fair question to which I have two responses.
First of all, LastPass did have a security incident back in 2015. No data was leaked or anything thanks to how LastPass handles your privacy; keeping things seperate and never knowing your master password. They regularly test their own systems and remain at the very cutting edge of online security protocols. At the end of the day, this is their business.
Secondly, if you’re using the same password across loads of sites and it’s something like ‘Fluffy123!’, you’re only fooling yourself if you think the your privacy is nice and safe. By employing a password manager like LastPass, you will be improving your security immeasurably.
Fruit is the Least of Your Problems
I’m going to use a metaphor to explain what I mean here. I recently saw a question put to a fitness instructor about fruit; specifically natural sugar content. The question was around losing weight by reducing sugar and should that also include reducing the amount of fruit you eat. His response was perfect. If you’re overweight, eating fruit is not the cause.
When it comes to online security, if your goal is protecting your privacy, entrusting a password manager to use different complex passwords for every site you register with is far more beneficial than worrying about your password manager being hacked. Hell, we’ve seen how much all these other online service providers care little about your privacy so the least you should be doing is taking control of the situation.
If you’re still on the fence though, please take time to read through what LastPass themselves has to say about this. They are a fully transparent company built on policies of open honesty.
What About Logging Into Mobile Apps?
This is important. LastPass comes in the shape of multiple platforms. You can install a Chrome Extension which helps you logging into websites through your browser or a mobile app which will then let you log into apps on your mobile phone. Within the LastPass app itself you can also reveal your password should you need to log into something that doesn’t natively support LastPass. A good example here might be if you wish to log into Facebook on a games console or something similar.
The important call out here is I’ve been living with LastPass for a long time and never find myself locked out or unable to log in somewhere. Because I can safely store information like my PPS number in the app too, I’ve found I usually have information to hand that I used to have to dig around for.
Other Password Managers
LastPass is by no means alone in the world of privacy and password managers. I would argue it provides the most for free, but then again can you really put a price on privacy?
It’s just the one I’ve used the most and can personally stand over recommending. If, for some reason, you don’t feel like it’s for you, try out the likes of 1Password or Keeper.
Whether you’re convinced or not about password managers, I implore you to check it out. If you have any questions, as always, fire them into the comments below or over on our social accounts.
I enjoy spending some time on my games console when I have a couple of hours free. I’ll admit, as I get older finding that time is more difficult. So, when I turn on my console only to find there’s an hour’s worth of updates, I get a little annoyed.
How did consoles ever operate without 3gb updates every two weeks?
Today, Google Stadia was unveiled to the world and it is going to change gaming. I know, I know. Every single day there seems to be something that changes an institutional industry, but Google Stadia is quite likely going to have an impact on gaming like Netflix had on Xtravision.
What is Google Stadia?
Google Stadia removes the requirement for you to have a console or high spec computer in order to play the latest games. In a way, to follow on from my Netflix and Xtravision comparison, this is the gaming equivilant of being able to watch Blu-ray quality movies by streaming instead of having a disc.
Google Stadia will allow gamers to play the latest titles straight from the cloud through a plethora of devices. Not fancy devices either. You’ll be able to play games which have just been released using yout Chromecast and a special Google Stadia controller. Want to use your own USB controller? No problem, you’ll also be able to stream games straight to your laptop through Chrome browser, smartphones, TVs and tablets.
I’m not talking about low resolutions here either. Stadia will allow you to stream console-quality games in 4K and 60 frames per second with HDR and glorious surround sound while also being future-proofed for whatever is coming next.
What Will You Need To Run Google Stadia?
At launch, Google Stadia will support desktops, laptops, tablets and smartphones. You will not need a box. By that I mean there’s no need for a console like the Xbox or PlayStation. The reason for this is because Google does all the hard work on their side, streaming the data to you instead of you having a machine with the power required to do it locally.
Say you’re watching a video of someone streaming a playthrough of the latest GTA game on the official Rockstar Games YouTube channel. When the video finishes, a popup asks if you’d like to play. With a simple click, you’re in the game. It’s science fiction stuff, except this is coming in 2019.
Internet Connection Required To Run Google Stadia
As you might imagine, this does mean you’ll need a fairly fast internet connection, which I understand could send a chill down the spine of the Irish. National Broadband Plan crisis aside, let’s look at this in a positive light.
Back to the GTA example. If it’s your first time running Stadia, you’ll be prompted to run an internet connection test. Google will use this to ensure you meet the minimum requirements to play live games. Google looks at the latency between you and the servers, bandwidth and the likes with the service requiring a streaming rate of 15Mbps, the latency of less than 40ms and an ability to handle 95% of data without any loss.
Sounds ambitious? Fair enough, I’ll agree with you but for some, it’s easier to have a connection like this than an expensive console which will inevitably be obsolete at some stage down the line. With that said, Google ain’t a charity.
How Much Will Google Stadia Cost?
Just how much Google will charge for the Stadia service remains an unknown, but I’m happy to make some wild speculations. How we pay for things has changed in recent years. Subscription models have become common place and the absolute default for younger generations. Instead of investing on several albums or movie rentals per year, we pay a subscription to services like Spotify or Netflix. Gamers pay a premium to access streaming services like Twitch and I fully expect Google to go down this route.
While its possible Google could charge gamers €75 and up to access a single game, €10 per month to access a full range of games seems much more likely. Then again, with the YouTube integration, maybe this is another string to the bow of YouTube Premium. There’s no limit to what Google might do here, so watch this space.
Google Stadia Irish Launch Date
Oh, come on now. You know I don’t know that. Well, I don’t know exactly, but Google has committed to its Stadia platform launching later this year. Yep, you should be able to take advantage of this platform in 2019 and maybe even Ireland from launch. Maybe, just maybe it’ll launch in Ireland from the get-go as Google did confirm a UK, US and “much of Europe” launch.
Fingers crossed.
…And That Stadia Controller?
So, if you’re playing through desktop you can use your own controllers if you like. Google is, however, planning for you to game through a Chromecast which means you’ll need your own Stadia Controller. This thing doesn’t connect to anything locally, but instead directly to where Google is streaming the game from in the cloud via your WiFi connection.
This is the crux of it all. If Google can make this work seamlessly without lag that leaves you as a head shot magnet, well hell…this whole thing might just work.
Would you prefer to pay a membership for unlimited games? Is the PC master-race ready for a new challenger? Will Irish internet connectivity even be able to handle the likes of Stadia? Let us know what you think in the comments below.
When I suggested we deploy an Uber-style solution to the countryside to help stimulate a rural social life, I was really quick to point out the importance of having a trustworthy taxi driver. It’s the morning after St. Patrick’s Day night and I have a rant about taxis in Dublin. Specifically, I have a rant about MyTaxi that I want to share.
What Happened With MyTaxi On St. Patrick’s Night?
In short, a taxi driver undermined the whole MyTaxi service because he didn’t want to pay the rather hefty 12% commission that comes with accepting MyTaxi jobs versus the 0% commission he would pay for someone flagging him down on the street.
Time for more detail.
Best Laid Plans
My plans for St. Patrick’s Day this year were a bit more ambitious than usual. My apartment overlooks the parade route, so after some drinks and enjoying the parade, I was heading over to the 3Arena for a charity comedy gig before grabbing the Luas down to Fibber McGees for a music gig. Given I’ve been living in the capital for five years now, this was the most ambitious Paddy’s Day plans I’d made here yet.
Surprisingly everything went swimmingly until getting the Luas back out from the 3Arena. It was jammers, so we decided to get a taxi. I didn’t have any cash on me (as is par for the course) so I fired up MyTaxi. Not a taxi to be had, but it was a busy area at the time so I got over it. Fortunately, someone I was with spotted a taxi and flagged him down. We were sorted. But I still wanted to pay. Thankfully, he was a MyTaxi driver with loads of branding all over the car, leaving me confident I’d be able to use the Pay With MyTaxi feature.
This is where my rant begins. I apologise in advance if this all seems petty.
Resisting An Argument
Just as we set off on the taxi, I asked the driver if it would be ok with him for me to use the Pay With MyTaxi feature.
This system is really simple. You flag a taxi on the street, check if they are a MyTaxi driver and then find them in the app in order to pay with your saved card rather than cash.
Great idea right? I’d only used it once and it worked perfectly. This time, however, the taxi driver laughed and said no. Yup, he actually laughed. After he laughed, he explained the joke I missed.
“This thing is a joke tonight” the driver said, pointing at his phone which showed the MyTaxi interface. “Why should I pay a 12% commission to these guys tonight when everyone is on the street looking for a taxi?”
he was only looking at this from his pocket and not from the experience of his passengers
I won’t lie. I was a bit triggered by this. Mainly because I have a lot of experience in customer-centric retail spheres and he was only looking at this from his pocket and not from the experience of his passengers. We had a great night so far and one of the party travelling with me, fortunately, had cash which meant I could resist the argument.
Still, it left a bad taste in my mouth and I’ve been thinking about it since. There are two ways of looking at this.
The Taxi Driver Was Wrong
That taxi driver was spinning around in a Toyota Prius that was dressed head to toe in MyTaxi branding. This naturally led to my assuming that using the Pay With MyTaxi functionality would be absolutely no problem. Technically, you are supposed to mention it to the driver at the start of your journey and we were driving about one minute before I realised that, mentioned it and found out it would not be an option.
This taxi driver was looking at this scenario from his own financial benefit only. He didn’t want to lose 12% of the fare by letting me use MyTaxi to pay for the journey. Let’s do the maths.
My trip cost €12 which means he would have received €10.56 instead of €12 should I have paid with the MyTaxi app. So he got himself an extra €1.44 by insisting we pay cash.
I know. If you look after the pennies the pounds look after themselves, but I doubt very much many people bother to use Pay With MyTaxi feature, so with this being a potential once-off on his night, would it really have been that big a deal?
Are You Busy Tonight?
There’s one more important point to bring up here. Instead of asking my taxi driver the classic “are you busy tonight” or making a joke about people always asking that, a few years ago I started asking them what they thought about MyTaxi (formerly Hailo).
The majority of them seem to be fairly happy with it as the service means they can pick up fares on quiet nights rather than sitting around waiting for someone to flag them down. Some did mention the commission or the delay for payments, but even so, most said the whole thing compliments their days work with a few extra fares a day.
So for a driver to have all the MyTaxi branding reject a customer wanting to use the MyTaxi app to pay for a ride because it was a busy night where he didn’t need the app, is at the very least bad form. You can’t just sign up for something and offer a service when the going is good.
Well, actually you can given this is exactly what happened, but as I said, it’s bad form.
Would you believe Dublin taxi drivers and me have previous on this.
Why Would You Book On MyTaxi?
In a past life, an employer had a MyTaxi account. This was brilliant because they simply gave employees access to the company account and you could be whizzed around Dublin without having to worry about expensing back taxis receipts as the company paid for the trip on the spot. Brilliant way of doing things.
That was until I booked a cab to collect me outside Croke Park.
The driver I booked through MyTaxi pulled up outside and I jumped in. “Where are you off to?” asked the driver. “You should be able to see the exact address there in the MyTaxi app” says I.
The driver actually got quite agressive here.
“Why the fuck would you book using this bloody app here”, the driver said out of nowhere. “You can easily hail down a taxi, but because you’ve booked through this bloody app I won’t see a penny of this for a week or two”.
I was taken aback by him giving out to me considering, in my eyes, I was giving him money for the service he provides to everyone on a daily basis. I explained that it was a business account which meant I wouldn’t be out of pocket (nor could I afford to be) for getting a taxi across town. He gave an auld audible “tut” before silently dropping me to my destination.
Personally, as a customer, these are the two standout negative experiences I’ve had in five years with taxis in Dublin. While both surround MyTaxi, I would say both situations were, in the very least, partially the fault of the taxi driver and not MyTaxi.
That doesn’t mean I think they are totally innocent here.
MyTaxi Is Wrong
In both scenarios that I’ve given here, I can totally see why the taxi drivers were less than pleased to be dealing with a MyTaxi customer and not a regular cash-paying customer.
They would lose 12% of the fare
They would have to wait a week or two to be paid
As a customer, to be quite honest, I couldn’t care less about these two points. Last night, I had no cash on me so MyTaxi was the only option and in the second example I gave, I couldn’t afford to cover a taxi myself. If I taxi driver has all the MyTaxi livery on his car, as far as I’m concerned he should be accepting the MyTaxi app as a payment method.
At the same time, I can see where he was coming from. St. Patrick’s Day and night is like shooting fish in a barrel for taxi drivers. Everyone needs to get somewhere and they’re often happy to pay a taxi driver to make it happen that little bit easier. Why would you want to hand over 12% to someone when you don’t have to?
MyTaxi stats for 2018
12% does seem like a massive commission. Here are some more maths to put it into some sort of context. To get a taxi from my gaff to the airport costs €30 according to the Transport for Ireland fare calculator. On a fare like this, MyTaxi would make €3.60 and the driver would make €26.40.
MyTaxi probably made around €3.6 million on people going to the airport alone in 2018. 12% commission means big money but this is how these services work. Food delivery services like JustEat and Deliveroo work on the very same idea of connecting customer and service provider while taking a slice of the pie along the way. JustEat charges 13% commission on every order you make with a restaurant with the chipper generally being somewhat happy with the thought that they might not have got that order at all if they weren’t on the JustEat app.
It’ll Take More Than Another Rebrand
The app, which started out in Ireland as Hailo, became MyTaxi in 2017 but will again rebrand later this year to FREE NOW. People used to say “I’ll Hailo a taxi” and now they reluctantly say I’ll MyTaxi a cab, but FREE NOW just seems a ridiculous name for the taxi app. With focus on this rebrand, my fears are even stronger that the company is more focused on what their parent company, Daimler, wants rather than their own drivers and customers want.
MyTaxi has had it hard over the past few years, struggling to find enough drivers to meet demand while also fighting off competitors such as Lynk, Uber and, more recently, Flag. It’s a balancing act, but I fear that unless MyTaxi can get all their drivers on-board with some reduced commissions or helping them see the overall benefits, taxi drivers will resent the service and even worse, resent customers who are innocently using the platform for convenience.
Taxi apps are, in general, great. You’re never stuck without cash, if you lose something you can find it, you know the driver has been vetted, you can share your ride details and if you lose something in the cab, you can contact the driver the next day. It’s safer and I love it for that. So for the next few months, I’m going to focus on using Lynk, which has been created by Dublin taxi drivers which means they must be happy enough for people to use that, right?
Update
The people at MyTaxi have since been in touch with me to highlight that Pay With My Taxi is commission-free and that while they do their best to make this clear to drivers, this one must have slipped the net.
Hi Marty – We're really sorry about this. I can assure you that all Pay with mytaxi fares are commission free, and mytaxi drivers are made aware of this when they sign up to the network. Unfortunately, we cannot follow up with this driver as the payment never went through (1/2)
On the stroke of midnight, as we rang in 2019, Huawei announced the P smart 2019 and as a result, they had the first smartphone announcement of the year. Yesterday, Huawei announced another first as their new folding phone, the Mate X, became the world’s first certified 5G phone.
Whether or not folding phones are the next big thing, is still up for debate, but the Mate X is nothing short or a beautiful phone. Samsung’s Galaxy Fold, while cheaper, appears to be an unusual design misfire, while the Mate X looks sublime.
Coupled with the design innovation, Huawei has now confirmed that the Mate X is teh world’s first certified 5G handset.
5G certification is carried about by TÜV Rheinland, the same crowd behind that CE certification that devices must pass to be eligible for sale within the EU.
The Huawei Mate X utilises a Balong 5000 chipset. This single chip supports a broad spectrum including 2G, 3G, 4G and 5G meaning the addition of 5G to your new smartphone won’t mean it needs to be bigger at all. While refusing to compromise on design, the Balong 5000 chip also doesn’t skimp on performance with the chip being the first to achieve an industry-wide 5G benchmark of 4.6Gbps.
Basically, it’s really fast.
The Mate X is going to be an absolute beast and it might very well be the reason I come around to the idea of folding phones.
Watch this space.
When Will 5G Launch in Ireland?
You can expect to see 5G arrive in Ireland later this year. Both Vodafone and Three have been public in outlining their hopes to support this new mobile spectrum. Exact dates haven’t been confirmed though, so again – watch this space too.
I say it every year. Isn’t it an awful shame we lost Web Summit. Last week, it was announced that we’ve also lost MoneyConf, cancelled at relatively short notice, now to become part of the Lisbon Web Summit. Thanks be to jaysus we have Dublin Tech Summit again this April. Over the coming weeks, I’ll be taking a look at what’s on to look forward to, but today I’m going to start with space, space and more space.
A New Space: Moving Into the RDS
It’s partially a symbolic move but mostly a practical move. Dublin Tech Summit has received mixed reviews to date when it took place in the Dublin Convention Center and that’s simply because it outgrew the building. The first event wasn’t too bad, but last year proved to be too much for the event. With one floor closed off, Casey Neistat and a lot of students the whole event ground to a halt.
This year, Dublin Tech Summit moves to the RDS. Formerly the home of Web Summit, the RDS had it’s own problems, namly the WiFi which infamously proved to be a major pain point for CEO Paddy Cosgrave. Still, as a venue, the sheer size of the RDS was incredible for Web Summit. While you can expect to see only a part of the RDS being used for Dublin Tech Summit this year, the potential for expansion is what really excites here. That and there’s a lovely pub across the road.
Chris Hadfield: Extreme Leadership in Space
Up until a few years ago, if you were asked to name an astronaut, there’s a fair chance people could have only named Neil Armstrong. Nowaways there’s a very good chance that Chris Hadfield would also be the name on the tip of people’s tongues.
The former commander of the International Space Station will be at Dublin Tech Summit to discuss extreme leadership and to be fair, he’s well placed.
Hadfield is one of those really cool personalities too, so you can expect his talk to be jammers. To celebrate his appearance, here’s him singing in space:
Alyssa Carson: Bid to Become a Martian
Alyssa Carson is in one of the most unique positions on the planet. Just 17 years of age, Carson is training to be among the first humans to journey to Mars. It’s really not something to be taken lightly. Her eventual journey will be across nearly 65 million kilometers of space. It’s a lonely journey, but not neccessarily a one-way ticket.
Carson’s journey will be long and lonely, fraught with danger and lots plenty of personal sacrifice, but it’s her passion. Her talk on the Wednesday will be surely be riveting and not one to be missed. I’m intrigued to hear about the sacrifice and the mental state of someone preparing for such a harrowing journey.
Dublin Tech Summit takes place on 10 and 11 April this year in the RDS, Dublin. Be sure to throw us a follow on Twitter, Facebook or Instagram to keep up to date with the latest news from the event.
It might come as no surprise to people that we wouldn’t be the biggest fans of the church here at Goosed.ie, Martin has even wrote an article about using GDPR to leave the Catholic Church. But if we can use tech to leave, the church can use tech to their advantage too. That’s why it now looks like collection baskets may soon become a thing of the past!
We’ve all been there down the years, you’re sitting down doing your mini aerobics class throughout mass and bang, the collection basket comes out. Do you not want drop a couple coppers in to the basket or did you just simply forget the change? Well it could all be changing due to a new initiate that’s kicked of in 5 Dublin based churches.
Digital collection boxes
These digital collection boxes are basically the introduction of contactless card payments in place of the old basket for those of us who barely carry cash anymore. They have rolled out this initiative to tackle the decline in cash donations. It’s been reported that there has been a 19% decrease in donations between 2016 and 2017, with donations dropping from 2.4million from 3.1million the previous year.
“We are piloting a new payment method in a small number of churches, with card machines in place at the back of the church to allow parishioners to make a contactless contribution,”
Has this been done before?
Yes it has, the Church of England has been trailing it for a short while now and the early reports are indicating a 97% increase in donations since the introduction of the digital collection box.
Of course that means the Catholic Church have the euro symbols in their eyes and they have jumped right on the bandwagon.
“later this year we plan to roll out the ability for the majority of parishes to accept card-based payments using a parish payments system. This will cover many transactions such as offerings, pilgrimage payments and will enable parishioners to sign up for recurring contributions.”
Not ones to miss a trick, this new system won’t spell the end of the old wicker baskets that traditionally do the rounds. Now how this works is simple, you pick from one of four options and then either tap your card or phone and pass along. The device can currently handle 500 transactions before needing to charge.
From what we have seen so far, Irish churches will have a stationary device at the back of the church so you can donate before or after the service and in time we might see the mobile option replace the traditional donation method.
At the moment there are over 16,000 in the UK using the system and they aim of making portable card readers available.
It’s definitely an interesting time for the church as worshippers and donations have been drying up over the last couple of years but hey if you’re the church going type and you like giving them money here’s a modern solution that we assume will be rolled out nationwide in the near future.
Anthem only needed a couple of things to go right to be a success and at a glance, it’s one of the most highly polished titles we’ve seen from one of the biggest developers in the world. It’s a deceptive game in the sense that from the moment you see the world, it’s characters and scenery you’re blown away by how gorgeous everything is. Then you play the game. It starts strong, throwing you into the midst of an epic battle where aliens and humans face off in a battle to the death. What happens next is a disappointment, the new game smell wares off and you see the game for exactly what it is, a pretty but buggy and soulless game that fails to show BioWare’s unique storytelling ability.
The Story
Anthem is set on an alien planet where the human race are working towards survival thanks to exo-suit wearing warriors called Freelancers. On this planet, the aliens have shaped the environment using the power of the Anthem of Creation, a mystical energy source of sorts. These “Shapers” as they are known, have now done a runner and left all their Anthem-infused power tools still running, which causes all sorts of apocalyptic accidents that Freelancers are tasked with preventing.
Sounds exciting right? Well not exactly, the story feels like it’s half finished and even the well made characters can’t save it.
The Grind
After the initial mission you will find yourself in a place called Fort Tartis which is a small enclosed city, this is your home and main hub. You play as something called a Freelancer aka a warrior in a mech suit and this is where you return to make your upgrades, talk to NPC’s and pick up your contracts.
When you begin you’re going to be eager to talk to all the characters within the fort so you can get started powering up, gathering loot and get cracking with the storyline. And then it starts to go wrong. Levelling up is a slow and painful grind while the repetitiveness of Anthem starts becoming boring and tedious.
Missions start to blend together and you don’t get a proper grounding around the villain’s motives or the heroes hardships. This means you rarely have a clear understanding of what’s happening or why it matters.
Slogging Away
Here’s Anthem in a nutshell – grab a contract, do the mission, return to base, repeat. Anthem lacks a natural story progression that we have seen in games like Spider-Man and Read Dead and to be honest it would benefit massively from a clearer storyline, that way you’re not constantly jumping in and out of your base for things to do.
Playing with friends is also a bit of a bother. If they are in a different part of the story to you, they won’t make any progress by joining you on a mission. Why I do not know. Also, waiting for them to endlessly talk to NPC’s and constantly travelling back to base kind of takes the enjoyment out of playing with mates.
And finally, it’s just such a slog in my opinion. Around mid-way through the game gets bogged down with too many characters and not enough character development/relationship building. It becomes repetitive and that brings me onto the problem called the Tombs of the Legionaires.
This is essentially a side quest where you have to explore four different caves. Not bad, but to enter each tomb you need to complete a ridiculous amount of tedious tasks. Collect 20 chests, 10 collectables, beat 50 enemies and entry could be yours. I’ll pass. Such was the blowback from gamers towards BioWare, they changed the mission so that your actions in free play mode contribute to the lists once you reach level three. If you’re like me and you won’t spend much time in freeplay then it’s pointless. It’s really a shame because it’s a fine looking game, with promising aspects, it’s just not hitting the mark.
It’s not all bad
Really it’s not. It’s a brilliant looking game. The architecture and scenery are proper stunning while the wildlife around you is slickly done. It’s a complete 180 from the normal apocalyptic wastland vibe you get from most similiar games, namely Destiny 2.
Flying is also pretty cool and it makes travel a breeze. It feels a lot more free than the story ever does and the suits themselves are amazingly detailed with slightly different flying characteristics. It makes for a really nice experience and jumping about to reset yourself in battle will always have you cracking a smile.
So the flying and scenery are good, but it’s the combat where the game really comes to life. The combat visuals are something to see and when you start getting proper weapons, fighting is great craic.
So there’s four Javelin classes, you start as the Ranger and as you level up you start leveling up you unlock new suits. Every suit has it’s own different flying characteristics, abilities, strenghts etc and these are:
The Collossus: A slow, sturdy tank like machine
The Interceptor: A fast/agile melee machine
The weapons themselves are ranked by rarity and power which correlate its strength and with the addition of components and inscriptions you can customize and upgrade your suit. To be fair that is fun.
Money Money Money
Speaking about upgrading the suit, as per the usual now microtransactions are a big deal for Anthem. Any form of visual customization like emotes and cosmetics are going to cost you a few beans.
Speaking about upgrading the suit, as per the usual now microtransactions are a big deal for Anthem. Any form of visual customization like emotes and cosmetics are going to cost you a few beans.
Within the game you can purchase armour and materials using coins you collect throughout the game but you can also use microtransactions to get what you want. This is helped by the fact that gathering coins is a pain making it easier to just buy the upgrades if you wish. For example, gathering 40,000 coins can take over 10 hours.
Longevity
You can complete the campaign in about 20-25 hours roughly but realistically Anthem is going to be dependant on downloadable content to extend its lifespan. If they can bring out some fresh ideas and fix some of the bugs and problems then maybe it can spark some life back into the title and we can have something fun to play. However if things continue as they are then Anthems best bet is going to be having a small niche of dedicated players.
Goosed Verdict
It could have been an incredible game, but let’s call a spade a spade here. Anthem is just not up to scratch! Sorry but it is, I find you spend a lot of time scratching your head simply asking yourself “Why?” Just why is this game not what it should have been.
I don’t want to seem like I didn’t have any fun on the game but it just seems to lack the basic fundamentals of what a game like this needs to work. Players have begun boycotting the game in order to get a bug re-introduced that actually made the game better and that probably says all you need to know really. Anthem is flawed from start to finish and although I’d love to be proven wrong, I’m skeptical that they can do enough to get the players back on board.
The company behind Anthem, BioWare have already detailed some of the changes that will be coming in the new couple of weeks and months. As the game is a “live service game” we should expect that Anthem will change a fair bit, not unlike Destiny 2 or The Division. In fairness to BioWare they seem open to feedback and they are doing their best to respond to it as fast as possible, which is nice. Sadly they have lost me and I won’t be coming back and I imagine that’s the case for most people who have tried Anthem.
