Computers can now nail people faking pain

In the ever-expanding contest between artificial intelligence and the ordinary human mind, you can chalk up another one for the computer.

Scientists have developed a computer system with sophisticated pattern recognition abilities that performed much better than humans in differentiating between people experiencing genuine pain and people who were just faking it.

In a study published in the journal Current Biology this week, human subjects did no better than chance — about 50% — in correctly judging if a person was feigning pain after seeing videos in which some people were and some were not.

 

 The computer was right 85% of the time. Why? The researchers say its pattern recognition abilities successfully spotted distinctive aspects of facial expressions, particularly involving mouth movements, that people generally missed.

"We all know that computers are good at logic processes and they've long out-performed humans on things like playing chess," said Marian Bartlett of the Institute for Neural Computation at the University of California-San Diego, one of the researchers.

"But in perceptual processes, computers lag far behind humans and have a lot of trouble with perceptual processes that humans tend to find easy, including speech recognition and visual recognition. Here's an example of a perceptual process that the computer is able to do better than human observers," Bartlett said in a telephone interview.

For the experiment, 25 volunteers each recorded two videos.

In the first, each of the volunteers immersed an arm in lukewarm water for a minute and were told to try to fool an expert into thinking they were in pain. In the second, the volunteers immersed an arm in a bucket of frigid ice water for a minute, a genuinely painful experience, and were given no instructions on what to do with their facial expressions.

The researchers asked 170 other volunteers to assess which people were in real discomfort and which were faking it.

After they registered a 50% accuracy rate, which is no better than a coin flip, the researchers gave the volunteers training in recognizing when someone was faking pain. Even after this, the volunteers managed an accuracy rate of only 55%.

The computer's vision system included a video camera that took images of a person's facial expressions and decoded them. The computer had been programmed to recognize that one kind of facial movement combinations suggested true pain and another kind suggested faked pain.

"It's looking at what 20 facial muscles are doing in every frame of video," Bartlett added.

So why are people so lousy at spotting a faker? The human face transmits an abundance of information including expressions of emotion and pain. But people also are adept at simulating emotions, some are so good they routinely can deceive others.

The computer system proved far better than people at spotting subtle differences between involuntary and voluntary facial movements that underpin sincerity, the researchers said.

Emerging markets to help Vuclip reach 500 mn users: CEO

Helped by growing number of users in developed and emerging markets, mobile video streaming network Vuclip expects its userbase to expand to 500 million over the next few years.

The California-based firm -- that claims to be the world's largest independent mobile video and media company -- currently has 120 million users globally, including 20 million in India.

"As consumer interest for mobile videos continues to see rise exponentially, we expect more innovative concepts will be introduced by telecom operators, not just in India, but also in other geographies, like Telkomsel in Indonesia and AIS in Thailand," Vuclip founder and CEO Nickhil Jakatdar told PTI.

The company had about 40 million users as of January last year, which rose to 120 million this year, he added.

Jakatdar, however did not specify the time period for the company's target to reach 500 million users.

Concepts like Airtel's Re 1 store, which introduced users to mobile videos in a very simple and absolutely friction-free manner, is the way ahead and the firm will try to cash in on such strategies, Jakatdar said.

"That's where Vuclip comes into play. We are a strategic partner to telecom companies, not just in India but also in other emerging markets like South East Asia and Middle East and making them more relevant by powering their mobile video store," he added.

The company has so far raised Raised USD 40 million in funding from SingTel Innov8, NEA and Jafco Ventures.

Quoting from Cisco's Visual Networking Index, Jakatdar said mobile devices will consume three times more data than the entire desktop Internet by 2017 and two-thirds of the world's mobile data traffic will be video.

While video is most attractive in terms of getting the subscribers moving to data, the congested networks and device variability often kills user experience with endless buffering and crazy loading times, he said.

Vuclip takes away unnecessary buffering and with its patent pending technology the firm helps to kill initial loading and frequent buffering, Jakatdar added.

"Our users enjoy over 2 billion minutes of videos each month via a unique, unbuffered viewing experience regardless of network variability and on all devices from feature phones to smartphones," he said.

Vuclip has also released an update to its popular Android app to provide a highly personalised mobile video viewing experience through a new sophisticated recommendation engine and exciting social features.

The app also offers an offline viewing feature to users seeking to view high quality videos at their leisure.

Besides, it has also partnered with entertainment company Graphic India to bring popular film Sholay's legendary villain Gabbar Singh's backstory to mobile through animated comics.

Microsoft Using Machine Learning, AI Across Product Lines

NEW YORK—Microsoft is using machine learning across the board in its products, and deep learning techniques are finding their way into more and more Microsoft technologies, including Windows Phone, according to the head of the company's machine learning department.

Speaking at the GigaOm Structure Data conference here, John Platt, Microsoft distinguished scientist and manager of the machine learning department at Microsoft Research, said the industry is getting closer to delivering on one of the old dreams of Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates: Computers that can see, hear and understand.

Platt said machine learning not only is big in Microsoft Research, "but machine learning is pretty much pervasive throughout all Microsoft products. So whenever you use a Microsoft product you're using a system that's been generated from machine learning."

Moreover, whenever you use the search engine Bing, you're using many components that have been trained with machine learning, he said.


IBM Business Process Management for SAP Implementations
Download Now
"Large amounts of that system are all done by machine learning because that's how you can do scale," Platt said. "The only way you can answer the billions of questions Bing answers is to have something that operates autonomously. In Xbox, the Kinect was also trained with machine learning. The fact that it can see you in the room even though it's poor lighting and you can wave your arms and it can track you—that's all done with a piece of software that was trained with machine learning."

In addition, Microsoft is using machine learning in security. The company arms its malware analysts with machine learning-driven technology, both to give the analysts "superpowers" to make them much more effective at searching through lots of data, and also by autonomously helping to find malware authors, Platt said.

As for deep learning surfacing in Microsoft products, "If you use the speech recognition on the Windows Phone or if you do it in Windows 8, that's totally trained with deep learning," Platt said. "And it's starting to make its way into the general search products, too."

However, despite advances in artificial intelligence (AI) technology, Platt said he does not yet see it being viable for "safety-critical" applications. "But we are starting to see some of these AI systems, in certain restricted sets, actually approach human levels of performance."

Platt said he looks at AI in three different silos: business intelligence, machine learning, and classic AI or deep learning.

"What I tend to work on is the machine learning, or data mining is what I call it for this particular subset, which is using data to actually create software," Platt said. "That's how we create a lot of software at Microsoft. So instead of following a spec, what you do is you gather a data set and you specify the goals of the software on that data set and at the end you get a piece of software that you can ship that was trained on the data set. That's sort of classical machine learning."

Turkey turns the screw on Twitter ban, blocks social network at ISP level

The Turkish government's attempts to prohibit Twitter use in the country were escalated this weekend, as the country moved to stamp out workarounds.
Despite a blanket ban on Twitter on Thursday, residents were able to gain access to the social network by using Google's free DNS servers.
However, now the authorities have moved not only to block Google's workaround, but also to block Twitter's IP addresses with the country's internet service providers.
That means no DNS services can be used to circumnavigate the restrictions.

YouTube next?

Reports are also suggesting Turkey is also considering action against YouTube after Google ignored requests to take down videos alleging government corruption.
"We support a free and open Internet throughout the world and are concerned whenever and wherever it comes under threat," a Google spokesperson told the Wall Street Journal.
The paper said Google feels an "immediate threat" of a ban in the country.

LG outs Smart Bulb for iOS and Android, will blink when you receive a call

LG has announced its first ever Smart Bulb, a household light bulb that is connectable to iOS and Android devices.
The Wi-Fi or Bluetooth-powered Smart Bulb will blink when users get a phone call, will last for over a decade if on for five hours a day and result in 80 per cent energy savings, according to LG.
The company has baked in a crafty security mode, to make it look like residents are at home, when they're actually away. It's not quite a Kevin McCallister one-man house party, but it'll do.
Users can also set timers and brightness for the bulbs to ensure that morning light is easier on the eyes which "may feel good at daybreak," according to LG's translated press release.

Party mode

There's also a party mode, which will set the brightness to the music emanating from the smartphone and will even blink to the beat, giving users their very own strobe effect. This is an Android-only feature at launch.
The Smart Bulb is out in the coming days, priced at 35,000 won (around $32, £19, AU$33) and is compatible with Android 4.3+ and Apple iOS 6.0+.
International launch plans are unknown, but this is definitely the most excited we've been about a light bulb since Christmas.
It's also the most excited we've been about an LG home product since it announced that Blast Chiller refrigerator compartment that can cool a beer in ten minutes.

Analysis: Microsoft Office on iPad: too little too late?

Microsoft Office on iPad: too little too late?

Well, it's happening: Microsoft is bringing elements of its Office suite, including Word, Excel and PowerPoint, to iPad in a bid to win over the ever expanding tablet user base, which has largely been neglected by Redmond.
Aside from its Office suites on the Surface 2 and Surface Pro 2, which operate predominately within the 'Desktop' mode of Windows 8 rather than being bespoke apps design for tablets, Microsoft has done very little to appease iPads users. It did hint repeatedly that Office would "one day" be coming to iOS, but never actually delivered a final version, until now.
Whether Office on iPad is a success or not remains to be seen, but will rely heavily on the way Microsoft chooses to implement the app(s). We can't know the implementation that Microsoft will choose to use for Office on iPad, but we know the options.
One option is to use Office 365, Microsoft's subscription service for Office. Microsoft's Surface devices require Office 365 to run the Office suite hinting at the path Microsoft may choose to take for Office on iPad.
For £79.99 (US$99.99, AU$119) a year, or £7.99 (US$9.99, AU$12) a month, Microsoft 365 gives you OneDrive (née SkyDrive) storage, international Skype minutes, all of the Office suite and syncing between devices.
It would stand to reason that the iPad version would require this to work, but is it necessarily the best way for Microsoft to go about it?
The answer to that question is likely no. Microsoft will know this because the iPad is still not seen as a "creation" device, mainly due to the lack of keyboard.

Ways to pay

Many users will balk at having to pay a monthly fee in order to use a programme they will most likely use infrequently. It will be used to edit a few documents they have been sent via email or to change a document while travelling without a laptop. Of course some users will sign up, but not as many as Microsoft would want considering the effort that has gone into porting Office to iOS.
A far better alternative would be the more Apple-esque route of charging a small fee per app (Word, Excel and PowerPoint) and offering an in-app purchase of Office 365 if the customer wishes to sync documents seamlessly across devices.
While this would mean sending 30% of all sales to Apple, the consumer would receive a more cohesive experience that would rival Apple's own productivity suite. According to data from App Annie, Pages, the Apple equivalent of Word, has been in the top 40 apps all time, despite charging £6.99 (US $9.99, AU$10.49) up until September 2013. Microsoft will likely want to replicate this success to make their foray into iOS worthwhile.
According to a tweet sent to MacRumors Microsoft could choose to bundle the suite into a single app, allowing users limited functionality but offering the app for free.
This strategy lends itself to the casual user who wishes to edit very simple files, but falls far short of beating Apple's offerings on the platform which are also free, offer near-desktop levels of editing ability and can export to both Microsoft and Apple's productivity suites. Users may download the app on a whim but decide that Apple's apps are superior in both value and function.
Whatever Microsoft chooses to announce at its event later this month will be compared directly to Apple's iWork suite by both technology critics and the general public, a fact Microsoft should be wary of.
Before September 2013 Apple's offerings came at the cost of £21 (about US$30, AU$32) for all three available apps, a bar too high for many. Now, however, the apps are free, meaning that anyone can download and compare them to Microsoft's offerings and users could well decide that Microsoft has delivered too little too late.

The Secret to Get More Instagram Likes Revealed by Science

The Secret to Get More Instagram Likes Revealed by Science is a post by Josh Smith from Gotta Be Mobile.
If you want to get more Instagram likes, science is on your side with two tips that can turn two or three likes into a dozen.
You don’t need to get a thousand more followers to get more Instagram likes, you just need to change what you post and how often you post.
A new scientific study, yes scientific study of Instagram, found that if you take an Instagram photo with your face in it, you’ll get more likes and comments.
Instagram is a social network for photo sharing that is currently owned by Facebook. Users post square photos to Instagram with filters and tags which show up on a newsfeed in the Instagram app on iPhone and Android, and users can post them to Facebook and Twitter as well.

Here are two tips you need to get more Instagram likes.

The study from Georgia Tech, shared on Mashable, took a random 1.1 million Instagram photos and used face detection software to uncover that Instagram photos with a face are 38% more likely to get likes and 32% more likely to get comments.
Why are faces in Instagram photos more attractive to other users? According to Saeideh Bakhshi of Georgia Tech, “We are social animals and want to see other people — it’s comforting to us and makes us safe. This is engrained in us at a very early age, when babies are looking for the support of their parents.”
If only Bradley's arm was longer. Best photo ever. #oscars pic.twitter.com/C9U5NOtGap
— Ellen DeGeneres (@TheEllenShow) March 3, 2014

Of course this doesn’t factor in wether or not you are attractive, which has to help with likes and comments. The study found that age, gender and the number of faces in the Instagram photo didn’t make a difference, though adding Ellen and Jared Leto would probably help.
The second thing you need to do to get more Instagram likes is a little counterintuitive. The researchers found that you shouldn’t post Instagram photos as often if you want more likes. Bakhshi told Mashable, “The more Instagram pictures you post, the more people lose interest.”
While you may be tempted to share a lot of Instagram photos every day, or to batch post all your photos at once, you’ll get more likes and more engagement by spacing the photos out and taking small breaks between posts.
Just like you don’t want to see 50 photos of one person you follow cluttering up your timeline, others don’t want to see the same thing. If you want to get more likes and comments on Facebook you could also apply this advice to posting there.

Domestic companies go slow on expat hiring; turn to Indian talent

Domestic companies are going slow on expat hiring while sharpening their focus on getting Indians with requisite global experience, and this trend is likely to continue for two more years, HR experts say. 

Companies are now focusing more on budgets and are trying to find the same kind of exposure and experience from Indian talent that expats can offer. They are seen bringing in expats only when the cost of hiring an expat as against an Indian is pretty much similar. 

Expat hiring was growing at the rate of 10-12 per cent annually till 2012. Since last year, however, there has been a major decline and this dip is likely to continue for a couple more years, experts said. 

"It is not the rupee depreciation or otherwise but for the fact that it is the required competency level complementing the requirements of Indian companies," GHCL Ltd HR Head Rajesh Tripathi said. 

A steady supply of Indians, who possess the required competencies and have paramount global exposure, is also a major factor that has made domestic firms do a re-think on expat hiring. 

However, India remains an attractive destination for expats and the number of expats looking at assignments and tenures in India to boost their resume has gone up significantly. 

"Almost 30 per cent of expats are open to looking at modest compensation packages which could be termed as a 'pay cut' keeping in view the upsides associated with specific experience of working in a large, complex and active emerging market such as India," executive search firm Spearhead InterSearch Founder and MD Jyorden T Misra said. 

MyHiringClub.com CEO Rajesh Kumar said: "Yes, companies are willing to get expatriates on board with the global experience, but on a conservative mode". 

Kumar further said that currently almost 70 per cent of expat professionals hiring is taking place at a higher level and 30 per cent at mid or lower levels. 

"What is most interesting to notice in India is that it is not just multinational companies or the large Indian organisations that are employing expats. Some of the medium-sized enterprises with ambitious plans have also been hiring expats in a bid to achieve their goals," Kumar said. 

According to data provided by MyHiringClub.com, around 39,000 expats (not including Indian origin people) are working in India. Among them about 3,700 are from United States of America (USA). In 2012, the number of expats working in India was at a peak with more than 49,000 professionals.

Be Wise; Opt For Career Oriented Higher Education

When all said and done, Education is the stepping stone for a future career. While investing heavily for a degree program, it is extremely important for the student to identify his/her most desired area of study. Cultural factors, including parental, social and peer guidance could easily influence one’s decision making process. It would help to do some self-study and analysis about the courses one liked the most during school, one’s strong skills (analytical, math, logical), personal traits (leadership, introvert, extrovert?, before deciding on a program or a major.
Career based program mapping is something that is growing as a trend. Trying to identify what a student would like to do after graduation is well discussed and thought through before an institution, program or major is decided. Once admitted to an institution, it is important for students to search for learning opportunities beyond the class room. Many students in today’s growing global environment have larger advantage to learn more outside the class room than inside including varied cultures, industries and careers.
While Indian education system offers experience based learning or career exploration opportunities for students through internships, projects and industrial visits, much wider career based learning opportunities are available for undergraduate students and graduate students through part-time jobs, curriculum-practical training, extended internship periods and co-operative (Co-op) programs in foreign countries especially in the USA.
While Indian students usually go abroad for graduate programs, we have also seen recent interest in students looking to study abroad for their undergraduate programs in the USA, where the student have much wider options and flexibility to choose undergraduate programs and majors eventually leading to desired career.
Students are provided with the flexibility to choose any degree or major they desire as long as the required academic levels are met. Industry based work experience is included as part of the curriculum, while being enrolled in co-op programs in the USA. A student will have internships planned for a total of at least a 12 month period during their bachelor’s degree program. Five year co-op programs are also offered to provide an entire year in between, as well as during breaks for the student to work in the related field of study. The curriculum is very carefully planned to provide introduction and the required industry knowledge for students to immediately apply their knowledge, gained during their program, at their workplace. A student opting for the co-op program is also provided with a 360 degree on-the-job learning of the entire organisation by deputing the student in different departments of the organisation, according to the courses enrolled.  The multi-department exposure helps students to explore their interest in various functions of the organisation to identify their strengths and likeliness to a particular career path.
Many similar-domain companies join forces together to create consortiums to address their regulatory, logistical, human resource or skilled manpower needs.  It is very common for these consortiums to work with higher education institutions in the cities to initiate and guide co-op based curriculum creation, to address their current and future requirements of industry-ready talent pool. Larger support and commitments are usually provided by these companies through scholarships, deputing their industry experts as adjunct faculties, offering internships during school year and holidays, part-time jobs during the course of study and finally a job opportunity upon graduation. These co-op programs have been greatly successful and have been a win-win for students, institutions and the companies.
International students in the USA do have restrictions on the number of hours they can work and location of employment. Curriculum Practical Training (CPT) particularly allows the student to work in the same field of study in an off-campus location for up to 20 hours, during the school year and full-time during holidays and semester breaks. This provision allows international students to be eligible for co-op participation.  Optional Practical Training (OPT) is also offered upon graduation, for all international students, to work in their graduating field of study, without applying for work visa for up to 12 months for all graduating programs and 27 months for students graduating with a science, technology, engineering and math degrees (STEM).
These structured venues provided by higher-education institutions provide great career based learning and advancement opportunities for students preparing for their future careers and beyond.

Best Headphones for Sleeping

Best Headphones for Sleeping is a post by Josh Smith from Gotta Be Mobile.
If you like to listen to music while sleeping you know all to well how annoying earbuds and headphones are while trying to sleep. After spending years putting up with uncomfortable headphones to wear at night, we discovered a collection of headphones for sleeping.
These headphones are designed specifically to wear while you are in bed and trying to fall asleep. These are slim headphones, mostly with cords, that don’t stick into an ear to poke a user or strap around with a normal over the top headband.
There are three main designs in use, a thin headband with speakers in both sides, a wrap around design that keeps small headphones on your ears and pillow speakers that sit on or under a pillow.
Why do we need headphones for sleeping? Many of us cannot listen to music late at night with a spouse or significant other in the bedroom. Listening to music, specifically classical music, is linked to better sleep quality. There are also special sleep tracks and playlists designed to help users fall asleep faster and white noise apps that can drown out annoying noises.
Whatever your reason, these are the best headphones for sleeping. Most of these are wired, but we did find one pair of Bluetooth headphones for sleeping in. Expect to spend at least $40 for a good pair of headphones to wear in bed, with prices approaching $100 for the wireless models.
In our experience, expect good sound, but nothing approaching audiophile quality. There will be some noise leaking out that may irritate light sleepers nearby, but with a little volume control this is remedied pretty easily.

Bedphones

Bedphones are the headphones I've used to sleep with for over a year. These small, thin headphones don't quite disappear while laying my head on a pillow, but it is comfortable enough that I can fall asleep with them on. The cord is long enough to keep a phone on the night stand and while I often wake up with them on the floor, I don't get tangled up and I have yet to pull my phone off the night stand. The current model includes a $5 upgrade to add a microphone and a single button. This button won't let you change the volume, but it should let most phones pause, play and skip tracks.

Upgrade your brain: Programming resources for coding newbies

Anyone who’s paying attention these days has probably figured out that computer programming is fast becoming the new standard of literacy in our technology-driven economy.
Those with even a rudimentary knowledge of code will probably read this little article and chuckle. But for me and many other “business types,” not understanding coding has become a real handicap and a growing blind spot.
As an intelligent person who’s had a successful career in the software industry and even managed to deliver as technology entrepreneur, I hate feeling left out of certain conversations because I don’t know the language. I find my self in certain meetings feeling like a complete illiterate, and of course I’m forever in search of a kindred engineering soul to help me translate ideas into code for a lot of time and money.
Sometimes I suspect that I could have gone a lot farther and faster if I had seen the light earlier on in my career.
Today, if you are a tech entrepreneur, you might not need to know how to code, but knowing a little programming can make a big difference. It used to be okay to just be a manager and leave the tech to the geeks, these days, products are being developed at speeds never seen before, sometimes in weeks. The rates of execution, iteration and experimentation (lean) are neck-breaking, and you should be a part of it, hands-on, and not as an orchestrator only.
Everyone is tweaking, hacking, and experimenting. It’s time to get on board and understand what your team is developing. The good news is: It’s much easier than you think.

Upgrading your MBA brain is actually fun

Eager to cast off my illiterate status, I decided to do what every reasonable person should do in a changing environment: Learn something new. There are so many amazing resources online today that are free and beautifully made, I would have to be nuts not to.
My goal for this year is to hack and tweak and break everything (safe mode, no commits) and use that fancy GitHub repository once and for all! Here’s an overview of what I’ve tried personally which I hope will inspire you to get started.
I started here: Code.org

This is the easiest place to start learning the principles of coding through a set of interactive tutorials that’s actually fun.  The structures and thinking of coding, and the value on efficiency, are all embedded in the deceptively playful and highly motivating games.
I played “enginerd” on this site with my 3.5-year-old daughter, who was very impressed with my skill at getting the Angry Bird to trump the pig. This one is painless, enjoyable, and aimed at kids, so anyone who can read can use this resource.  There, no excuses.
This website is a great resource. The home page assumes no knowledge on the part of the user (thank goodness), but before you know it, you’ve used JavaScript to make your name dance in rainbow colors.
In addition to the site being valuable to me personally, it impressed me as an example of an engaging and dynamic training tool. The service is adaptive, and progresses with you.
Ready, young novice? Try Stanford’s Udacity
With a collection of lectures and classes from all over the country, this was another site which really made me appreciate the effort a lot of good people put into education and providing access to the best materials in the world.
As expected, this is a lot more academic, including complete lecture videos available for download. This moved me past fun and easy, but the videos are very insightful and give you a glimpse into the world’s finest computer science labs.
Check it out, and start using terms like Stack Overflow and Boolean completely at random to impress people who are under 5 or over 95.  You can even learn how to build a search engine.
Bonus tip: If you have kids in your life, introduce them to programming logic with Robot Turtles. This board game for little programmers sneakily teaches the fundamentals of programming to young children and gets them started on the increasingly essential road to coding literacy.
Even if you aren’t convinced that learning to code is the future, Robot Turtles and similar sites expose children to a kind of thinking which is mathematical and logical while being flexible and creative, and they love it (as will you).

What’s the point of all this?

Perhaps you’re not going to become a software developer or an engineer. You’ll probably never rise above the level of rank newbie. But many of us know that learning even a few words and phrases in another language helps to open doors and make connections—and let’s face it, it often feels like coding types are speaking another language.
Learning the basics of code opens up your understanding of their world and helps you appreciate the miracles they sometimes pull off, and it’s great for your own thinking too. And if you want to take your new learning further, the odds are that your company has a website, an app, or both which you can add to, hands on.
That alone will make this one of the coolest things you could ever do for yourself.

Spread the word

The push for technological literacy isn’t just about individuals, either.  In the past 100 years, more of the world’s nations and people have joined the global economy. For many developing nations, cheap labor was initially their greatest asset, but as literacy rates increased, so did the value of a nation’s human capital and its socioeconomic status around the world.
Fast-forward to the 21^st century and the parallels are hard to avoid.  The people and nations who are embracing this new standard of technological literacy also enjoy better employment prospects. It’s an unavoidable fact, and the Bureau of Labor predicts there will be nearly 140,000 brand new programming and technology positions created before 2022.
To survive in international business, you need to know how to read English; to make it in the tech economy you also need to have some understanding of the code that builds the digital world around you.
Watch this incredible video and hear it from epic success stories like Jack, Mark, Elena, Drew, Bill and Ruchi, and understand that the only things that stands between you and a new skill is you, a commitment and a couple of hours per week.

How to Find Command Prompt in Windows 8.1

How to Find Command Prompt in Windows 8.1 is a post by Travis Pope from Gotta Be Mobile.
Windows has gotten more stable and user-friendly over the years. Every command, nearly every single one is directly available to users through Windows Explorer, the interface users are used to seeing on a daily basis. When you’re browsing your hard drive or even looking at a System information menu, all of that is Windows Explorer. However, Windows didn’t always look this way, it used to be that PC users needed to dive into a screen that stripped away all of the user interfaces that we enjoy today and just type out operations for what they’d like to do. In Windows 8.1 it’s called the Command Prompt.
Here’s how to find the Command Prompt in Windows 8.1.
Go to the Start Screen by pressing the Windows key on your device’s keyboard. Tablet and 2-in-1 users can also press the Windows button directly underneath their device’s display.

Place your mouse pointer in the top-right corner of your screen to reveal the Charms Bar then click or Search. Touch users should place their finger on the right side of their display and swipe to the left to reveal the Charms Bar then tap on Search.

Type Command Prompt into the search box located in the fly out menu on the right. Make sure you’ve correctly typed the phrase into the search box and the press enter or search. Touch users should tap the search box and then type Command Prompt using their device’s on screen keyboard.

It’s important to remember that you shouldn’t use the Command Prompt interface unless you know exactly what you’re doing, know how to send through commands or you’re speaking with a trained member of support that’s slowly walking you through the entire process. Entering commands isn’t as simple as pointing and clicking on-screen elements. Spelling must be exact and characters must be exact.

While Command Prompt can be accessed from tablets and traditional PCs like notebooks and desktops alike, it’s a good idea to find a keyboard if you’re planning to use the Command Prompt on your tablet. Otherwise, typing in each command could take a while.
Windows 8.1 is available for free to all Windows 8 users, just head to the Windows Store app to download and install it. Be warned, the download and installation process does take some time.

How to Download YouTube Videos on iPhone

How to Download YouTube Videos on iPhone is a post by Craig Lloyd from Gotta Be Mobile.
YouTube is the most popular video hosting website on the internet, with 100 hours of video being uploaded to YouTube every minute. Furthermore, over 6 billion hours of video are watched each month on YouTube, and 40% of those hours are spent on mobile devices.
This means that 2.4 billion hours of YouTube videos are watched on mobile devices every month. That’s a lot of bandwidth, and it’s going through either a WiFi connection or an LTE/3G connection. However, there are times when you just can’t get a signal, such as during a flight. If there’s a YouTube web series that you enjoy watching, there are ways to download these videos locally to your iPhone to watch them at anytime, even if you don’t have a internet connection.

There are several apps that you can download from iTunes that allow you to download YouTube videos directly to your iPhone. Unfortunately, they cost a couple of dollars, but they’re worth it if you watch a lot of YouTube videos while on the go.

Instructions

For this demonstration, I’ll be using an app called VIATube. It’s $2.99 in the iTunes App Store and it allows users to download YouTube videos for offline viewing, and it even comes with a handful of nifty features.
Once you have the app downloaded and installed, you can begin browsing and searching for YouTube videos to download. It’s important to note that these apps don’t actually download videos to your iPhone in a format that you can play with the Videos app and export to your computer; you can only view downloaded videos inside of the VIATube app.

When you find a video that you want saved, tap on it to open it up. It’ll begin playing automatically, but simply just pause it to stop it from annoyingly playing.
Next, tap on the + sign in the upper-right corner:

The next screen, you’ll select the playlist to add the video to (if you have more than one playlist). You can also choose whether or not you want the video downloaded in HD or just standard definition. Once it’s good to go, tap on the floppy disk icon in the upper-right corner to save the video:

You’ll get a pop-up that says Video added successfully!. Click OK to continue:

To view your playlist and play the videos that you downloaded, swipe from the left edge of the screen to the right to reveal the navigation menu, and tap on the playlist that you saved a video to:

You’ll see a list of the videos that you saved with a download status bar below each video. When the videos are successfully downloaded and ready to play, the download status bar will say Cached:

Tap on a video to begin playing it. As you can see, I don’t have a WiFi or cellular connection and the video still plays just like if I did have an internet connection:

Again, this app is great for those who enjoy watching YouTube web series while they’re on a flight and need to pass the time. Or if you have a cap on your monthly data allowance, you can use VIATube to download YouTube videos while you’re at home on a WiFi connection and watch them later when you’re out and about.

Facebook's Hack is a dream come true for engineers

Facebook just released a new programming language, aptly named Hack, that will let programmers write code faster while more easily avoiding errors.

Hack hits a sweet-spot by combining elements of both static and dynamic languages. Meaning, programmers can retain all the speed they'd have with a dynamic language (like PHP or Ruby), while also catching mistakes before runtime with early error detection traditionally only seen with static language.

The company has migrated almost all of its PHP-based site to Hack over the last year (one of the beauties of Hack is that it coexists seamlessly with PHP files). Facebook has now made the language open-source, meaning that any engineer can use it and help improve it.

 

Business Insider connected with Gabe Levi, one of the engineers who led most of Facebook's conversion to Hack, and he answered our questions via email:

How do you think that other companies / programmers will benefit from using Hack?

Hack helps you write correct code faster. Hack adds safety nets while avoiding slowing you down and adds language features that make coding in Hack more enjoyable. Converting PHP code to Hack is easy and can be done gradually, as PHP and Hack work together when run with HHVM. The use case can range from one person working on an app to a scale computing company like Facebook. We're putting Hack out there along with an improved HHVM because it can be relevant to everyone.

How does it feel to have completed a project that will increase speed for the entire FB engineering team?

It is immensely satisfying to build useful things for your friends, and that's what we've had the opportunity to do.

Any moments stand out when working on this project as particularly memorable breakthroughs?

I consider Hack the product of a lot of hard work and a tight feedback loop with our original users, the engineers at Facebook. There are many great, original ideas in Hack, but our success at Facebook was the result of a lot of fine tuning rather than large breakthroughs.

Why'd you choose New York instead of the Valley to work?

The standard reason: a girl. I worked for Facebook in California until I started dating a smart, beautiful Facebook NY recruiter who laughed at my jokes. She convinced me to move to New York, which was a pretty easy sell!

4 Side Jobs to Pad Your Paycheck

Whether you need to put a kid through college or you’re tired of rocking Ramen noodles every night for dinner, you’ve come to the decision that you might need to find a supplemental job. Ideally, you’d like to find a flexible job within your career field — something that you can do around your current nine-to-five schedule.
In our increasingly digital and connected world, there are a variety of side jobs that can be performed remotely from home or that offer flexible schedules, enabling the "side gig" to become a viable source of additional income (provided that your current company does not require you to sign a non-compete agreement). Here are four fields to consider if you're trying to pad your paycheck.

1. Freelance writing

Image: Flickr, jeffrey james pacres

If you want to release your inner Kerouac, you can flex your writing muscles as a side job. Writing opportunities abound online, depending on your previous experience and skill level. You can pen anything from a how-to blog post to a ghostwritten manifesto for the hottest new startup in town. Writers are always in demand, and not just for the usual suspects (media companies, publications, etc.); a number of fields utilize writers — marketing, social media, public relations and education, to name a few. Getting your foot in the door can be the trickiest part, but once you're in, establishing a network and a solid portfolio of your work can help you rise through the ranks.

Degrees/Experience Required: Some writing jobs will require a bachelor’s degree, while others will prefer a degree in journalism. If you specialize in a certain style of writing (such as medical writing, for example), you may need advanced degrees. One important thing to consider: When you’re a writer, experience often counts for more than education — and who you know is also a factor. Writing for other magazines, websites or blogs can often open doors faster than a 4.0 GPA. Working your way up from smaller, niche publications to establish a premise for your work is one way to get the ball rolling. Be prepared to provide a variety of writing samples, or even to complete an assignment or two before landing your first job.

Types of Jobs Available: Unless you’re facing daily deadlines, you can write whenever you want, especially if you get "inspired" at 3 a.m. Writers are hired for both full-time or part-time jobs, but many writers choose to freelance for a variety of companies, allowing them to completely customize their schedules. Job titles in the writing field include technical writer, blogger, freelance writer and freelance editorial assistant, among others.

2. Medical coding

One of the most popular remote jobs, medical coding helps physicians and health organizations receive reimbursement from insurance companies; it is a key piece of the medical billing process. Medical coders are the financial side of the medical field, often detail-oriented and possessing strong communication skills.

Degrees/Experience Required: Each job in the medical coding field can have its own specific requirements. Almost all require a high school degree, while others want potential job candidates to have more advanced degrees in nursing and medical coding certification. Solid data-entry skills are a must, along with the ability to read and interpret health records. Coders must generally possess a thorough knowledge of anatomy and medical terminology, as well as familiarity with insurance plans and regulations. Here's a helpful checklist of resources to familiarize yourself with if you're interested in the field.

Types of Jobs Available: When you’re a coder, you control when and how you work. Medical coders can choose from full or part-time jobs, as well as enjoy flexible schedules, work-from-home and per diem opportunities. Some jobs available in this field include medical records clerk, claims analyst, inpatient medical coder and coding specialist.

3. Tutoring

Image: Flickr, City Year

If staring out at a sea of faces in a classroom isn’t your thing (but teaching still is), you can find your groove as a tutor. Providing a one-on-one learning experience for students of any and all ages, tutors often provide assistance in specific subjects.

Degrees/Experience Required: To work as a tutor, you’ll most likely need a bachelor's degree, along with any degrees affiliated with your area of expertise. Most employers prefer tutors to have previous tutoring and/or teaching experience.

Types of Jobs Available: Tutors typically work around a student’s schedule, so after school, evening and weekend appointments are common — it's important that you're willing to accommodate this type of work schedule. But tutors are no longer limited by location; many teach their students virtually, allowing a student in Burbank, Calif., to learn how to multiply mixed fractions by lessons from a tutor in Boise, Idaho. Job titles that are commonly associated with tutoring jobs include regional tutoring coordinator, SAT (or other standardized-test-specific) tutor, education and training assistant and homework help center associate.

4. Freelance graphic design

As visual creatures, graphic designers create images that help convey the needs of their clients. Whether it’s to promote a company’s service or product, or help to create or hone a brand’s identity, graphic designers bring their artistic skills, knowledge of trends and creativity to the table.

Degrees/Experience Required: Experience and an expert eye for the 'next big thing' is what potential employers are looking for when hiring graphic designers. While some companies require a bachelor's degree and agency experience, all graphic designers should be fully fluent in programs such as Quark and the Adobe Creative Suite (InDesign, Illustrator, Photoshop, etc.). Similar to writing, graphic design is another field where your portfolio, connections and prior experience may weigh more heavily than education, depending on the job or specific client.