During today's Ability Summit 2022, Microsoft announced their new line of Adaptive Accessories — hardware devices specifically designed with accessibility in mind. Michael Clark, writing at The Verge:

The lineup consists of three different devices: the Adaptive Mouse, Adaptive Buttons, and the Adaptive Hub. The mouse and buttons are made to support 3D-printed accessories so you can customize them to work the way you want them to.

The adaptive buttons let you add eight programmable inputs to your computer. That doesn’t mean you have to have eight physical buttons, though — the company showed a version with just two large, easy-to-press buttons. But because the mouse can also be used as, say, a joystick or as an eight-way D-pad, Microsoft says you can set the inputs to act as macros or complicated keyboard shortcuts, which could be difficult to execute for those with motor disabilities

Microsoft had a previous compelling entrant in the accessible hardware space with its Xbox Adaptive Controller, which already stood in a league of its own for gaming accessibility — this new line of hardware products further expands upon Microsoft's obvious commitment to those with disabilities.

What's most-intriguing to me about this initial offering — again: a mouse, the buttons, and the hub — is the deliberate planning for customization. The ability to 3D print attachments for the 8-switch Adaptive Button, for example, allows folks with poor motor skills to add custom joystick attachments and still get the most out of this clever little device. Gabi Michel, Microsoft's Director of Accessible Accessories, put it succinctly in Microsoft's accompanying promo video:

The Microsoft Adaptive input ecosystem is very adaptable and very customizable. Almost every part of it you can swap so that you create a setup that is unique to you — it is 'one size fits one'."

I've discussed before how innovations and explorations in "odd" hardware products like the Elgato Stream Deck Pedal and the new Adaptive Accessories line can make monumental differences in the lives of folks who rely on their computers just as much as any of us do...but have physical barriers to using them to their full potential. Microsoft's promo video for the Adaptive Accessories is a remarkable showcase of exactly that: life-changing hardware that reduces the barrier to entry for so much of our world today — go give it a watch and see for yourself.

Last week’s district court ruling ending the federal transportation mask mandate has some folks tweeting celebrations and confetti emojis for their new-found facial freedom. But as we continue to hurtle uncontrollably towards “normalcy”, the only things I can think about are my mom’s first chemotherapy appointment on Tuesday, my extremely at-risk brother, and wondering to myself why we take such joy from the “normalcy” of making the vulnerable less safe?

The removal of public health measures due to unpopularity shouldn’t be celebrated but rather mourned as the moral failures that they are. Our societal inability to adhere to a simple and effective way to protect ourselves and our neighbors should be a generational stain on our reputation, a Mark of Cain perpetually reminding us of our collective folly. We should be collectively ashamed of the uncaring intransigence of few ruining things for everyone else — and ashamed of ourselves for continually equivocating their discomfort with the vastly-greater pain prevented by universal masking.

The fight over masks is all but over, as much as it pains me (save for hospitals and other healthcare settings). Congratulations, you did it: you may now peruse Whole Foods with unfogged glasses and fly economy (mouth unshackled) to Daytona Beach . But as you rip off your mask in glee while I do my mother’s grocery shopping and drive her to chemotherapy for the next six months, do me a favor and don’t fucking dance.

A couple weeks ago, professional podcaster and occasional app developer Casey Liss released his latest app called MaskerAid — an app that (on the tin, at least) is for obscuring faces with emoji overlays. Launch-day coverage of the app was extensive, including from 512 Pixels, iMore, 9to5Mac, and of course Casey's own blog post.

All of these post highlighted MaskerAid's main feature of automatically detecting faces in an image using iOS magic and eclipsing each with an emoji — letting you share photos of your children more privately on Instagram and the like. All of these posts touched briefly on some alternative use cases for MaskerAid — things like adding a tasteful 💩 emoji or censoring other body parts in a particular photo. But how many of them traveled all the way to Cancún to test out how MaskerAid holds up to the challenge of giving an iguana a cool hat?

🎵 Lizard Faces on Parade 🎵

I joke, of course, when I say that I went all the way to Cancún to review MaskerAid — my wife and I have had this resort vacation booked since Christmas, and during our stay we discovered that Cancún is simply rife with photogenic iguanas. Behold their majestic poses:

What these photos don't show you is their frequent head-bobbing — both used as a greeting and a sign of agitation!

It became my project between trips to the beach and reading sessions poolside to find and photograph any nearby iguanas, but then after a few days I realized what would make these dainty dragons all the more delightful: hats!

Although MaskerAid is billed mostly as an app to provide privacy to your kids on Instagram, it also excels as a straight-up emoji annotation app. After the $2.99 in-app purchase, I was able to add whatever emoji I wanted — from top hats to trumpets — to the idling iguanas of the Riviera Maya. Unfortunately, the iOS face detection baked into MaskerAid has not been expanded to detect reptiles (yet), so every emoji had to be carefully placed by hand. All of this iguana iconography made me notice how challenging it is to place small emoji on small subjects (usually background lizards). When dragging an emoji of any size, it and it's surrounding "container" become slightly transparent to make placing it just right over a face (or snout) much easier to do. However, when the emoji you're working with is smaller than the tip of your finger you can't see what you're doing and have to rely on trial and error. It would be nice if at a certain size the classic cursor magnifying glass from the iOS text editor was added to the emoji container that let you see "passed" your finger while placing a particularly tiny emoji.

Of course, there are far more emoji than just hats...and there were far more than just iguanas at our resort! Getting creative with MaskerAid seemed to me the best way to test out its utility as a simple emoji annotator, and maybe find a few more suggestions for improvement.

Other than the issue of small emoji being difficult to place, I also had an issue with rescaling any emoji also resetting that emoji's rotation state back to "normal" for that emoji. I often found it easier to rotate first and scale second...only to have my careful work undone by the app. I'm unsure if this is a bug, but I hope it can be fixed in a future update.

🎵 Let the Spectacle Astound You 🎵

Overall, MaskerAid does exactly what it promises to: adding emoji to obscure part of an image (or in my case, enhance it) with ease. It's not a complicated app, nor is it entirely original in what it does. Twitter and Instagram, for instance, both let you add emoji annotations to images before posting them — which in a way does undercut MaskerAid's titular purpose. That said, I'm a big fan of the single-purpose app — a tool that does one thing and does it well. If I want to add an emoji to an image (for privacy or for a punchline), do I want to...tweet it? and then save the image from Twitter? No, I want a quick and simple way to add the emoji and then send the image where I please. It was interesting hearing Casey discuss the reception to MaskerAid on this week's ATP, especially his surprise at all of the interesting and unexpected ways people are using the app. Despite its simplicity and its single-purpose nature, I enjoyed using MaskerAid while on my trip. Showing my silly edits to my wife while sitting on the beach (especially the gecko wearing a backpack) was fun for us — and given where we were, "fun" was a high bar to hit!

You can give MaskerAid a try for yourself — whether for anonymizing a photo or anthropomorphizing a gecko — by downloading it for free on the app store.

Earlier this month I posted my glowing review of the Chipolo CARD Spot, and I am still mostly happy with it. However, I spent the last week or so traveling with my wife from Omaha to Chicago to Cancún and then back, all the while carrying with us 4 AirTags in various bags and the Chipolo CARD Spot in my wallet — which served as an excellent stress-test of the "Left Behind" notifications both products support. The AirTags worked exactly as expected: I only got the notification when I dropped off our checked bag (as I expected I would). But the Chipolo CARD Spot? I got no fewer than four false Left Behind notifications in both airports — perhaps the most stressful and unpleasant place to have your phone say "Hey, your wallet is gone!" The first time it happened, I stopped dead in my tracks to rummage through my pockets in a panic (don't worry, no wallets were lost in the making of this blog post).

Now that I'm back home, I've been pondering why the Chipolo CARD Spot might be more prone to crying wolf than AirTags. After some digging, I found this page on Chipolo's support website that reminded me what the CARD Spot lacks: a U1 chip! From the support page:

Chipolo ONE Spot trackers only use Bluetooth technology to connect to your phone and are not equipped with ultra-wideband (UWB) technology.

Ultra-wideband technology is used for precision finding at close distances, which the Chipolo ONE Spot already covers with a very loud ring.

Now, naturally the lack of an ultra-wideband chip in the CARD Spot will make it more difficult to find than an AirTag — the U1 chip is what enables the fancy arrow guide pointing toward a lost AirTag. But now I'm wondering if the reliance on Bluetooth may also predispose the CARD Spot to false Left Behind alerts. Another wrinkle: I use an "RFID-blocking" Ridge wallet knock-off, which could(?) further interfere with the CARD Spot's connectivity to my iPhone — tricking it into thinking I had abandoned it. Or, perhaps, this is some sort of firmware issue Chipolo could fix with an update (I have sent support an email about the situation, but have not gotten a response yet).

I don't think a few false alarms are a deal breaker, but they are certainly an annoyance that makes an otherwise-great feature of an otherwise-great product a bit of a bitter pill.

Nebraska Medicine — the largest healthcare provider in the state of Nebraska, and the clinical partner of my university, UNMC — recently implemented changes in their electronic health record system to reduce the rate of opioid overdoses in our community. From the Omaha World Herald:

In August, the health system added an advisory to its patient records system, known as One Chart, that alerts health care providers ordering opioids for patients who meet certain criteria to also prescribe naloxone for them.

Naloxone is a rapid-rescue medication for opioid overdoses, blocking the receptors in the body that opioids typically bind to. By creating this automatic "flag" in the electronic health record whenever a physician enters an order opioids — the tiniest of automation additions to this workflow — Nebraska Medicine may well save hundreds of lives (emphasis mine):

Since the alert launched in August, the number of prescriptions for naloxone filled at the health system’s pharmacies has increased from 36 in the five months before the move to more than 1,290, said Dr. Alëna Balasanova, an addiction psychiatrist with Nebraska Medicine.

More than 200 Nebraskans died of drug overdoses in 2020, an increase of nearly 43% from the previous year, according to a report last summer from the federal Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.

Given that I work at UNMC and have set up a similar targeted alert in the electronic health record (called a "best-practice alert"), I can tell you how simple these tweaks are on the user's end. Usually, it's just a quick pop-up window triggered by certain criteria (in this case, an opioid prescription and the presence of certain respiratory risk factors) that alerts the clinician to a best practice. It's a pretty straightforward system with the potential for serious impact; even a single overdose death prevented with naloxone stemming from this best-practice alert would be well-worth the automation effort.

The same principles can be applied to our personal workflows (though of course with considerably lower stakes). Recurring reminders in Due, clever Shortcuts automations, elaborate smart home systems, or random encouragements from Affirmations — all of these "small" systems we build up around ourselves can have real impacts on our efficiency, our effectiveness, or just our happiness; "bulwarks against madness" erected over months and years. Not every procedural pop-up has to prevent something as serious as an opioid overdose; your "best practice alert" could simply be a morning reminder to take your medication or a "Left Behind" notification for your wallet tracker. My point in all of this being: none of these improvements are possible if you don't stop to ponder your system from time to time. Someone at Nebraska Medicine took a moment to evaluate their system, identified a 10-second tweak, and 36-times more naloxone is now being distributed to the community. Take a moment today to consider your systems, and ask yourself the question: "Where might a 'best practice alert' make my life better?"

Back in January, Chipolo announced their CARD Spot wallet tracker with native Find My integration and I pretty much instantly pre-ordered it. As I wrote at the time, the Chipolo CARD Spot seemed to promise everything that I wanted (and didn't get) from Apple's MagSafe Wallet with Find My. From my post in January:

When I got the MagSafe Leather Wallet with Find My, I was hoping for a solution that would A. Hold my credit cards and B. Help me find my wallet if I lost it. While it succeeds at A, it fails spectacularly at B. Chipolo has created a product that would actually help me find my wallet if it were lost or stolen.

Now, exactly three months later, my pre-ordered Chipolo CARD Spot has arrived and I've had about a day to test it out and see if it lives up to my high expectations.

Let's Spot Paul Allen's CARD

The Chipolo CARD Spot came nicely-packaged in a small cardboard box, complete with setup instructions and a prominently-displayed, bright-green registration card to facilitate Chipolo’s promise to recycle your CARD Spot and knock 50% off a replacement when the battery dies. The CARD is made of lightweight, matte-finish plastic and is 2.4mm thick — almost exactly the thickness of three credit cards. One corner of the CARD as an almost-imperceptible cutout along the narrow edge of the plastic, which I presume is to allow the small speaker inside access to the outside world.

Setup was mostly a breeze. Third-party Find My devices simply aren’t able to have as magical a setup process as AirTags or AirPods — I waved the CARD near my phone for 30 seconds before realizing I was missing a step. As it turns out, the CARD Spot has a tiny recessed button you need to press (triggering a brief jingle) to initiate pairing. After that, setup is as smooth as any other Find My device and your CARD spot is ready to locate using the Find My app.

Adding the Chipolo CARD Spot was almost as easy as adding an AirTag…though I probably should have read the instructions first!

And of course, the primary selling-point of the CARD Spot is it's full integration with Find My — including real-time tracking enabled by the Find My network, Left-Behind notifications, the same anti-stalking features as AirTags, and the ability to play a chime to help find your misplaced wallet. As I criticized at length, Apple's MagSafe Wallet "with Find My" (arguably a misnomer) doesn’t integrate with the Find My network at all — it just pesters you with notifications when it’s no longer suckered like a barnacle to the back of your phone. The CARD Spot, however, is essentially an AirTag in the shape of a credit card…which means you may actually find it if it’s ever lost or stolen. The Left Behind notifications for a wallet in particular are super useful, since most folks go almost nowhere without theirs. I deliberately left the CARD behind to test out the feature, and got the notification before I had made it out of my apartment's parking lot. Although Find My allows you to set specific locations to "ignore" for Left Behind notifications, I actually think I want Left Behind notifications for the CARD Spot on everywhere, since I never want to leave my wallet behind.

The Left Behind notifications are infinitely more useful than the "Wallet Detached" annoyances triggered by the MagSafe Wallet.

Oh My God, It Even Has a Watermark

It didn’t take much time with the Chipolo CARD Spot to know it hits all the marks that I wished the MagSafe Wallet with Find My would have — it’s a rare occurrence (hardware-wise) where Apple’s offering misses the mark so badly while a third-party entirely nails it. I realize I’ve spent much of this review comparing a credit card tracker dingus to a magnetic leather wallet — ostensibly two different products. That said, the entire reason I bought the MagSafe Wallet with Find My was for the “Find My” features in a compact form factor. The MagSafe Wallet may be a decent wallet, but it’s a terrible wallet tracker, and I’m happy to report that the Chipolo CARD Spot is anything but “terrible.” For the low price of $35 (just a bit more than an AirTag), I have peace of mind that if I ever forget or mislay my knock-off Ridge wallet clone, I can readily find it (and its contents) thanks to the Chipolo CARD Spot tucked inside.

The CARD Spot retails for $35, and still seems to be in "Pre-Order" status — orders placed today apparently will ship in April.

John Siracusa, in his roughly-annual blog post, lays out a list of table-stakes featuers for modern streaming apps:

Most streaming apps aim for mass-market appeal, so they can’t get too complex. But today, they’re at the far opposite end of the spectrum, missing basic functionality rather than being bogged down with fancy features and customization. These apps need to walk before they can run. I hope, someday, at least one or two of them can fly.

Siracusa's streaming spec is spot-on. The 2015 promise that "the future of TV is apps" was apparently a monkey's paw, ushering in nearly a decade of mediocre TV apps designed more to promote shows than to watch them. This post should be required reading for every streaming app's UI team — because, let's be honest: they can do better.

Last week's Vanity Fair first look at Amazon's forthcoming Lord of the Rings series The Rings of Power and yesterday's release of the show's first trailer during the Super Bowl have set the Tolkien fandom abuzz with much commentary and some apprehension (as all re-imaginations of well-loved worlds tend to). As something of a Tolkien nerd myself, I'm also a bit anxious about whether or not Amazon's original Second Age storyline can live up to the lofty expectations set by Jackson's imitable theatrical trilogy and, of course, the original Tolkien tomes so dear to my heart. Ever since Amazon acquired the rights to certain aspects of the Tolkien legendarium back in 2017, I've tried to stay optimistic about my favorite fantasy setting getting a big-budget streaming production — even through peak-pessimism in the aftermath of Game of Thrones' fatal finale. Every time the show has come up, I've repeated a simple prayer (maybe to old Númenor or Eru Ilúvatar himself, but mostly to Jeff Bezos and the Amazon production crew): "Please be good." I want so badly for Amazon to produce a series that meets all of my preconceived expectations of what makes for a "good" Tolkien adaptation, and spark joy in me like the books and Jackson's theatrical trilogy did and do — but we're all too accustomed to being let down by the content we're excited for, having been burned so many times before.

We're in a media landscape where massive companies are accumulating as much IP as possible to bolster their respective streaming platforms — "peak content", as it were, where a plethora of "pluses" constantly battle for my eyeballs and a spot on my monthly credit card bill. Worse still, our "collective trauma" (if you'll allow me the hyperbole) after failed renditions or reimaginings of treasured works by towering media conglomerates (Star Wars 7-9, The Hobbit films, etc) poisons the well for any similar attempts at a theatrical or streaming hit. The Smaugian hoard of funds at these companies' disposal (the Netflixes, the Disneys, the Amazons) should mean they can produce good original stories in pre-existing worlds (Q.E.D: The Mandalorian) instead of squandering fiduciary advantage and underlying world-building to deliver a disappointing dud (a la Game of Thrones S8) — but is it really fair of me to feel so concerned based on nothing else but marketing photos and 10 seconds of trailer CGI?

As I was scrolling through Reddit this week, I came across this striking post on r/LOTR, in which u/paradiddleotamus turned my apprehension (towards a show that isn't even out yet) on its head. Although u/paradiddleotamus's post is largely addressing the handful of racist chuds winging about inclusive casting decisions, I think the underlying point is well-applied to other preemptive criticisms of the show. The entire post is worth a read, but some particularly apt excerpts:

I don't care if the Amazon series sucks. I don't care if it comes to light that the show runners are actually fully illiterate. Whatever godawful heretical adaptation they might spew out: I don't care. I'll continue to enjoy my December reread and life will go on.

These books aren't a cudgel to beat people with, as some of you seem to think. Nor are they some pristine artifact that will be damaged by fingerprints or the glow of a spotlight. Let other people be inspired and explore in that world; and be content with the thought that, though you might not love what they create, they aren't altering the original that I'm certain all of you have on your bookshelves.

This show doesn't have to be "good", and certainly not by any particular individual's pedantic definition. It doesn't even have to be for me — where "me" means both myself and the swarms of Tolkien nerds like me who are all-too eager to point out "discrepancies with the lore", whatever that means. A "good" story in the setting of Arda doesn't have to mean "untouched, unchanged, or unimaginative" — Tolkien's collective works, after all, are intrinsically about imagination, creation, new life, and both the challenges and joys that arise from an ever-changing world. There is room aplenty in Middle Earth and beyond for new stories to be told, perhaps for new audiences who may fall in love with Tolkien's world just like I did. Clinging small-mindedly to a foolish literary consistency in every word written or shot framed does nothing but alienate and obstruct those who may otherwise have been enamored and inspired. So, I'll continue repeating my "Please be good" prayer and choose to remain hopeful for what The Rings of Power might be to me, while also being cognizant of what this new story might well become for others.

Apple just announced some much-needed improvements to the Find My network specifically addressing the stalking concerns surrounding AirTags and other Find My accessories — which I discussed at length in a recent post. The list of changes is lengthy (which is good), and addresses many areas of improvement to the Find My network's privacy and anti-stalking feature-set. Chance Miller covered all of the changes in detail over at 9to5Mac, but in short the list of promised improvements includes:

• Clear language during AirTags setup about the intent of the product, and their anti-stalking features.
• Improved nearby device alerts that more-specifically identify the device detected near you
• Expanded support documentation on what users should do if they get such a Find My alert.
• Availability of the Precision Finding feature to recipients of "unwanted tracker" notifications.
• On-device alerts when nearby AirTags begin playing a chime in an attempt to be found.
• "Refined unwanted tracking alert logic" — hopefully improvements to the required duration before an alert, etc.
• Louder AirTag tones to make finding them much easier.

All of these improvements are very good iterations on an already-outstanding system. As I harped on in my previous post, AirTags and the Find My network stand entirely alone in the tracker market in terms of anti-stalking protections, and these additions only reaffirm that position. I even posited that Apple's approach to AirTags privacy features might result in more creeps getting caught, as opposed to any increase in stalking in general, due to AirTags automatically alerting any would-be victims. Apple provided some commentary (albeit lacking in specifics) on this topic in their post as well:

We have been actively working with law enforcement on all AirTag-related requests we’ve received. Based on our knowledge and on discussions with law enforcement, incidents of AirTag misuse are rare; however, each instance is one too many.

Every AirTag has a unique serial number, and paired AirTags are associated with an Apple ID. Apple can provide the paired account details in response to a subpoena or valid request from law enforcement. We have successfully partnered with them on cases where information we provided has been used to trace an AirTag back to the perpetrator, who was then apprehended and charged.

The fact that every AirTag has a unique ID, is tied to an Apple ID, and alerts its victims to its presence makes it an incredibly bad choice for creeps to commit crimes; as I speculated, a quick subpoena for the owner of a malicious AirTag provides law enforcement with all the information they need to make a quick arrest — and Apple seems more than happy to help with such efforts (as they should be).

The only major component missing from Apple's AirTags adjustment announcement are accommodations for any Android-users who may fall victim to stalking. Chance Miller sums up the issue nicely:

Going forward, the biggest hole in the Find My and AirTag alerts ecosystem continues to be on the Android side of things. While Apple does offer a “Tracker Detect” application to locate nearby AirTags with an Android device, the app doesn’t scan for nearby accessories in the background. Instead, it only scans a user’s surroundings when the user initiates the scan.

It might require some sort of cross-platform collaboration between Apple and Google, but ideally there’s more that can be done in this regard to protect Android users.

I couldn't agree more — I think if Apple partnered with Google to bring background tracker scanning to Android, all of the obvious holes in the Find My network would be patched and any would-be stalkers using AirTags would probably just be signing up to be ID'd and quite possibly arrested.

As was recently foretold, Apple has announced Tap to Pay support on iPhone models with NFC chips — Chance Miller, reporting at 9to5Mac:

Apple has officially announced a new Tap to Pay feature for iPhone. This feature, coming later this year, will allow businesses to use their iPhone to “seamlessly and securely” accept Apple Pay payments with a simple tap. The feature will also work for contactless credit cards and debit cards, as well as other digital wallets.

Even better, Apple has promised a full SDK for third-party developers to integrate touchless payment support in their own iPhone apps and has already partnered with Stripe as the first payment processor to support the feature. From the Apple Newsroom release:

Tap to Pay on iPhone will be available to participating payment platforms and their app developer partners to leverage in their software developer kits (SDKs) in an upcoming iOS software beta.

One other interesting wrinkle in this story is the lack of any mention of iPad support for this feature — presumably because no current iPad models include NFC support (despite certain models ostensibly including an NFC chip, disabled or otherwise). Given that so many small shop payment terminals are just iPads on swivel stands, you'd think Apple would prioritize adding this feature to iPad hardware as well. Recent rumors have suggested unexpectedly-imminent refreshes to the base iPad as well as the iPad Air, as well as more-timely iPad Pro updates. Zach Knox connected the dots for us in the Relay FM Members Discord:

Zach Knox, connecting the dots with red twine and thumbtacks.

The pre-announcement of Tap to Pay support on iPhone is surely setting the stage for the alleged March 8th Apple Event, which is set to include new iPad hardware spanning the entire line. I expect NFC support will be explicitly called out in any new iPads announced at this event, perhaps even with a shout-out to the new Tap to Pay support as well.

The one remaining question: What percentage of Tap to Pay transactions does Apple plan to skim off the top for themselves?