Justin Sullivan—Getty ImagesAn attendee tries Google Glass during the Google I/O developer conference in San Francisco, CA on May 17, 2013.
Google Glass may not have been a success, but the search giant is still trying to make a wearable gadget that people actually want to buy. And, according to a patent the company was granted this week, that future gadget might be a monocle of sorts.
The device seems to offer much of the same functionality as Google Glass, Google’s smart glasses that were shelved indefinitely as a consumer product earlier this year, CNET reports. Unlike Glass, though, the new device only attaches to one side of the user’s head and displays images and videos above a single eye. If created, the device could face some of the same challenges as Glass, which riled privacy concerns among many people who found the product distracting or creepy.
Though Google’s patent was granted, there’s no guarantee the company will actually develop the monocle. Pleny of patented ideas never actually see the light of day. However, there’s no doubt the company is very interested in creating wearables that will convince people to use the company’s myriad services more regularly. Google has been experimenting with a mic-enabled lapel pin, for instance, that works like the communicator badge in Star Trek.
RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — Sitting in a modern living room surrounded by family photographs and knickknacks, Haifa al-Hababi does not look or act like a trailblazer.
As the first female to register as a candidate in the history of Saudi Arabian elections, the 37-year-old architect, professor and newspaper columnist is breaking the rules. She campaigned with her face uncovered and regularly dons bright colors — rare in a country where most women favor black, neck-to-feet abayas in public.
"Things are changing here," al-Hababi said when asked if she has faced any criticism for campaigning unveiled. "Women's roles have changed whereby they don't just necessarily sit at home but work and are much more involved in public life."
She added: "I'm not looking at it as a woman or a man — I'm looking at it as an equal. For me, it's an opportunity for the whole country to participate."
It may not sound a big deal to many in the West, but simply appearing in public unveiled is a big step in deeply conservative Saudi Arabia. Not only that, women are also dependent on a male guardian who are allowed to make some of the most basic life decisions for them, can't drive themselves and have a very limited role in shaping the destiny of their country.
So the 2011 royal decree by former King Abdullah to allow women to vote in municipal elections was a major move that ruffled feathers among the country's extremely conservative clerical ranks.
Official information on the number of voters and candidates for the December 12 vote is very hard to come by but Arabic daily al-Hayat reported that more 1,000 women are standing for office. They are spread across around 75 percent of the country's districts.
Still, al-Hababi and others like her face an uphill battle.
"We do have to take note of the fact that this is a positive step, but we just have a such a long way to go for women," according to Rothna Begum, woman's rights researcher for the Middle East and North Africa at Human Rights Watch.
Begum points to longstanding issues like women being barred from driving and being subject to the mercy of male guardians. But even after women were allowed to vote, some of the basic requirements made it hard for them to participate.
Haifa Al Hababi after she registered as a candidate in Riyadh, Saudi Arabia. Lubna Hussein / NBC News
Among other things, rules prohibit male-female mixed campaign offices, and stop women candidates from communicating directly with men, although they are allowed to use Twitter and YouTube to spread their campaign messages.
"It's not simply a case of women putting their thumb prints in — it is not a fair campaigning field for men and women," Begum added.
Nearly 130,000 women registered to vote for the first time, according to the pro-women's rights Baladi campaign — a tiny proportion of the 10 million who live in Saudi Arabia. But Saudi Arabia is an absolute monarchy and so unused to democracy — a mere 500,000 men are registered, and they have been allowed to vote in municipal elections for a decade already.
Still, change is coming. Women make up a quarter of the country's Shura Council, an unelected body appointed by the king that can propose laws but cannot pass them. And now they can vote, legally at least.
Al-Hababi first decided to run when she saw a tweet from Hatoon al-Fassi, a prominent women's rights activist who is part of Baladi, which means "my country" in Arabic.
"We are empowering and championing women across the country in a systematic organized fashion to guarantee the participation of women in a professional way and to make sure that this historic moment is successful," al-Fassi told NBC News.
The campaign's slogan, "Your voice counts," is printed on pamphlets, posters, bracelets, badges and even chocolates at Al Nahda Philanthropic Society for Women in Riyadh, the country's capital.
"This is recognition that a woman is a citizen," said Sheikha al-Sudairy, the group's chief projects officer at the center speaking of the elections.
Al-Nahda trained 125 volunteers who then went out and trained over 5,000 women as to how to have their voices heard through voting.
Not everyone has gotten the message.
"I didn't vote because I didn't know what it is about," said Walaa al-Majarishi, a 20-year-old supermarket employee. "I think that women are really very important in this society, in any society, but even so men are always the ones with the power."
Al-Majarishi says her father is sick and unemployed so she has to help support the family.
"Now my mother and I have to work because we have to pay the bills," she said. "But even so, we still have to follow the rules of my father."
Many professional women were also undecided about participating.
Hiba Dialdin, a petroleum engineering consultant at oil giant ARAMCO based in Dahran, said she was on the fence for a long time.
"We had a debate among my friends about whether this was really important for us and why we should go out when it wasn't such a big deal," the 46-year-old admitted.
Dialdin said the turning point came when she read a headline saying that women weren't interested in voting.
"I thought: 'We have to go out in force saying, yes, we are engaged wherever we can make a change, and we are going to be involved in decision making,'" she said.
So a handful of women like al-Hababi are trailblazers, but what will she do if they don't get win?
"I won't be surprised if I'm not elected," al-Hababi admitted. "But I will definitely use all this experience to campaign harder and try again in the next election in four years. I believe that everything can change through education. The look on a girl's face when you give her any information is priceless. I would like to be minister of education one day."
Imagine a world in which no one ever said sorry. If you pictured a society composed entirely of stodgy businessmen, frowning and adjusting their ties, it wouldn’t be strange. The debate over whether or not to apologize will probably rage on for as long as there are corporations and leaders to run them. On the pro-apology side, you have experts who say being accountable is not only correct, but ultimately more productive; on the con side, you have the folks who feel that saying “I’m sorry” is tantamount to announcing weakness, possibly in front of the board. So who’s right?
As it usually goes with these kinds of questions, the answer is: it depends.
“We think we want apologies from those who have harmed us,” writes Jeffrey Pfeffer, a professor of organizational behavior at Stanford University, at Fortune. “Yet we instinctively respect strength, confidence, and assurance. And throughout, our ability to forecast our true reactions to situations is imperfect.”
Pfeffer uses two of the more famous corporate apologies in recent years to illustrate his point: Lloyd Blankfein of Goldman Sachs and Tony Hayward of BP. Blankfein steadfastly denied that his company did anything wrong, looking puzzled when a Senate committee demanded an explanation for his employer’s actions during the financial crisis; Hayward apologized during BP’s hearing before a House of Representatives committee, but didn’t take responsibility.
“Most viewers like Hayward’s contrition and are repelled by Blankfein’s arrogance,” Pfeffer writes. “But Blankfein still has his job (and some large bonuses) and Hayward is long gone.”
Why? Because we tend to perceive people who express anger as having more status than those who express sadness. In other words: an abject apology might come off as an admission of weakness.
Does This Mean We Shouldn’t Apologize?
Absolutely not. But, it does mean that we should apologize with care.
Of course, it helps that most of us reading this post probably aren’t charged with heading up a multinational conglomerate accused of wrongdoing. But, status is important, whether we’re leading a team of three people or a department or a company.
It’s easier to apologize well if you keep a few things in mind:
1. The goal of exercise. Why do we apologize in our personal lives? To show the people we love (or at least like) that we care about having hurt them. At work, however, the reasons for apologizing are slightly different and possibly more complex: to restore the social equilibrium, but also to identify the cause of a problem and to begin to fix it.
2. The potential pitfalls – for you and for your team. If you’re a leader, apologizing is fraught with peril, because it’s not just your status on the line, but that of your team or organization.
“In saying sorry, a leader is potentially undercutting employees’ feelings of pride in the institution and their attachment to the company and its work,” Pfeffer explains.
That means choosing your words and tone carefully. Think accountability and responsibility, not shame or embarrassment. You’re not begging for forgiveness, but owning up to your mistakes and making a plan to avoid them in the future.
3. Understanding that strong people are secure, and weak people easily threatened. By definition, someone who is being defensive is not coming from a position of strength.
“We lose respect for a leader when he or she fails to acknowledge a mistake,” writes Scott Belsky at 99u. “What we want to see in our leaders is a sense of self-awareness and honesty. Personally, I gain confidence when one of my colleagues says, ‘Gosh, I don’t know what I was thinking, sorry about [fill in the blank].’ It makes me feel like the mistake or false assumption is now fully understood and owned. It makes me feel safe.”
As Pfeffer points out, even Steve Jobs apologized from time to time – for example, when an iteration of the iPhone had issues with its antenna. The difference is, he used the apology as an opportunity, reminding his listeners about the iPhone’s dominance on the market (3 million phones sold, at that point, and only 0.55 percent of buyers complaining), even as he took responsibility for the problem and offered a solution in the form of a free case. Now that’s an apology that’s anything but weak.
The two images were taken by Kate at their family home Anmer Hall in Sandringham earlier this month.
One shows the infant howling with laughter as she plays with a toy dog, while the other shows her looking to the side as if as if something has caught her attention.
Kate is an accomplished amateur photographer and took a joint portrait of her children George, aged two, and Charlotte a few weeks after her daughter was born on May 2.
the newly-released pictures, Charlotte is believed to be wearing a pink cashmere cardigan over a Liberty print dress with a frilly collar.
Sending an email is the easiest and least intrusive method for making requests within teams. But it’s precisely because email is so effortless that it can be a complete waste of time. Firing off a vague email that doesn’t clearly tell recipients what they should do or why your ask is important will only create more work for everyone.
The most effective emails treat the subject line like a caller ID and use words that get to the point immediately.
Here are some dos and don’ts for word choice that will get your message across clearly and keep you from annoying (or confusing) your co-workers:
1. When There Are Tasks to Complete
Don’t Write: Etc.
Do Write: The, This, or These
Your teachers in grammar school were right—be specific! Even if your email is following a recent conversation or meeting, it’s likely going to get filed as something to do later. When your recipient is ready to read it, seeing “Staff meeting follow-up etc.” won’t be helpful. Instead, be clear about what you need and write: “Please resolve these questions from staff meeting” or “The report discussed in staff meeting.” Think of your subject like pre-writing a to-do list item so it’s easy for that box to get checked.
2. When You’re Sharing Another Email
Don’t Write: “FWD:”
Do Write: Help
This one always makes me think of the ’90s, when it was common to see emails that went something like this: “Fwd: fwd: fwd: fw: Send this to 10 people and this will be your lucky day!” Unless you really are sending chain letters at work (seriously, don’t), you’re probably just sharing something that someone else wrote that you want your co-worker to read or do something about. In that case, do her a favor and write “Could you help me decipher this?” or “Looks like the client needs help.” Sure, you may have planned to write that message in the body of the email, but the subject is a much better place if you want it to get noticed quickly.
3. When You’re Trying to Be Personal
Don’t Write: Hey
Do Write: You
Sending a “Hey” in an email subject line is the same thing as texting “We need to talk” to a friend or someone you’re dating. Don’t do it! You’ll make the recipient suspicious of whatever will come next, and you may end up waiting a while for a response because it may never get opened. Since you might actually need to chat about something personal or private, try “When do you have time for a 15-minute chat?” This approach takes the edge off and puts the power in the recipient’s hands to choose a time that works for him.
4. When You Need it Now
Don’t Write: Urgent
Do Write: Today
When time is short and the pressure is high, “urgent” is a word that can only produce panic. And panicking is the last thing a person responsible for a task should do. If you have enough time to recognize the need and send an email, you also have the time to give advance notice that “This needs to be your first priority today.” If it truly is urgent, make a phone call or in-person visit instead.
5. And One More Bonus Phrase
Last but not least is a phrase that we all say to end our emails but may rarely use to directly address our co-workers: “Thank you.” A short, simple message of appreciation will go a long way in strengthening the bonds between you and your team members. It says that you recognize their efforts and value their roles. And it sure beats a trust fall.
Bill Gates has built one of the most powerful companies in the world, donated billions of dollars to charitable causes, and forever changed the way humans and machines interact. Today the world’s most successful college dropout reaches another important milestone: turning 60.
While Gates is less inclined to seek the limelight than fellow billionaire moguls Richard Branson and Elon Musk (it’s telling that his billionaire bestie is Warren Buffett), he’s been an inspiration to countless people across the world for the past four decades, for obvious reasons.
“I like my job because it involves learning. I like being around smart people who are trying to figure out new things. I like the fact that if people really try they can figure out how to invent things that actually have an impact. I don’t like to waste time where I’m not hearing new things or being creative,” Gates told Playboy in 1994.
With an estimated net worth of $79.2 billion, Gates remains the richest man in the world, a record he’s held for 15 of the past 20 years, according to Forbes. But since stepping down as CEO of Microsoft in 2000, Gates has devoted more and more of his time to giving his money away to worthy causes. Through his philanthropic work with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, he and his wife focus on improving educational outcomes, expanding health care access across the world, and increasing economic opportunity for low-income households.
As for what we can expect from Gates in the future, perhaps he’ll go old school and swap computer coding for manuscript writing, something he alluded to way back in that 1994 interview.
Playboy: Why not write your own book?
Gates: If I were to, I’d do it about the future instead of the past. When I reach a ripe old age, like 60 or something, then maybe I can be reflective.
And at that ripe old age, let’s reflect on some of Gates’s best life and career advice.
In this edition of our weekly Top 10 trending phones chart, we finally witness the Samsung Galaxy J7 get dethroned. The Xiaomi Redmi Note 3 enters the chart this week, and storms straight to number one mere days after its announcement.
Long-time champ Galaxy J7 needs to settle for silver this week, still closely followed by the J5 in third.
Ushered in by the Redmi Note 3, the previous-gen Xiaomi phablet joins the trending list in fourth, comfortably ahead of the Galaxy J2 - another regular. Next comes the Galaxy Grand Prime in sixth, showing no particular sings of loosing user interest week after week.
The Samsung Galaxy S6 and Note5 have swapped places since last week, and the former is now in seventh, while the S-Pen-packing phablet is now in eighth. The Sony Xperia Z5 had the weakest week-on-week performance, losing a total of 6 places, now in ninth. In a bit of surprising development, the Samsung Galaxy A5 enters in tenth, keeping the iPhone 6s out by a few hundred hits.
