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Microsoft Band App Provides Discreet Reporting For Domestic Violence  | SuperSite For Windows

Previous coverage on this topic

Doncare has launched a mobile-phone app to help people in domestic-violence situations

From the horse’s mouth

Band Aid

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Previously, I had given some space to an iOS mobile-platform app written in conjunction with Doncare Community Services in Doncaster to provide domestic-violence survivors access to the necessary information. This app provide the one-stop information shop functionality but could be quickly deleted from a mobile device if the user is in danger of ending up in trouble for seeking help, which can happen in an abusive relationship.

For those of you who are based in the UK, this has recently become a cause celebre thanks to it being woven in to BBC’s “The Archers” radio serial which highlighted an abusive relationship that was taking place in to one of its storylines.

But another project has been finished where a wearable is used as a tool for summoning help in these situations.  This is in the form of “Band Aid” which is an app that works with the Microsoft Band to detect when the wearer is under undue stress and invite them to have the paired smartphone call the national emergency-services number or a user-determined help number like a trusted friend or domestic-violence helpline. The user can override the software to bypass stress-sensing during exercise or similar situations.

There is further development taking place with this software such as working alongside support and refuge centres for domestic and relationship violence sufferers. There is also some work taking place with “social listening” and machine-learning to identify the behaviour of one who is under threat.

The “Band Aid” project has been developed as part of the “HackForHer” hackathon which is a programming challenge for software solutions that can help and enable women. Here, these kind of hackathons can flesh out ways that technology can help particular user groups in particular situations.

Personally, I would like to see this program be “taken further” to facilitate help in other situations like independent ageing (fall detection), living with chronic illnesses with a high fall risk like diabetes or epilepsy, or living with mental illnesses. The sensors in wearables like the Microsoft Band, the Apple Watch and the Android Wear smartwatches are able to monitor body signs along with the wearable’s gyroscope sensor being able to detect falls and similar situations while machine learning that is part of the software can identify what is normal compared to what is abnormal.

Here, it could detect if one is about to have a diabetic coma or epileptic seizure, or needs help because they as an old person fell. Having this kind of software work with the “Internet Of Everything” can work well for identifying risk-taking behaviour such as a person who is living alone not entering the kitchen to feed themselves or making sure that a person has taken medicines that they have to take.

What is happening is that it is the first time devices in the platform wearables or Internet-Of-Things class, along with the concept of machine learning, are being exploited as a personal-welfare device rather than as a wellness or “keep-fit” device. Here, this avoids the need to wear extra clutter to achieve a goal of ideal personal safety or health.

Article – From the horse’s mouth

QNAP

TBS-453A NASBook Ultra-Compact SSD NAS

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QNAP has just lately offered the TBS-453A NASBook which is an ultra-compact 4-drive NAS that is designed to work with solid-state drives rather than hard disks,

But this solid-state-drive NAS is a different breed to the portable NAS units offered to mobile users who exchange data between laptops and tablets. This is about Ethernet rather than Wi-Fi connectivity along with a 4-disk RAID array for performance or data safety, and increased functionality thanks to a desktop-grade NAS app store offered by QNAP.

The drives that are preferred for this device are the M.2 type that are typically used for Ultrabooks and 2-in-1s with this device being about the size of a B5 notebook. As well, it is powered by a 19-volt power brick but can accept voltages between 10 volts and 20 volts DC. This makes it suitable for a wide range if industrial and similar uses and could appeal to automotive and marine use, if there was a way to support externally-switched power control expected for such use.

It also has a 4-port Ethernet switch for one network along with a single Gigabit Ethernet socket for another network and this can be set up to work effectively like a router or to serve its own network.

As well, like other QNAP NAS units, this implements the QTS operating system with an increasing array of apps for business and personal use. But it also can be set up as a Linux computer by implementing a virtualised dual-operating-system setup and has the necessary “console” connections for this purpose. That is HDMI for display and audio connection along with USB connections for keyboard and mouse purposes. Like some recent QNAP NAS units, it also has its own audio interface which makes it appeal as a multimedia computer in its own right.

You can also expand this book-size NAS to work with a regular disk array by installing UX-800P and UX-500P multi-disk expansion modules this allowing you to create RAID disk arrays with these disks.

Tool or toy?

This kind of “far-fetched” cutting-edge network-attached-storage device could be easily dismissed as a toy rather than a tool, but there are some applications where it could earn its keep as a tool.

One would be to exist as a highly-capable Ethernet-connected portable NAS or server device that you use in a “mobile-office” setting. Similarly, you could see this being used with a home network where you want the multimedia functionality like DLNA Network Media Server functionality looked after but without dealing with a noisy or power-inefficient device. This would also win favours with home-AV manufacturers and distributors who are showcasing their network-capable hi-fi and home-theatre equipment at the hotel-based hi-fi shows like what the Chester Group are running. As well, QNAP are pitching this device in the Internet Of Things and building-security applications scenarios where this NAS could record data from sensor-type devices or visual images from network cameras yet be able to work with low power demands.

QNAP could see the TBS-453A as an effort to approach vehicle and marine applications for NAS devices along with courting mobile workgroups, remote data collection or other setups where portability, low power consumption or reduced operating noise are highly valued.

You can have a FaceTime videocall on the big TV screen with your Apple TV

Those of you who use an iPhone or iPad and have contacts that use these Apple iOS devices will no doubt have engaged in a Facetime videocall at some point. Facetime is Apple’s own over-the-top VoIP / videocall platform that works alongside the their iMessage messaging / presence platform.

But you may want to use the big screen for a Facetime videocall. This may be to have a large group like your family participate in the videocall with a distant relative or friend or you may find that the large screen offers you a way to see your correspondent easily and comfortably. How do you do this?

The AirPlay network-based video-streaming method brings more utility to the Apple iPad

The same instructions will also apply with people who use any other mobile-messaging platform that uses an iOS client like Skype or Facebook Messenger, especially where the platform offers videocalling or video messaging functionality.

Most likely, you will have purchased an Apple TV set-top box perhaps to use the iTunes video-on-demand services or use its Netflix or other video-service front-ends. This device can also earn its keep in bringing Facetime to the big screen.

This Apple TV device exploits Apple’s Airplay network-based streaming protocol especially for video applications and will work alongside any iPhone or iPad running a version of iOS newer than iOS 5. Both these devices need to be on the same logical network as each other, which is simple for most home and other small networks looked after by one router.

How to have Facetime on the big screen

1. Start a Facetime session on your iPhone or iPad as you normally would and advise the caller you will be linking to the big screen
2. Double-click the Home button to bring up the “Fast Application Switcher” and select the iOS Home screen then expose the control panel by “pulling up” from the bottom of the screen
3. Tap Airplay button and select Apple TV as your AirPlay target device and enable AirPlay mirroring
   

   Set up iPad for mirroring to Apple TV

4. Switch back to Facetime by double-clicking on the Home button and selecting the Facetime window which should be the last or second-last window.
5. Continue your call but see your caller on the big screen and hear them through the TV’s speakers. You may find it easier to place your iPhone or iPad atop or in front of the TV screen for natural conversation.

When I was doing research on this topic, I noticed that commentators were raising the idea that Apple could integrate Facetime in to the Apple TV platform in a similar way to how some smart-TV manufacturers integrated Skype in to their smart-TVs and video peripherals. This would be in the form of supplying a camera kit as an optional accessory or describing one of these kits as part of the MFi peripherals program that Apple runs along with developing a Facetime app for the Apple TV.

Previous Coverage

Feature Article: Multi-Building Home Networks

I have covered the issue of bringing your home network and Internet service to other buildings on your property, whether they be a garage, barn or granny flat (mother-in-law apartment).

You may consider this as being of value to, for example, achieve a quieter house by having your teenagers playing their video games in the converted garage; bringing Netflix and similar services to the man-cave or just simply allowing whoever is sleeping in the guest-house to have access to the Internet.

Europeans will benefit from the fact that one right-sized satellite dish could cover your property’s satellite-TV needs including the ability to watch from that granny flat thanks to SAT>IP technology that exploits your home network as a satellite-antenna link.

This will provide what I have been talking about as a single diagram that you can understand.

Methods to link buildings in a multiple-building home network

Article – From the horse’s mouth

Panasonic

Video Playlist

Previous Coverage

Panasonic launches network-capable stereo equipment with full multiroom streaming

My Comments

I had provided some previous coverage about Panasonic’s AllPlay multi-room audio setup which implements Qualcomm’s AllPlay network-based multi-room audio technology. Here, I called out two stereos, the SC-ALL5CD single-piece unit and the SC-PMX100 three-piece system, that can stream broadcast radio and regular CDs that you buy from Amazon or JB Hi-Fi from their own tuners or CD players through AllPlay-compatible multi-room speakers.

Now Panasonic have refreshed their control app for their ALL series speakers and offered a video which shows what the refreshed mobile-platform app can do. It is part of a video playlist that highlights what the Panasonic ALL series stereo equipment and speaker systems are about.

If this fails to update iTunes or QuickTime, you may have to download these programs from Apple’s download site

You may find that when you update iTunes, QuickTime or other Apple software via the Apple Software Update app, the software may show error messages or simply hang/ This would then cause the ASU app to mark these updates as pending and the behaviour may continue to repeat itself.

But what can you do about this?

You can apply the QuickTime, iTunes and other updates by visiting the Apple downloads Website and downloading the respective software using the installers that exist on that site for your platform. This is similar to a new install rather than an update and can be used if you are dealing with a PC or Mac running older versions of iTunes or QuickTime. It can also be caused by corrupted configuration data that QuickTime and iTunes are working from.

Subsequently, the Apple Software Update app will behave properly, only needing to detect and install the necessary updates.  The update and install experience will be responsive and take a shorter amount of time to complete.

Apple is now seeing the reality with how the iPad is being used

Apple have released iOS 9.3 which has as part of its Education feature package the ability to allow multiple users to use the same iPad.

This is a feature that the iPad is sorely missing because of a common reality that I have noticed with this tablet where many household members are using the same device. It happens more so with the 10” standard iPad rather than the iPad Mini which is used more as a “personal” device. For example, I have seen one iPad being passed around four different household members in our household for email, video-content viewing, gaming as in Plants vs Zombies, and information lookup. Another iPad that I have seen in action is one that became the common Internet (or should I say at times Facebook) terminal in a “family house“. Similarly, businesses have used the iPad as a mobile computing device ranging from a communal image-viewing device through a POS terminal to a kiosk device.

It is in contrast to Steve Jobs vision for this device where he sees it as a personal companion device i.e. as a large-screen companion to the iPhone that each of us use. This is why Apple refused to integrate multiple-user support in to the iPad variants of the iOS platform. It is in contrast to how Google integrated multi-user functionality in to Android Honeycomb to benefit tablet users and Microsoft carried through the multi-user abilities of the Windows regular-computer operating system to tablets that ran that operating system.

iPad users had to be very scrupulous that they log out of email, Facebook and similar services if the tablet was being used as a communal device and they wanted to keep their data private and unadulterated. There wasn’t the ability to have a distinct operating environment for individual users like a different wallpaper or exclusive access to personal email and other accounts. Businesses would even have to run extra third-party apps to achieve a multi-user login setup which became very important through the lifespan of the tablet.

But Apple woke up by offering multi-user abilities for iOS 9.3, but only as part of an “Education” feature set which is an extension of Apple’s strong efforts for courting the education market since the Apple II era. This was because schools, especially primary schools (elementary schools in North America), would buy fewer iPads and pass them around a class, yet they want to be able to track progress through various courseware apps that are written for this platform.

When iOS users and the computer press heard about this, they thought that Apple would answer these needs “across the board” but at the moment, it is only being targeted to the education market. There is a hope being expressed that when Apple issues a subsequent major iOS update like iOS 10, they will provide proper multi-user support for this platform. But it may require a rewrite of the iOS operating system in order to make sure that the extra functionality doesn’t weigh the iPad’s performance down.

Some users may find that the login user interface may not cater to the multiple-user scenario but it may have to be about supporting a user list similar to the way Windows works and supporting different user PINs and fingerprints as login credentials. Similarly, Apple may have to realise that there can be multiple Apple IDs associated with the one iPad and factor that in with account management / password vault features and iTunes purchases. This could lead to the ability to provide Windows-8-style cross-device portability where apps, settings and libraries can be carried across multiple devices.

What may have to be looked at is to integrate a full multi-user ability in to the iOS distribution packaged for the iPads, perhaps implementing some of the techniques used in Windows or Android.