Audio Post Format

The temperature in your bedroom is perfect. Your blackout curtains have been drawn shut. And you’ve just finished a cup of chamomile tea and novel that made you laugh out loud and forget about whatever was bothering you earlier in the day.

You’re just about ready to drift off, and suddenly the air conditioner kicks on. Or a car alarm screeches through the night air. Or your partner sneezes. Suddenly, you’re wide-awake again. Your brain responds to noises when you’re awake and asleep. But if the interruptions wake you up, that can keep you from getting the restful shuteye that you need.

When ambient noise is disrupting your sleep, white (or pink) noise can help to smooth out the rough edges. Imagine sitting next to a person who is loudly chewing gum in a library. Then imagine sitting next to that same person in a crowded bar. It’s the same chomping gum, but underneath the drone of a crowded place, you can’t even hear it anymore. White noise, whether it’s from a sound machine, a simple fan, or crowd noise helps to mask noise-related disruptions by creating a constant ambient sound that makes a “peak” noise, like a door slamming, less of a contrast. And that makes you less likely to be startled awake.

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Post Format: Audio

The temperature in your bedroom is perfect. Your blackout curtains have been drawn shut. And you’ve just finished a cup of chamomile tea and novel that made you laugh out loud and forget about whatever was bothering you earlier in the day.

You’re just about ready to drift off, and suddenly the air conditioner kicks on. Or a car alarm screeches through the night air. Or your partner sneezes. Suddenly, you’re wide-awake again. Your brain responds to noises when you’re awake and asleep. But if the interruptions wake you up, that can keep you from getting the restful shuteye that you need.

When ambient noise is disrupting your sleep, white (or pink) noise can help to smooth out the rough edges. Imagine sitting next to a person who is loudly chewing gum in a library. Then imagine sitting next to that same person in a crowded bar. It’s the same chomping gum, but underneath the drone of a crowded place, you can’t even hear it anymore. White noise, whether it’s from a sound machine, a simple fan, or crowd noise helps to mask noise-related disruptions by creating a constant ambient sound that makes a “peak” noise, like a door slamming, less of a contrast. And that makes you less likely to be startled awake.

Read more

Got to ‘get’: the end of free apps on Apple’s App Store – Open Thread

It’s the end of free apps for iOS! Well, sort of. Apple quietly made a design tweak to its App Store yesterday, replacing the “Free” button for apps that are free to download with “Get”.

So, no change to the actual price, but the new wording is one way of sidestepping the debate around “free” apps not actually being free if they use in-app purchases – an issue that regulators in various parts of the world have been looking into.

Now, freemium apps will have the new “Get” button, as well as a prominent “In-App Purchases” notification, to ensure that people know they’re downloading something that will, in some way, be hoping for some of their money at a later point.

Is “Get” a good choice of wording in this case? You might argue that it makes it harder to tell that an app is free to download, although iOS users will surely pick that up by noticing other apps still have prices on their download buttons.

The comments section is open for your thoughts on Apple’s change, and the rise of freemium apps in general.

What else is bubbling in the technology world this morning? Some links:

Senator Al Franken has some questions for Uber

Uber’s bad week just stepped up a notch: US senator Al Franken has written to its chief executive Travis Kalanick with some pointed questions about the company’s privacy policy, statements by senior executive Emil Michael about using private information to target journalists, and its “God View” tool for tracking users. “I would appreciate responses to these questions by December 15…”

Chrome now has 400m monthly active mobile users

Google has announced new stats for mobile usage of its Chrome web browser: 400 million monthly active users. That’s impressive growth given that it was on 300 million as recently as the company’s I/O conference in June.

DOJ: children will die due to Apple encryption

As arguments why technology companies shouldn’t introduce new encryption features go, this is pretty startling, from the US Department of Justice: “Mr. Cole offered the Apple team a gruesome prediction: At some future date, a child will die, and police will say they would have been able to rescue the child, or capture the killer, if only they could have looked inside a certain phone…”

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