Windows 11, by default, shows you a bunch of “news” articles when you click the widget icon, the thing on the left-hand side of the taskbar that usually shows you the weather. This block of news articles was, until recently, next to impossible to disable. I am not exaggerating when I say the news articles selected seemed designed to disrupt anything resembling digital calm—it’s consistently some of the worst rage bait you can find on the internet, as though the 2000s-era MSN homepage had a baby with 4chan.
I wrote about how to hide this crap a few years ago, but my process didn’t work for everyone. Since then a close friend of mine almost returned her brand new Microsoft Surface because of this nonsense, which on that device shows up constantly even if you disable the taskbar icon. (She stumbled on my article but it didn’t help, and she ultimately used a registry hack to disable the feature entirely.)
None of those workarounds are necessary anymore. You can now use the Windows 11 widget area without seeing any garbage news headlines. Here’s how.
How to Hide the News in Windows 11
Open the Widgets Board on your device (try not to read the horrible headlines—they’ll be gone soon). Click the gear icon in the top-right corner.
Courtesy of Justin Pot
This will open the settings. Click the Show or hide feeds option.
The next version of Google’s mobile operating system—Android 15—is on the horizon, with a host of new features and improvements. Google promises productivity enhancements, better privacy and security, and smoother performance. There are also upgrades for foldable and larger-screen devices. Android 15 is only available as a beta for select devices right now, with the final release a few months away. But we have been trying it out, and these are our favorite new features so far.
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How to Download and Install Android 15
Google released the first beta of Android 15 in April, with further releases planned for May, June, and July, ahead of the final public rollout, likely in August or October. These releases enable developers to test the forthcoming version of Google’s mobile operating system, learn about the new features, and prepare their apps or games to work properly. They also give early adopters the chance to get a sneak peek at Android 15.
While the beta releases are more stable than developer previews, you may still encounter some bugs, and you need to jump through a few hoops to install them, so it’s not recommended for everyone. If you are keen to try it, you will need a Google Pixel phone (Pixel 6 or later) or a supported partner device (including select phones from Honor, Nothing, OnePlus, and Xiaomi). You have to sign up for the Android Beta Program. Most folks who sign up for the program will get the beta updates OTA (over-the-air) without wiping their phones, but you won’t be able to quit the beta program without a factory reset. Make sure to back up your Android phone first.
Updates usually pop up automatically, but you can always check whether you have the latest version in Settings > System > System update by tapping Check for update. Want to get off the beta and go back to Android 14? Go to Google’s Android Beta page, scroll down to find your device, and hit Opt out. This will wipe all locally saved data, so back up your device first. You’ll get an update prompt to go back to the older version.
Folks without a Pixel or supported partner device should watch their phone manufacturer’s website, forums, or social media to learn when to expect Android 15.
Top New Android 15 Features
These are our favorite features and improvements so far, but we won’t know for sure what will make the final cut until Android 15 is released. You can learn more at Google’s developer site. And be sure to read our story on all the new features coming to Android and the Android ecosystem—including Wear OS, Android Auto, and Android TV—in this story here.
Private Space
Courtesy of Google
Android 15 includes a new Private Space where you can keep sensitive apps separate from the rest of your phone. Whether you want to safeguard health data or your banking apps, Private Space keeps them safely behind a second layer of authentication, protected with the same password you use to unlock your device or an alternative PIN. When your Private Space is locked, apps are hidden from the recents view, notifications, settings, and other apps. You can wipe your private space completely too.
More Satellite Connectivity
Courtesy of Google
There’s a significant expansion for satellite connectivity in Android 15. Some RCS and SMS apps should now be able to send text messages via satellite (it was previously limited to emergency use). Google has also standardized the pop-ups and other user interface elements to make it clearer when you are connected via satellite.
Partial Screen Recording
Courtesy of Google
Instead of recording or sharing your entire screen, in Android 15, you can share an individual app without revealing the rest of your screen or incoming notifications. Logins and one-time passwords (OTPs) are automatically hidden from remote viewers. This is already available on Pixels, but now Google has baked it into Android.
Malicious App Blocking
Several updates in Android 15 make life tougher for malicious apps. They can no longer hide behind other apps by bringing them to the foreground or overlay themselves invisibly on top. There are also changes designed to prevent the exploitation of intents, which let you start an activity in another app by describing an action you’d like to perform, as they are often misused by malware. This is behind-the-scenes stuff to keep users safer.
App Archiving
Courtesy of Google
If you haven’t used an app or game for a while, you may be prompted to delete it, but what if you think you might use it again in the future? With app archiving in Android 15, you can offload most of the app by archiving it but keep your user settings or save data in games. The auto-archiving feature was announced last year, but Android 15 makes it a systemwide option, so folks can choose to auto-archive apps when storage is running low.
Better PDF Handling
Courtesy of Google
Trying to do anything with PDF files on your Android phone can be a pain, so the news that Google has built several PDF enhancements into Android 15 is welcome. PDFs should load more smoothly, and there is now support for password-protected files, annotations, form editing, and copy selection. Perhaps best of all, you can now search within PDF files.
Enhanced Fraud and Scam Protection
Courtesy of Google
There are several updates in Android 15 aimed squarely at thwarting fraudsters and scammers. Google will employ AI through Play Protect and on devices to scan for and flag suspicious behavior. Messages containing one-time passwords (OTPs), typically used in two-factor authentication, are now hidden from the notifications system, making it harder to intercept them. Restricted settings are also being expanded for side-loaded apps—ones that aren’t downloaded through the Google Play Store.
Loudness Control
It can be jarring when you switch from one app to another and the volume suddenly booms. Thankfully, Android 15 introduces support for the CTA-2075 loudness standard. That means it will compare volume between apps, take into account the characteristics of your speakers, headphones, or earbuds, and intelligently adjust the audio to ensure no sudden jumps or drops.
Better Low-Light Camera
There are a couple of significant improvements for the camera app in Android 15. Firstly, Low Light Boost makes for better previews in low-light conditions, so you can frame your nighttime shots better and scan QR codes when light is limited. There are also new camera app options to give you finer control over the flash so you can adjust the intensity for both single flashes and continuous flashlight mode.
Taskbar Options
For Android tablets and folding phones, Google has changed the way the taskbar dock works. Initially, it was permanent, then it was transient, and now you can choose. This is handy for docked tablets where you might want a taskbar to always display, but it’s also nice to have the option to hide it. You can also pin your favorite split-screen app combinations. Android 15 allows apps to display edge-to-edge, so they can make more of the available screen real estate, even if there’s a taskbar or system bar at the bottom.
Better Battery Life
There are always tweaks and improvements to efficiency in Android updates that should have a positive impact on battery life, but with Android 15, Google is placing more checks on foreground services and clamping down on apps that keep running in an active state. Devices with a lot of RAM should also see faster app and camera launch times with lower power draw, thanks to support for larger page sizes.
Good Vibrations
Android 15 enables you to turn keyboard vibrations on or off systemwide, instead of having to dig into the keyboard settings. There’s a new toggle in Settings > Sound and vibration > Vibration and haptics, where you can also use sliders to adjust haptic intensity (this is something that’s been available on select Android phones, but is now systemwide). The second beta also introduces rich vibrations, so folks can determine between different types of notifications without looking at the screen.
More Foldable Cover Screen Options
Some of the best folding phones automatically switch whatever action you’re performing onto the cover screen when you fold them up, but Google is now integrating that choice into Android 15. If you prefer the cover screen to lock up when you fold, that will be an option too. There’s also more support for apps displaying on smaller cover screens with the more compact flip phone category.
More Health Connect Data
Health Connect started as an app to pull together all your health and fitness data from different devices and apps. It came preinstalled with Android 14, but Android 15 is adding two new data types: skin temperature (collected by wearables like the Oura ring and the Pixel Watch 2) as well as training plans—which can include completion goals for calories burned, distance, duration, repetition, and steps, but also performance goals around as many repetitions as possible (AMRAP), cadence, heart rate, power, perceived rate of exertion, and speed.
Enhanced Theft Protection
Courtesy of Google
Many of the new Android safeguards that Google is rolling out to deter thieves—such as automatic locking when someone snatches your phone, as well as remote lock options—will be coming to devices running Android 10 and up. But the update to factory reset protection, which stops thieves who force a reset of a stolen device from setting it up again without knowing your device or Google account credentials, is only in Android 15.
On Monday, Stack Overflow and OpenAI announced a new API partnership that will integrate Stack Overflow’s technical content with OpenAI’s ChatGPT AI assistant. The deal has sparked controversy among Stack Overflow’s user community, with many expressing anger and protest over the use of their contributed content to support and train AI models.
“I hate this. I’m just going to delete/deface my answers one by one,” wrote one user on sister site Stack Exchange. “I don’t care if this is against your silly policies, because as this announcement shows, your policies can change at a whim without prior consultation of your stakeholders. You don’t care about your users, I don’t care about you.”
Stack Overflow is a popular question-and-answer site for software developers that allows users to ask and answer technical questions related to coding. The site has a large community of developers who contribute knowledge and expertise to help others solve programming problems. Over the past decade, Stack Overflow has become a heavily utilized resource for many developers seeking solutions to common coding challenges.
Under the announced partnership, OpenAI will utilize Stack Overflow’s OverflowAPI product to improve its AI models using content from the Stack Overflow community—officially incorporating information that many believe it had previously scraped without a license. OpenAI will also “surface validated technical knowledge from Stack Overflow directly into ChatGPT, giving users easy access to trusted, attributed, accurate, and highly technical knowledge and code backed by the millions of developers that have contributed to the Stack Overflow platform for 15 years,” according to Stack Overflow.
In return, OpenAI plans to provide attribution to the Stack Overflow community within ChatGPT, but how the company will do that exactly is unclear. Stack Overflow will also use OpenAI technology in its development of OverflowAI, an AI model announced in July 2023 that uses an LLM to provide answers to developer questions.
While the companies tout the collaboration’s benefits, many Stack Overflow users have expressed their displeasure with the deal. This is especially true considering that until very recently, Stack Overflow seemed to take a negative stance toward generative AI in general, banning answers written using ChatGPT. It was also widely reported last year that ChatGPT’s popularity had severely reduced Stack Overflow’s traffic, though the company seemed to later refute that, claiming faulty analysis by outsiders.
Since the announcement, some users have attempted to alter or delete their Stack Overflow posts in protest, arguing that the move steals the labor of those who contributed to the platform without a way to opt out. In retaliation, Stack Overflow staff have reportedly been banning those users while erasing or reverting the protest posts. On Monday, a Stack Overflow user named Ben took to Mastodon to share his experience of getting suspended after posting a protest message:
Stack Overflow announced that they are partnering with OpenAI, so I tried to delete my highest-rated answers.
Stack Overflow does not let you delete questions that have accepted answers and many upvotes because it would remove knowledge from the community.
So instead I changed my highest-rated answers to a protest message.
Within an hour mods had changed the questions back and suspended my account for 7 days.
Stack Overflow moderators have stated that once posts are made, they become “part of the collective efforts” of other contributors and should only be removed under extraordinary circumstances, according to The Verge. Stack Overflow’s terms of service also state that users cannot revoke permission for Stack Overflow to use their contributed content.
While Stack Overflow owns user posts, the site uses a Creative Commons 4.0 license that requires attribution. We’ll see if the ChatGPT integrations, which have not rolled out yet, will honor that license to the satisfaction of disgruntled Stack Overflow users. For now, the battle continues.
The chirping of birds, the buzzing of bugs, the soft patter of Google CEO Sundar Pichai’s shoes as he bounds across the stage. The sounds of spring are here, so you know what that means: Google I/O is blooming.
Hot on the heels of Apple’s iPad launch event last week, Google is going all out for its I/O developer conference on Tuesday, May 14. The event is taking place at Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California, just down the road from Google’s headquarters. The keynote starts at 10 am PDT on Tuesday, and as usual, it will be livestreamed. Expect to hear and see updates about Android 15, Google search, the already announced Pixel 8A budget phone, and just an absolute torrent of news about the tech topic of the decade: artificial intelligence.
AI All the Way Down
While Google’s Gemini AI platform has experienced some growing pains, the company is still eager to put its generative AI offerings into any and all of its services: search, its photo and video tools, and its workspace suite of tools like Gmail and Google Docs. Google has also been slowly infusing AI features into its Google Assistant, so it will be interesting to see whether those new capabilities result in a more evolved form of natural-language voice assistant, or more of a true AI assistant that acts as an agent to perform tasks through all your connected services.
The company will, of course, show off features from its upcoming Android 15 mobile operating system, more in-car integration through Android Auto, and its smartwatch software Wear OS. Expect each of those to be newly endowed with all sorts of exciting (and maybe slightly creepy) AI-powered features.
Google’s AI announcements could also offer a hint at whatever news Apple might have in store for its WWDC developer conference keynote, which will take place June 10. Just a couple months ago, news trickled out that Apple may be working with Google to wrangle the latter’s Gemini AI platform into iOS. Neither company has officially confirmed the news, and it’s not entirely clear what such an uneasy partnership between the two mobile heavyweights might look like on the iPhone. Google’s presumably AI-heavy keynote announcements could provide a hint at whatever is being cooked up on Apple devices.
Hard Where?
I/O is a software-focused event, but that hasn’t stopped Google from using the keynote to announce new hardware devices in the past. If the dearth of recent leaks about the company’s ambitions are any indicator, this year may be slimmer on the hardware front that I/Os past.
Generally speaking, Google is usually pretty unbothered about keeping its new gadgets under wraps before a big public event. Details about its upcoming Pixel 8A phone leaked a couple weeks ago, but Google officially announced the device last week. (The phone goes on sale on May 14, the same day as I/O.) Google will probably talk about its new Pixel on the block, and how it will utilize Android 15 and Gemini AI.
It’s always possible that another device might appear. Google announced its first Pixel Fold at I/O last year, and that’s probably due for an upgrade at some point, but we aren’t expecting that to come this month. Google has also been keeping quiet about any new augmented reality tech it’s working on, though it has shown concepts like Project Starline and language-translating smart glasses at past I/O events. We really expect that with so much attention being paid to artificial intelligence development, Google will likely make its AI announcements the star of the show.
Watch This Space
Google’s keynote address, which should open with remarks from Pichai before the team rolls out all the new stuff, starts Tuesday, May 14, at 10 am PDT (1 pm EDT). You can watch it on Google’s I/O website or on Google’s YouTube channel. The videofeed is also embedded right here on this page.
Beyond the main keynote, there’s a subsequent developer-focused keynote starting at 1:30 pm PDT (4:30 EDT), viewable using the same links as the first stream.
If you’re a video editor on the go or just looking for a convenient software solution for your projects, Final Cut Pro might be the answer. Apple‘s editing software for iPad and Mac offers a variety of features that cater to both beginners and seasoned professionals. In this article, we’ll explore the software’s capabilities and what it can bring to your workflow.
Editing on the Go with Final Cut Pro for iPad
One of the standout features of Final Cut Pro for iPad is its portability. You can edit projects directly on your iPad, making it easy to work from different locations. The software supports external storage, which is a great perk for creators who want to access larger files without taking up too much space on their iPad.
The app’s Live Multicam feature lets you capture multiple camera angles simultaneously using the Final Cut Camera app. You can connect and preview up to four cameras at once, streamlining the recording process and saving time in post-production. The app’s interface is user-friendly, with intuitive controls that make editing on an iPad straightforward.
Enhanced AI Features for Final Cut Pro for Mac
Final Cut Pro for Mac 10.8 includes AI-powered features that simplify editing tasks. Enhance Light and Color allows you to adjust color balance, contrast, and brightness in one click. This can save time when you’re working on large projects or dealing with complex scenes.
Smooth Slo-Mo is another useful feature, blending frames together to create smooth slow-motion effects. The AI capabilities also extend to the timeline, allowing you to navigate easily and search for clips with missing media or effects. These enhancements can improve efficiency and help keep your projects organized.
Seamless Integration Across Devices
One of the biggest advantages of using Final Cut Pro across iPad and Mac is the seamless integration between the two. Projects started on one device can be easily transferred to the other, giving you the flexibility to work on different devices depending on your needs. External project support on iPad also means you can open and create projects on external storage devices, then bring them over to your Mac for further editing.
Pricing and Availability
Final Cut Pro for iPad 2 is available as a subscription, priced at $4.99 per month or $49 per year, with a one-month free trial for new users. Final Cut Pro for Mac 10.8 is available for a one-time purchase of $299.99, with a free update for existing users. Both versions offer a range of features suited to different workflows, from portable editing on the iPad to more advanced editing on the Mac.
Final Cut Pro is a versatile software solution for video editors, whether you’re working on an iPad or Mac. Its range of features and seamless integration across devices can help streamline your editing process and make your workflow more efficient.
Joel Lewenstein, a head of product design at Anthropic, was recently crawling beneath his new house to adjust the irrigation system when he ran into a conundrum: The device’s knobs made no sense. Instead of scouring the internet for a product manual, he opened up the app for Anthropic’s Claude chatbot on his phone and snapped a photo. Its algorithms analyzed the image and provided more context for what each knob might do.
When I tested OpenAI’s image features for ChatGPT last year, I found it similarly useful—at least for low-stakes tasks. I’d recommend you turn to AI image analysis for identifying those random cords around your house, but not to guess the identity of a loose prescription pill.
Anthropic released the iOS app that helped out Lewenstein for all to download earlier this month. I decided to try out the Claude app, in line with a goal I’d set to experiment with a wider variety of chatbots this year. And I chatted over video with Lewenstein to see what advice he had for getting started with Claude and how to ask questions in a way that elicit the most useful answers.
Get Chatty
Decades of Google Search dominating the web has trained us to type blunt and concise queries when we want something. To get the most out of chatbots like Claude, you need to break free from that approach. “It’s not Google Search,” Lewenstein says. “So you’re not putting in three keywords—you’re really having a conversation with it.” He encourages users to avoid an overly utilitarian communication style and to get a little more verbose with their prompts. Instead of a short phrase, try writing prompts that are a few sentences long or even a couple of paragraphs.
Share Photos
AI image analysis is still fairly new for Anthropic’s chatbot—it was released in March—but it can provide a powerful way to quickly pose questions to the chatbot. Lewenstein recommends using images as a launching point for conversations with Claude, like he did under his house. Although the feature may not always be accurate, it’s useful—and fun—if you keep the limitations in mind and look for opportunities where an image can address your query.
Be Direct
Still not getting the outputs you’d like? A solid troubleshooting technique is to be overly prescriptive in your prompts. “Just talking to Claude like a person actually leads you a little bit astray,” Lewenstein says. Instead, try giving Claude an almost awkward amount of context about how you’d like the answer formatted—for example, by saying they should be in bullet points or short paragraphs, and give it clear direction on the tone it should use. Do you want lyrical answers or something that sounds more technical? Also, consider telling Claude who the intended audience is and what their level of knowledge about the topic may be.
Try, Try Again
If your initial query to Claude doesn’t produce a good result, keep in mind that your first ask is just the starting point. Follow-up prompts and clarifying questions are critical to steering a chatbot in the right direction.
When interacting with any chatbot, I’m quick to start a new conversation thread if the output goes awry, so I can try a different opening prompt. This isn’t the best approach, Lewenstein says.
He suggests staying in that same chat window and providing direct feedback to the bot about what you’d like done differently, from tone to structure. “I literally just type, ‘No, too complicated. I don’t understand what these words mean. Can you try again, but simplify it one level more,” say Lewenstein, referencing a time when Claude’s summary of a document was confusing.
Upload Big Docs
Speaking of documents, Claude’s ability to analyze uploaded data is one of its strengths. The applications for this are more apparent for workplace use cases, where the chatbot can help with Excel spreadsheets and overflowing email inboxes, but it can be a useful feature outside the office too. If you upload batches of text, Claude can spot trends you might not have otherwise noticed. Ask the chatbot to look for patterns in language use or the topics covered. Got a PDF that you need to read but is so long that your eyes glaze over? Claude can help focus your attention on the most important aspect of the document first.
I uploaded the text transcript of my conversation with Lewenstein to Claude and asked what quotes it would highlight as important. The chatbot did an impeccable job of capturing the conversation’s key themes, and it flagged many of the quotes that I ultimately decided to pull for this newsletter. (Anthropic’s policies mean that, unless you opt in, your input data is unlikely to be used to train its AI models.)
Text Like You’re Friends
Yes, you should play around with writing longer and more specific prompts to Claude, but it’s also smart to approach conversations with chatbots as a back-and-forth volley of messages. “I actually find the mobile app to be a really natural form factor for it, because you chat with people all the time on your phone,” says Lewenstein.
When I uploaded a photo of a robot mural I saw in a cool San Francisco bar to the Claude app, the chatbot provided a poetic description of the art. It wasn’t able to guess which city the bar was located in, an almost impossible task, but the conversation’s cadence did feel like messaging an eager friend. Claude thanked me when I finally revealed the bar’s location: “My assumptions were delightfully upended.”
I need to use it more to really get the hang of Claude, but I already feel like the chatbot’s outputs have a friendly flair. Although ChatGPT is still my go-to chatbot, I could see myself adding Claude to the mix when I’m wanting to message with an AI tool that prioritizes engaging, human-sounding outputs over a more dry, efficient style of communication. It’s important to remain open to using AI tools that you haven’t tried before. Chatbots continue to improve and change rapidly, so it’s far too early to get locked into a single tool.
BEVERLY — Mayor Mike Cahill used his annual State of the City address this week to highlight accomplishments and to reiterate that the city is in a strong financial position.
Mike Cahill
Courtesy photo
In a 30-minute speech at City Hall, Cahill said the city has built up reserves of over $30 million over the last decade — money that can be used to keep the city running smoothly in the event of an economic downturn.
“Our reserves are meant to get us through a recession when revenues fall precipitously and to do so without wholesale layoffs and drastic deep cuts to critical services,” Cahill said.
“These reserves are not meant to be used to outspend still strong and growing revenues during good economic times,” he added. “They are meant to help us keep delivering the services people need and rely on right through the worst economic times and through economic recovery from those bad times.”
In his speech in front of the City Council on Monday night, Cahill ran down the accomplishments of each city department, calling it “a great year in Beverly.”
Highlights mentioned by Cahill included:
– The hiring of the first woman as city engineer, Lisa Chandler
– The city’s senior tax workoff program has grown from 50 to over 90 seniors
– The city will launch its first Beverly Youth Council for young people to learn more about local government and advocate for youth issues
– The Fire Department has ordered a new pumper truck, which will replace Engine 1 in Central Fire Station when it arrives
– Five new civilian dispatchers have been hired for the combined civilian, emergency medical services, police and fire dispatch system, with the goal to be “fully civilian” by fall, freeing up uniformed police officers to serve out in the community
– The city’s veterans department prevented the eviction of three veterans from their houses
– The city received 73 of the 80 grants it applied for over the last fiscal year, bringing in over $5 million in revenue
– The mayor’s office launched an iPad translation program for visitors to City Hall whose primary language is not English
– The city’s electricity aggregation program started on May 1, providing residents and businesses with lower electricity costs while increasing the amount of clean renewable energy
– Coastal resiliency projects at Lynch Park and Obear Park are in the design and permitting phase
– Beverly Airport had its most flights since 2003 and is planning to rebuild its main runway
Cahill closed by thanking the city’s department heads and staff for their work.
“Thanks in significant part to their contributions, the state of our city remains strong,” he said to the City Council. “With their partnership and with yours, I know the state of our city will improve and become ever stronger well into the future.”
Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.
HAVERHILL — The award winning duo of Aubrey Atwater and Elwood Donnelly will perform at the New Moon Coffeehouse on May 18 at 7:30 p.m.
The coffeehouse at the Universalist Unitarian Church, 15 Ashland St. Admission is $25 at the door, and $15 for ages 21 and under.
Tickets are available at the door starting about6:30 p.m. Doors open at 7 p.m. Tickets may be reserved prior to the show by visiting newmooncoffeehouse.org.
Atwater and Elwood present delightful programs of traditional American and Celtic folk songs and percussive dance, blending harmonies and playing an array of instruments, including guitar, Appalachian mountain dulcimer, mandolin, tin whistle, harmonica, banjo, and other surprises, including a thrilling interpretation of freestyle Appalachian clog dancing.
Married since 1989, the due performs widely in the United States and abroad. Their 14 recordings receive international airplay and streaming.
The nonprofit New Moon Coffeehouse is an all-volunteer organization dedicated to supporting and enjoying the creative talents of acoustic performers.
It strives to bring you the best performers in a relaxing, friendly, smoke- and alcohol-free environment, where you can enjoy a great show, fair trade coffee, and desserts.
The entrance is on Ashland Street, at the back of the UU church. Two parking lots are available behind the church, on both sides of Ashland Street. Street parking is also available.
Garden Club plant sale
HAVERHILL — The Haverhill Garden Club will hold its annual plant sale from 8 a.m. to sell out May 18 on the Bradford Common.
The sale will feature a variety of annuals, perennials, herbs, and vegetable plants. Patrons can have their garden tools sharpened for a nominal fee.
The event will also feature a wheelbarrow raffle of gardening supplies and free on-site soil testing. Patrons interested in having their soil tested can visit online at tinyurl.com/37tnjppn.
Proceeds from the plant sale fund civic garden projects around the city, guest lecturers at the public library, and three education scholarships for students pursuing degrees in the agricultural sciences.
The club also invites members of the public to donate any extra plants from their yards and gardens. To request digging assistance or to arrange for a pick up of your donated plants, contact club member Dustin MacIver at tel:978-810-0337 or email DustinMacIver@gmail.com.
YMCA Legacy Gala planned
HAVERHILL — The Haverhill and Plaistow Community YMCAs will hold their 2024 Legacy Gala at 5 p.m. May 11 at the Bradford Country Club.
Proceeds support the fight against food insecurity, summer camp and educational programming for families in need of financial assistance.
Tickets are $150 each and include a surf and turf dinner, a signature cocktail, a raffle, auction, and more. The online auction goes live April 26. A link will be posted April 24 on the Y’s Facebook pages and on its website.
BOSTON — A Japanese high-tech corporation has filed a $158 million federal lawsuit against the MBTA, claiming the public transit agency violated the terms of a contract to install a new safety system on the commuter rail network.
The lawsuit filed in U.S. District Court alleges that the T made changes to the contract to install a Positive Train Control system along the commuter rail tracks that drove up the cost of the project by hundreds of millions of dollars, but refused to compensate the company for the additional costs.
“Despite Hitachi Rail’s repeated demands and attempts to resolve the claims detailed below, Defendant MBTA has failed and refused to issue Change Orders, to acknowledge delays, or to compensate Hitachi Rail for the costs and other impacts incurred by Hitachi Rail in connection with the same, in breach of the Contract,” the complaint states.
The T is under a federal mandate to install the system on all of its 15 commuter rail lines. The technology uses antennas on locomotives, radio towers and track sensors to monitor train speeds and locations to prevent collisions.
Hitachi’s predecessor, Ansaldo STS, was awarded a $338 million contract in 2015 for the work but alleges that the MBTA required the company to perform additional work “beyond the contractual obligations” and then later “refused to pay for it.”
The company cited the example of the Gloucester Drawbridge Project, alleging that the MBTA failed to issue a change order or pay for the additional work to install safety systems along that new section of commuter rail track.
The MBTA said it is reviewing the complaint but argues it has “no impact on the MBTA’s ability to work closely with the contractor and deliver a project that improves safety for both customers and employees of the commuter rail system.”
“While the MBTA continues its efforts to resolve any outstanding issues with the contractor, the work of accomplishing these important safety enhancements is in its final stages, and both parties are firmly committed to ensuring the project is successfully completed,” the T said in a statement.
The project is part of a long-delayed federal mandate to equip the nation’s rail lines with the Positive Train Control system, which is designed to prevent train-on-train collisions, speed-related derailments and other safety issues.
In 2008, Congress approved the mandate in response to a series of deadly train crashes involving speed and other rail safety issues.
Initially, the federal government set a 2015 deadline for freight railroads covered by the law to implement it, but under industry pressure congressional lawmakers have pushed back the deadline several times.
In the lawsuit, Hitachi claims that in Massachusetts the safety upgrades have been plagued by problems stemming from the MBTA’s handling of the project.
“These include delays driven by the aforementioned changes to the contractually agreed work, ongoing lack of MBTA supplied flagger support necessary for Hitachi Rail to perform work in the right of way, MBTA track access denials, MBTA mandated re-sequencing and COVID-19 impacts,” the complaint states.
The T is also under a congressional mandate to install the Automatic Train Control system on all of its commuter rail lines by this year.
Similar to PTC, the system uses satellites and wayside radio signals to monitor trains. If any problems are detected — such as excessive speeds — on-board computers can take over to slow a train or bring it to a complete stop.
Nationwide, the rail industry has spent nearly $14 billion installing train control equipment over the past several years, according to the Federal Railroad Administration.
The National Transportation Safety Board says the technology could have prevented 145 railroad accidents, saved an estimated 300 lives and averted more than 6,700 injuries over the past 45 years.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
SAN FRANCISCO — Google will combine the software division responsible for Android mobile software and the Chrome browser with the hardware division known for Pixel smartphones and Fitbit wearables, the company said Thursday. It’s part of a broader plan to integrate artificial intelligence more widely throughout the company.
In a letter to employees, Google CEO Sundar Pichai said the changes will “turbocharge the Android and Chrome ecosystems” while helping to spur innovation.
The decision will place both operations under the oversight of Rick Osterloh, a Google executive who previously oversaw the company’s hardware group. Not long ago, Google insulated Android development from the hardware division, saying it wanted to avoid giving its phone designers an unfair advantage over the other major smartphone makers who used Android — including Samsung and Motorola, as well as Chinese companies such as Oppo and Xiaomi.
Then a few years ago, Google started to position the Pixel as a flagship for demonstrating what AI could accomplish and leaned heavily into developing features that could demonstrate its potential. That meant more integration of AI hardware and software to power those features on mobile devices.
In an interview with The Verge, a tech publication, Osterloh noted that AI is the primary reason for bringing together Google’s consumer hardware and software engineers. He argued that phone technology is already growing more dependent on AI, citing the development of the Pixel camera, which among other things uses the technology for features that enhance nighttime photos or automatically choose the best of several closely timed shots.
Combining the teams, Osterloh added, is a way for Google to move even faster on infusing AI into its features. Designing the Pixel camera several years ago, he said in the interview, required deep knowledge of not just the complex hardware and software systems involved, but also the then-early AI models used for image processing.
“That hardware-software-AI integration really showed how AI could totally transform a user experience,” Osterloh said. “That was important. And it’s even more true today.”
“What you’re now starting to see Google do is flex its core AI innovation engines,” said Chirag Dekate, an analyst with Gartner. “Google wants to dominate the AI, the commanding heights of the emerging AI economy, both on the consumer side as well as on the enterprise side, essentially by infusing AI everywhere and by connecting it.”
Meanwhile, the chief of Google’s software division, Hiroshi Lockheimer, is left without a title and, according to Pichai’s letter, will be starting some other unnamed projects. Lockheimer did join Osterloh for the Verge interview, though, and the two men insisted the changes weren’t the result of a power struggle.
Google is also reorganizing its AI research and responsibility groups, although those changes mostly won’t directly affect consumer products — at least not for now.
I started journaling in 2019. It’s not that I love keeping a journal, exactly. It’s more that I find my brain works better if I spend a little time dumping its contents onto paper every morning. This practice got me through 2020, an extremely difficult year, and I’ve kept it up ever since.
My journal isn’t advanced. I’ve got a few sections recommended by my therapist from around the time I started—there’s a section I fill in every day with things I’m looking forward to, for example. I use another section to think through what I’m going to eat and other things I’m going to do that day. All of this is straightforward; I just use a template that includes headers for those things.
But there’s a bit of information I like to gather and include. Each day’s weather, for example. I’ve noticed that I’m often in a bad mood on rainy, gray days, so recording the weather along with my thoughts gives me some helpful context when I’m reviewing entries later. I also like to know what time I wrote my entry, where I was when I wrote it, and—if possible—include a quote of the day or something else to reflect on.
I could gather all of the above information myself manually, every morning. But I’ve found it’s a lot faster to use Apple Shortcuts for the job. This application, which comes preinstalled on every Mac, iPhone, and iPad, can automatically pull in all kinds of information and format it nicely for my journal. I run a custom automation every morning. Here’s how I built it.
The Date, Weather, and Location
Apple via Justin Pot
Fire up Apple Shortcuts on your device of choice and make a new shortcut. This software can be a little confusing, but don’t worry, I’m going to talk you through everything. In the right column you will see a number of different tiny automations you can run. Drag as many of these as you want to the main column, which is on the left. I like to search for what I’m looking for, but if you prefer, you can manually explore the options to get a sense of what Shortcuts can do.
BOSTON — Financial relief from college debt is coming for hundreds of mental health workers under a state loan repayment program aimed at easing workforce shortages.
A taxpayer-funded program, which launched in 2022, pays off up to $300,000 in college loans for eligible health care professionals in a variety of disciplines, including dental, medical, mental health and substance abuse.
The state Executive Office of Health and Human Services, which oversees the MA Repay program, announced a new round of disbursements earlier this week totaling $10 million. The latest round of loan repayments will specifically target more than 200 eligible mental health workers, the agency said.
Gov. Maura Healey said the move will “offer life changing loan repayment to our dedicated state employees who continue to provide care daily to community members with serious mental illness.”
“Massachusetts relies on our incredible behavioral health workforce to provide essential care to our residents, but far too many workers are being held back by crushing levels of student debt,” Healey said in a statement.
The MA Repay program was approved as part of a $4 billion pandemic relief bill signed by then-Gov. Charlie Baker in December 2021. It is aimed at recruiting and retaining new workers in a sector of the state’s health care system that is traditionally among the lowest paid.
Under the program, psychiatrists are eligible for up to $300,000 if they are employed full time, and $150,000 if they work part time. Psychologists can receive up to $150,000 in loans repaid if they are full-time workers, $75,000 if they work part time.
Nurses, nurse practitioners, advanced practice nurses, physician assistants and social workers with master’s degrees who are employed in mental health settings can receive $25,000 to $50,000. Workers in those professions with bachelor’s degrees can get between $15,000 and $30,000.
Those who qualify must commit to working for at least four years in the state under a “service commitment” to receive the financial relief. That employment can be with up to two employers, according to the state agency.
In August, the state announced the first round of disbursements for nearly 3,000 health care workers totaling $140.9 million. In October, the state opened a second round of disbursements for $25 million. In January, an additional $16.5 million was made available to early education, child care, home health and other home workers.
The move comes as President Joe Biden unveiled a new proposal this week that seeks to reduce or cancel federal student loans for 30 million Americans.
Biden’s latest forgiveness plan calls for offering loan relief to borrowers who have large amounts of interest on their loans, have been paying for decades or who face financial hardship.
A group of Republican states filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging Biden’s SAVE Plan, arguing the move bypasses Congress and a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that rejected the president’s previous loan forgiveness program, which called for eliminating $400 billion in outstanding college debt.
To date, $136.6 billion in federal college loans have been forgiven for more than 3.7 million Americans, according to the Biden administration.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
BOSTON — Financial relief from college debt is coming for hundreds of mental health workers under a state loan repayment program aimed at easing workforce shortages.
A taxpayer-funded program, which launched in 2022, pays off up to $300,000 in college loans for eligible health care professionals in a variety of disciplines, including dental, medical, mental health and substance abuse.
The state Executive Office of Health and Human Services, which oversees the MA Repay program, announced a new round of disbursements earlier this week, totaling $10 million. The latest round of loan repayments will specifically target more than 200 eligible mental health workers, the agency said.
Gov. Maura Healey said the move will “offer life changing loan repayment to our dedicated state employees who continue to provide care daily to community members with serious mental illness.”
“Massachusetts relies on our incredible behavioral health workforce to provide essential care to our residents, but far too many workers are being held back by crushing levels of student debt,” Healey said in a statement.
The MA Repay program was approved as part of a $4 billion pandemic relief bill signed by then-Gov. Charlie Baker in December 2021. It’s aimed at recruiting and retaining new workers in a sector of the state’s health care system that is traditionally among the lowest paid.
Under the program, psychiatrists are eligible for up to $300,000 if they are employed full time, and $150,000 if they work part time. Psychologists can get up to $150,000 in loans repaid if they are full-time workers, $75,000 if they work part time.
Nurses, nurse practitioners, advanced practice nurses, physician assistants and social workers with master’s degrees who are employed in mental health settings can get between $25,000 to $50,000. Workers in those professions with bachelor’s degrees can get between $15,000 and $30,000.
Those who qualify must commit to working for at least four years in the state under a “service commitment” to receive the financial relief. That employment can be with up to two different employers, according to the state agency.
In August, the state announced the first round of disbursements for nearly 3,000 health care workers, totaling $140.9 million. In October, the state opened a second round of disbursements for $25 million. and in January, another $16.5 million was made available to early education, childcare, home health and other home workers.
The move comes as President Joe Biden unveiled a new proposal this week that seeks to reduce or cancel federal student loans for 30 million Americans.
Biden’s latest forgiveness plan calls for offering loan relief to borrowers who have large amounts of interest on their loans, have been paying for decades or those who face financial hardship.
A group of Republican states filed a federal lawsuit on Tuesday challenging Biden’s SAVE Plan, arguing the move bypasses Congress and a 2023 U.S. Supreme Court ruling that rejected Biden’s previous loan forgiveness program, which had called for eliminating $400 billion in outstanding college debt.
To date, $136.6 billion in federal college loans have been forgiven for more than 3.7 million Americans, according to the Biden administration.
Christian M. Wade covers the Massachusetts Statehouse for North of Boston Media Group’s newspapers and websites. Email him at cwade@cnhinews.com.
SACRAMENTO, Calif. — Google on Friday began removing California news websites from some people’s search results, a test that acted as a threat should the state Legislature pass a law requiring the search giant to pay media companies for linking to their content.
Google announced the move in a blog post on Friday, calling it a “short-term test for a small percentage of users … to measure the impact of the legislation on our product experience.” The company said it also would pause new investments in the California news industry, including the partnership initiative with news organizations and its product licensing program.
“By helping people find news stories, we help publishers of all sizes grow their audiences at no cost to them. (This bill) would up-end that model,” Jaffer Zaidi, Google’s vice president for global news partnerships, wrote in the blog post.
The California Legislature is considering a bill that would require tech giants like Google, Facebook and Microsoft to pay a certain percentage of advertising revenue to media companies for linking to their content. How much the companies would have to pay would be decided by a panel of three judges through an arbitration process.
The bill aims to stop the loss of journalism jobs, which have been disappearing rapidly as legacy media companies have struggled to profit in the digital age. More than 2,500 newspapers have closed in the U.S. since 2005, according to Northwestern University’s Medill School of Journalism. California has lost more than 100 news organizations in the past decade, according to Democratic Assemblymember Buffy Wicks, the bill’s author.
“This is a bill about basic fairness — it’s about ensuring that platforms pay for the content they repurpose,” Wicks said. “We are committed to continuing negotiations with Google and all other stakeholders to secure a brighter future for California journalists and ensure that the lights of democracy stay on.”
The state Assembly passed the bill last year with bipartisan support despite fierce opposition and lobbying efforts from big tech companies. The California Senate would have to pass it later this year for it to become law.
Supporters said the legislation would help level the playing field between news publishers and large digital platforms and provide a “lifeline” to local news organizations, which rely heavily on Google’s search engine to distribute its content in the digital era. While Google’s search engine has become the hub of a digital advertisement empire that generates more than $200 billion annually, news publishers saw their advertising revenues nosedive significantly in the last few decades.
But opponents, including Google, Meta and some independent newsrooms, call the legislation a “link tax” that would primarily benefit out-of-state newspaper chains and hedge funds and further decimate local news organizations. Richard Gingras, Google’s vice president of news, also told state lawmakers, in a hearing last December, that Google already made significant contributions to support local journalism, pointing to the tech giant’s financial grants and training to nearly 1,000 local publications in 2023, among other programs.
Google’s search engine should be seen as “the largest newsstand on Earth,” Gingras said, where it helps connect users to news websites more than 24 billion times per month. Google’s search engine holds an estimated 90% share of the market.
“This traffic in turn helps publishers make money by showing ads or attracting new subscribers,” he said, adding that it’s estimated that each click on a link from Google is worth 5 cents to 7 cents to a news website.
Google’s decision to temporarily remove links to news websites is not a new tactic for tech giants to use when pushing back on unwanted legislation. When Canada and Australia passed similar laws to promote journalism, Meta — the company that owns Facebook and Instagram — responded by blocking content from Canadian publishers on its sites in Canada. The company made similar threats to U.S. Congress and California lawmakers last year. Google had threatened to do the same in Canada. But in November, Google agreed to pay 100 million Canadian dollars ($74 million U.S. dollars) to the news industry.
News publishers would suffer and could lay off more journalists if Google completely blocks content from its search, but experts say Google also would take a financial hit without news content.
“Google would be damaging itself enormously if it decided to stop using newspaper content,” Brandon Kressin, an antitrust attorney representing News Media Alliance and other news publishers, told lawmakers in a December hearing. “They would be cutting off their nose to spite their own face.”
The political wrangling over Google’s dominant search engine can throttle access to various news sources comes against the backdrop of legal trouble that could culminate in decisions that undercut the company’s internet empire.
After presenting evidence to support its allegations that Google has been abusing its power to stifle competition and innovation during the biggest antitrust trial in a quarter century, lawyers for the U.S. Justice Department will present its closing arguments next month to a federal judge who is expected to issue a decision in the case later this year.
Following another antitrust trial that ended in December, a federal jury concluded Google had turned its app store for smartphones running on its Android software into an illegal monopoly that limited consumer choices while enriching the company through unfairly high commissions charged for in-app purchases. A hearing on the changes that Google will have to make resulting from that verdict is also scheduled to occur next month.
California has attempted to boost local journalism through various initiatives, including a $25 million multiyear, state-funded program in partnership with UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism to place 40 early-career journalists in local newsrooms annually. Lawmakers are also considering another proposal that would expand tax credits for local news organizations this year.
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Associated Press reporter Michael Liedtke in San Francisco contributed to the report.
You also get no help in selecting these photos. The company does not use AI to prompt or resurface memories, the way that pretty much every other photo app does. “There’s a big difference between passive reminders and actively chronicling the moments that matter to you,” says Retro founder Nathan Sharp in an email.
Retro’s team is made up of six former Instagrammers, and their original intention was to create a better Instagram, a place where you can share snaps and commentary with people you actually care about. The Journals feature expands on that by allowing you to share that content with a larger group of people.
For example, if you’re a parent, you can create a Journal for each of your children. You can post photos to that journal and share with grandparents. Then you can share public links to that journal via Instagram or Facebook. People you are not friends with on Retro will see your Journals as curated photo albums.
“We wanted to emphasize the ongoing use case,” Sharp said. “This isn’t just a photo dump. This is building something for your future self to look back on.”
Shine’s use case is similar. It’s aimed at people from multiple generations with different phones who want to pool photos on similar themes or events. (Even the seemingly dated color choice and app design seems a deliberate callback to an earlier time.) Let’s say you attend a baby shower. You can create an album for that baby shower and add photos via two separate modes. In Magic Mode, Shine’s AI will select pictures for you, or you can add photos manually. Then you can share that album with whomever you choose, and they can also add pictures.
As we discussed in our review of the feature, Apple’s Journal app also prompts you to write about your day on a regular basis. You can schedule reminders and turn on prompts. You can paste in photos, locations, and voice memos. This feature is, of course, available only on iPhones; moreover, it’s not remarkably different from a few other, older apps that also provide journaling services (WIRED has a few other suggestions here). Apple is presenting the feature as part of its new suite of mental health services.
Paper Trail
How do you make or share memories? Like most people, I share my photos haphazardly: in photo batches texted to group chats on different messaging apps, in shared Google Photos folders, in Instagram posts, or in the occasional Story or Facebook Reel. It would be very nice if every single person I know could get on the same app. Unfortunately, every person in my life also has other people in their lives, so I suspect this will turn out the same way as when everyone tried to force everyone else to use Slack, or Discord, or WhatsApp. I half-heartedly texted Retro invites to a few friends, but only got a disinterested “What is this?” in response.
Sharp also suggested creating a private journal with my husband, but with a 6- and 9-year-old, we are unfortunately too busy making memories to document them thoroughly (my spouse also hates social media). I scrolled back through our text messages for possible snaps, but I really do need to enlist an AI to help me decide which of our constant backs-and-forths of “Where are you?”, “Where did you guys go?”, and “Did you get garlic bread?” moments are worth memorializing.
Your iPhone is so much more than just a screen for texting. Smartphones are how we get work done, stay on top of the crazy news cycle, rock out, keep in touch with friends and family, and capture life’s most important moments. Carrying all of that information in our pockets is incredibly powerful, and it makes getting through our days a little easier. It also means that your most important data can get lost when you forget your phone on the train or have an unfortunate spat with the sidewalk.
If you want to avoid frantically trying to recover the best shots from a friend’s wedding, you must back up your iPhone. It’s an especially good idea if you plan on updating to a new iPhone. There are a few ways to do this, depending on your needs and habits. After you’re all backed up, check out our guide to choosing the Best iPhone.
Updated March 2024: We verified the steps for the latest version of iOS, added screenshots to illustrate, and updated for the steps for MacOS.
Backing Up to iCloud
Apple via Simon Hill
Screenshot
Your easiest option, and Apple’s first recommendation, is to back up your iPhone to iCloud.
The process is pretty simple:
Connect to Wi-Fi.
Go into Settings and tap on your name, then iCloud.
On the iCloud page, scroll down and tap on iCloud Backup. Make sure the switch is toggled on so you’ll get automatic backups when your iPhone is charging, locked, and connected to Wi-Fi. Then tap Backup Now to force a backup.
Check things like Photos that you want iCloud to back up (you can uncheck other categories).
Apple gives you 5 GB of iCloud storage for free, but that’s probably not enough to cover all of your data. You can always buy more iCloud storage, though that will draw you deeper into Apple’s ecosystem. Luckily, in iOS 15 Apple introduced a temporary way to back up your data to iCloud, even if you are out of storage, to allow you to switch iPhones. If you prefer not to use the cloud, there is another way.
Backing Up to Your Mac
If your phone is loaded with pictures, songs, apps, and years of text messages, you might want to make a local backup. If you have a computer with some gigs to spare, you can plug in your iPhone and click a few buttons to make sure all your phone’s data is safely tucked away. But the exact method depends on your version of MacOS.
If you’re not sure which Apple operating system you have, click the little Apple icon in the top left corner of your Mac desktop and select About This Mac. Another window will pop up, telling you what version you’re running.
Backing Up to MacOS Catalina 10.15 or later
The upgrade to MacOS Catalina (2019) did away with iTunes, replacing it with three separate apps for music, podcasts, and TV. The backup option is now located in Finder, where you can search folders and other drives. The steps to back up your iPhone are almost the same as with iTunes:
Connect your iPhone to your computer with a cable.
Open Finder and select your iPhone in the sidebar.
Click on General and choose Back up all of the data on your iPhone to this Mac.
If you want to encrypt your data and password protect it, select Encrypt local backup.
BEVERLY — The city’s local cable television station is heading to downtown Beverly.
BevCam is scheduled to open a new media center next month at 261 Cabot St., the storefront formerly occupied by A New Leaf. The space will be called BevCam Downtown and will have two studios, including a podcast studio in the front window.
“We’re very excited about this,” said Paul Earl, president of BevCam’s board of directors. “I think it’s a great move.”
BevCam, which stands for Beverly Community Access Media, will keep its studio in Beverly High School. But officials are hoping the visibility of a downtown location will increase awareness of the organization.
BevCam, which began in 2006, is known mostly for its coverage of local government meetings and high school sports. Earl said the organization does that very well, but acknowledged that the demographic of its viewers is “very old.”
The station’s social media accounts have seen an uptick in recent months under new staff hired by Executive Director Rob Chapman. The opening of a studio on Cabot Street should expose BevCam to Montserrat College of Art students and other young people who visit the downtown’s coffee shops and shops. The studio will be open later hours in the evenings and on weekends, Earl said.
“Once we get down there and we’re open for business it could help us a lot,” he said.
In addition to a main studio and the podcast studio, the new location will have a common area that can hold up to 50 people for events and meetings; two edit suites; and an office for Chapman.
BevCam launched a fundraising campaign to help pay for the new space. As of Friday, it had raised $5,355 toward its goal of $10,000. The fundraiser is scheduled to run through April 5.
Chapman, who became BevCam’s executive director in 2022, said local access stations in other communities have opened locations in or near their downtowns. Salem, Danvers and Gloucester all have downtown-area studios.
“There is sort of a move in the industry to be more accessible,” he said.
Noting that organizations like BevCam are known as “PEG” channels, for public, education and government, Chapman said BevCam has traditionally done well on the government and education portions.
“It’s building up that ‘P’, getting the public involved,” he said.
Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.
Staff Writer Paul Leighton can be reached at 978-338-2535, by email at pleighton@salemnews.com, or on Twitter at @heardinbeverly.
Alex Pearlman shut the door on dreams of a standup comedy career almost a decade ago, pivoting from the stage to an office cubicle where he worked a customer service job.
Then he started posting random jokes and commentary about pop culture and politics on TikTok. Just over 2.5 million followers later, he quit his nine-to-five and recently booked his first nationwide tour.
Pearlman is among the many TikTok creators across the U.S. outraged over a bipartisan bill passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular video app if its China-based owner, ByteDance, doesn’t sell its stake. The bill still needs to go through the Senate, where its prospects are unclear.
Content creators say a ban would hurt countless people and businesses that rely on TikTok for a significant portion of their income, while also arguing TikTok has become an unrivaled platform for dialogue and community.
Pearlman, who lives outside Philadelphia, said TikTok has transformed his life, allowing him to live a dream, provide for his family and spend the first three months of his newborn son’s life at home. His customer service job only offered paternity leave equivalent to three weeks off, with two weeks paid.
“I don’t take a day for granted on this app, because it’s been so shocking,” said Pearlman, 39. “In reality, TikTok has been the driver of American social media for the last four years. Something will step into that place if TikTok vanishes tomorrow. Whether or not that will be better or worse, Congress has no way of knowing.”
TikTok, which launched in 2016, has skyrocketed in popularity, growing faster than Instagram, YouTube or Facebook. The push to remove the app from Chinese authority follows concerns from lawmakers, law enforcement and intelligence officials about the insecurity of user data, potential suppression of content unfavorable to the Chinese government and the possibility that the platform could boost pro-Beijing propaganda, all of which TikTok denies.
To date, the U.S. government hasn’t provided any evidence showing TikTok shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities.
The move comes as the pandemic saw huge growth in digital marketing as people were stuck at home consuming — and creating — content at levels not seen before.
Jensen Savannah, a 29-year-old from Charlotte, began making TikToks of her travels around the Carolinas during the pandemic. Now a full-time influencer, she has tripled her income since leaving her telecommunications sales job.
“’Social media Influencer’ is almost to be looked at as the new print and the new form of radio and TV advertising,” she said. “It’s going to bring your dollar much farther than it is in traditional marketing.”
Some creators describe it as a digital equalizer of sorts, providing a platform for people of color and other marginalized groups to get opportunities and exposure.
“I’ve always had Twitter, I’ve had Facebook, I’ve had Instagram. But TikTok was the first one where, if you want to find somebody who looks like yourself and represents you in any type of way, you can find it,” said Joshua Dairen, a Black, 30-year-old content creator in Auburn, Alabama. Dairen makes videos about his state’s ghost stories, urban legends and history.
Growing up, he loved researching everything paranormal, but he didn’t see a lot of Black representation in the field. Exposure on TikTok has led to jobs writing freelance pieces and contributing to documentaries about paranormal occurrences and unsolved mysteries. The app also gave Dairen the flexibility and confidence to open his own coffee shop, where he gets visits at least once a day from fans of his work.
He thinks banning TikTok sets “a dangerous precedent about how much power our highest levels of government can wield.”
Others say the app is both a financial and social safety net.
Chris Bautista, a food truck owner in Los Angeles catering to television and movie sets, started using TikTok during the pandemic to connect with members of the LGBTQ+ community and show support for those who might be having a hard time.
Bautista, 37, grew up in a conservative Christian community outside LA and didn’t come out until his late 20s. As a young person, he struggled with his mental health and considered suicide. He wanted to create a platform he could have used as a teenager, one showing that someone like him could go to that dark place and come out the other side a “well-adjusted, confident person.”
“I just find the corners of TikTok that I find myself in to be so wildly important and profound,” according to Bautista, who said it would be “heartbreaking” if the app was banned.
Bautista didn’t start posting with the intention of monetizing the experience, but money from projects tied to the app came at the right time: If it wasn’t for the extra income he earned through TikTok during the pandemic and then the Hollywood strikes last year, his business would have shut down.
Almost since its inception, concerns have been raised about the addictive nature of the app, especially for young audiences whose minds are still developing. Marcus Bridgewater, a former private school teacher and administrator who owns his own business and posts TikTok gardening videos, wants Congress to be focused on those issues, and not whether the app is Chinese-owned.
“Social media is a powerful tool,” said Bridgewater, who lives in Spring, Texas. “And powerful tools are just that: They are capable of helping us transcend ourselves, but in their transcendence, they’re also capable of completely severing us from those we love.”
Pearlman said he has long feared politicians would come after TikTok. He compared the experience of finding out about the House vote to finally getting the call that an ailing loved one has died.
“The part that’s disturbing to me is, I feel like for a lot of Americans, TikTok and social media in general is a release valve — it’s kind of become a default complaint box,” he said. “So to many people, it feels like they’re trying to ban the complaint box instead of dealing with the complaint.”
Alex Pearlman shut the door on dreams of a standup comedy career almost a decade ago, pivoting from the stage to an office cubicle where he worked a customer service job.
Then he started posting random jokes and commentary about pop culture and politics on TikTok. Just over 2.5 million followers later, he quit his nine-to-five and recently booked his first nationwide tour.
Pearlman is among the many TikTok creators across the U.S. outraged over a bipartisan bill passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday that would lead to a nationwide ban of the popular video app if its China-based owner, ByteDance, doesn’t sell its stake. The bill still needs to go through the Senate, where its prospects are unclear.
Content creators say a ban would hurt countless people and businesses that rely on TikTok for a significant portion of their income, while also arguing TikTok has become an unrivaled platform for dialogue and community.
Pearlman, who lives outside Philadelphia, said TikTok has transformed his life, allowing him to live a dream, provide for his family and spend the first three months of his newborn son’s life at home. His customer service job only offered paternity leave equivalent to three weeks off, with two weeks paid.
“I don’t take a day for granted on this app, because it’s been so shocking,” said Pearlman, 39. “In reality, TikTok has been the driver of American social media for the last four years. Something will step into that place if TikTok vanishes tomorrow. Whether or not that will be better or worse, Congress has no way of knowing.”
TikTok, which launched in 2016, has skyrocketed in popularity, growing faster than Instagram, YouTube or Facebook. The push to remove the app from Chinese authority follows concerns from lawmakers, law enforcement and intelligence officials about the insecurity of user data, potential suppression of content unfavorable to the Chinese government and the possibility that the platform could boost pro-Beijing propaganda, all of which TikTok denies.
To date, the U.S. government hasn’t provided any evidence showing TikTok shared U.S. user data with Chinese authorities.
The move comes as the pandemic saw huge growth in digital marketing as people were stuck at home consuming — and creating — content at levels not seen before.
Jensen Savannah, a 29-year-old from Charlotte, began making TikToks of her travels around the Carolinas during the pandemic. Now a full-time influencer, she has tripled her income since leaving her telecommunications sales job.
“’Social media Influencer’ is almost to be looked at as the new print and the new form of radio and TV advertising,” she said. “It’s going to bring your dollar much farther than it is in traditional marketing.”
Some creators describe it as a digital equalizer of sorts, providing a platform for people of color and other marginalized groups to get opportunities and exposure.
“I’ve always had Twitter, I’ve had Facebook, I’ve had Instagram. But TikTok was the first one where, if you want to find somebody who looks like yourself and represents you in any type of way, you can find it,” said Joshua Dairen, a Black, 30-year-old content creator in Auburn, Alabama. Dairen makes videos about his state’s ghost stories, urban legends and history.
Growing up, he loved researching everything paranormal, but he didn’t see a lot of Black representation in the field. Exposure on TikTok has led to jobs writing freelance pieces and contributing to documentaries about paranormal occurrences and unsolved mysteries. The app also gave Dairen the flexibility and confidence to open his own coffee shop, where he gets visits at least once a day from fans of his work.
He thinks banning TikTok sets “a dangerous precedent about how much power our highest levels of government can wield.”
Others say the app is both a financial and social safety net.
Chris Bautista, a food truck owner in Los Angeles catering to television and movie sets, started using TikTok during the pandemic to connect with members of the LGBTQ+ community and show support for those who might be having a hard time.
Bautista, 37, grew up in a conservative Christian community outside LA and didn’t come out until his late 20s. As a young person, he struggled with his mental health and considered suicide. He wanted to create a platform he could have used as a teenager, one showing that someone like him could go to that dark place and come out the other side a “well-adjusted, confident person.”
“I just find the corners of TikTok that I find myself in to be so wildly important and profound,” according to Bautista, who said it would be “heartbreaking” if the app was banned.
Bautista didn’t start posting with the intention of monetizing the experience, but money from projects tied to the app came at the right time: If it wasn’t for the extra income he earned through TikTok during the pandemic and then the Hollywood strikes last year, his business would have shut down.
Almost since its inception, concerns have been raised about the addictive nature of the app, especially for young audiences whose minds are still developing. Marcus Bridgewater, a former private school teacher and administrator who owns his own business and posts TikTok gardening videos, wants Congress to be focused on those issues, and not whether the app is Chinese-owned.
“Social media is a powerful tool,” said Bridgewater, who lives in Spring, Texas. “And powerful tools are just that: They are capable of helping us transcend ourselves, but in their transcendence, they’re also capable of completely severing us from those we love.”
Pearlman said he has long feared politicians would come after TikTok. He compared the experience of finding out about the House vote to finally getting the call that an ailing loved one has died.
“The part that’s disturbing to me is, I feel like for a lot of Americans, TikTok and social media in general is a release valve — it’s kind of become a default complaint box,” he said. “So to many people, it feels like they’re trying to ban the complaint box instead of dealing with the complaint.”
