#well i have two words for you stanley: DIGITAL SPORTS'

[everysongineverykey]

any tsp in another game cross over can actually happen in canon actually because of the games ending. i know this is true because the narrator told me himself ❤️

literally. stanley can just straight up go to undertale if the narrator feels like taking him. there are no limits here

[welllpthisishappening]

Tripping Over the Blue Line (29/45)

It’s a transition. That’s what Emma’s calling it. She’s transitioning from one team to another, from one coast to another and she’s definitely not worried. Nope. She’s fine. Really. She’s promised Mary Margaret ten times already. So she got fired. Whatever. She’s fine, ready to settle into life with the New York Rangers. She’s got a job to do. And she doesn’t care about Killian Jones, captain of the New York Rangers. At all.

He’s done. One more season and he’s a free agent and he’s out. It’s win or nothing for Killian. He’s going to win a Stanley Cup and then he’s going to stop being the face of the franchise and he’s going to go play for some other garbage team where his name won’t be used as puns in New York Post headlines. That’s the plan. And Emma Swan, director of New York Rangers community relations isn’t going to change that. At all.

They are both horrible liars.

Rating: Mature Content Warnings: Swearing, eventual hockey-type violence AN: The theme of this chapter? Everyone is mad at Killian. Possibly no one more than Killian himself. But...with mimosas! That’ll make sense. I promise. As always I can’t thank you guys enough for reading all my words (of which there have just been a questionable amount of this week) and @laurnorder, @distant-rose & @beautiful-swan are the absolute best.  Hanging out on Ao3, FF.net and tag’ed up on Tumblr. 

“Arthur, if you break the whiteboard again they’re not going to give you another one.” “Shut the fuck up, Jones.” Killian glanced towards Robin, certain there’d be a smile on his face or at least something that resembled amusement in his eyes and there weren't either of those things – there was just frustration, the kind that almost rivaled Arthur’s in the middle of the Calgary visitor’s locker room.

Huh. He hadn’t been expecting that.

Robin had been quiet on the flight up, but so had Killian, mind racing with everything Emma had said – and maybe not said – in the alley outside the bar and they’d barely had time for much more than a quick bye when the fans left and they had two different flights to catch. He’d stared out the window of the plane, phone held loosely in his hand and tried to figure out exactly what to say.

He couldn’t come up with anything to say.

And he wasn’t really supposed to use his phone.

He texted Emma when they landed and fired off the first fact he could remember about Calgary – it’s Canada’s sunniest city and, of course, it was cloudy when Killian woke up the next day. Figured.

She texted back when they landed in New York, but there was no fact about the Flames and no update on the weather at home.

“We’re winning,” Killian pointed out, nodding towards the TV screen in the corner of the locker room and Arthur’s eyes, somehow, got even more narrow, tiny little slits of emotion that probably would have made him laugh if he weren’t his own mess of off-ice emotion as well.

And just like the distinct lack of sun in Canada’s sunniest city, grabbing a quick, two-goal lead in the first period of the first game after the All-Star break felt a bit like some sort of colossal joke. If Emma didn’t text back, if Emma thought it was better to listen to a good offer if he got one, Killian wasn’t certain anything else really mattered.

Melodramatic idiot.

“A two-goal lead is the most dangerous lead in all of hockey, Jones,” Arthur snapped, throwing his whiteboard marker at Killian for good measure.

“Jeez, Arthur,” Robin muttered and that might have been the first time he’d spoken all day. “You’re going to give yourself an ulcer.” Will laughed or scoffed or made some sort of noise in the back of the room and Arthur turned his wrath on the recently-returned defenseman. “Something to add, Scarlet?” Arthur asked. “You’re even lucky to be on the ice. You know I thought about pulling you off your shift in that period?” “He’s barely got one leg,” Killian argued, throwing Will a supportive glance. Scarlet didn’t look impressed. And Killian wondered when he’d managed to offend him as well. “And he’s already blocked, like, four shots.” “Hurt like hell,” Will added, pressing the heel of his hand into his thigh like that, somehow, proved his point.

“He only blocked three shots,” Arthur said, but his voice lacked some of the bite it had at the start of intermission and he wasn’t clutching the whiteboard quite as hard anymore. His knuckles almost looked normal.

“Ah, well, he’s trying his best,” Killian laughed. Will’s expression didn’t change. Robin didn’t say anything.

Fuck.

They knew about the trade. Or the lack of a trade. He wasn’t going to leave New York. Maybe. If the Rangers would resign him.

The Rangers were totally going to resign him.

“I want faster line changes,” Arthur continued, ignoring whatever attempts at humor Killian was failing to hit. “And quicker moves up the ice and less turnovers in the neutral zone. If any of you turn the puck over in the goddamn neutral zone again, I’ll make you skate blue-to-blue sprints until you can’t even stand up.” No one said anything.

“Get back on the ice,” Arthur said and it sounded a bit like a command.

The box score claimed they finished with double-digit turnovers in the neutral zone and they gave up the two-goal lead in the opening minutes of the third period and Arthur had pulled Jefferson, but only after he snapped another whiteboard in half. They won anyway, still firmly cemented in that first Wild Card spot, and no one said anything to Killian when he walked into the locker room – second star with a distinctly silent cell phone sitting in his visitor’s locker.

“Jones,” Arthur shouted and Killian felt his head snap up automatically, eyes going wide when he saw the look on the man’s face.

He didn’t look angry. He looked disappointed.

Jesus Christ.

“Go,” Robin said, nodding towards the far end of the locker room. “We’ll save you some food.”

Will hummed in the back of his throat, fingers moving over the screen of his phone – which had barely stopped buzzing since Killian walked towards them.

“Yeah, ok, thanks,” Killian mumbled, hand in his hair and knot in his stomach and he should have texted more facts about Calgary. Or maybe apologized. Definitely apologized.

He moved across the locker room slowly, measured steps so he didn’t actually trip over the skates he still hadn’t taken off and Phillip glanced up when he moved past him. Disappointment – it was more disappointment and Killian had never quite felt like he did in that moment, like he’d, somehow, let down an entire NHL team.

He needed to get home.

He wouldn’t be home for another week.

“What’s going on, Arthur?” Killian asked when he came up in front in front of him. “We won the game.” Arthur didn’t say anything, just pushed a crumpled up and slightly-out-of-date sports section into Killian’s chest. He groaned, rolling his eyes towards the ceiling and he didn’t need it – he’d probably memorized every single line of the entire goddamn story at this point.

And he still couldn’t understand it, couldn’t understand why Gold had been quoted or what he was talking about when Killian was one-hundred percent certain no one from the entire Los Angeles Kings organization would even glance his direction.

He also might have texted Regina when they landed in Calgary, just to make sure. She’d called him every single variation of idiot that the English language allowed and after several lines of text message begging had, finally, told him in no unquestionable terms that the Kings were probably the last team in the league that would want to sign him next season.

“None of it’s true,” Killian said, flipping his wrist back towards Arthur as he tried to hand the paper back to him.

“Oh, I know,” Arthur answered. “If you don’t think I’ve been telling front office to offer you max since the start of the season then you’re even more stupid than you look.” “A charmer as always.” Arthur shrugged, crumpling the entire Los Angeles Times sports section in one hand and tossing it over his shoulder into a well-placed trash can. “Did you practice that?”

“I did play sports at one point, you know, I’ve got reflexes or something.” “Did you call me over here just to prove that?” Arthur laughed, arms crossed over his chest again and his tie was hanging loose around his neck – like he’d been tugging on it for the better part of the night. “No,” he said. “I didn’t, but feel free to be impressed.” Killian narrowed his eyes and Arthur didn’t say anything else. He tried not to look as frustrated as he was – he should have grabbed his phone. “I’d really like to shower at some point before we leave, Arthur, so if this conversation has a point…”

“Of course it’s got a point, Jones,” Arthur said irritably. “I want to sign you. The team wants to sign you and while I try to pay as little attention to your life off the ice as possible, I’m pretty sure your girlfriend wants you to sign too. So what I’m getting at is you should probably make sure your team realizes all of that – especially the guys on your line.” Killian glanced over his shoulder – Will sprawled out one of the benches, phone held above his head as he continued to answer Belle’s worried texts and Robin pressed into the far corner, phone propped against his ear – and neither one of them looked up when he turned towards them.

“You’re good on the ice, Jones,” Arthur continued, tone brisk and gruff as Killian snapped his head back around. “As good as we could get when we’re trying to make some sort of Cup run with our jobs on the line. And I’d want you on any team I coach, but you should tell your line what you’re doing. Scarlet had to stop Locksley from killing you during warmups.” Killian sighed and traced along one of the scars on the back of his hand. “I’m not going anywhere,” he said.

“Oh, I know you’re not, at least in theory. But those guys don’t. Talk to them and stop turning the puck over in the neutral zone. I don’t need any more postgame questions about you falling back into some kind of scoring skid. I’ve already got enough to worry about with Locksley’s drought and Scarlet’s leg.” “Yeah, ok,” Killian said, not quite sure what else he could contribute to this conversation.

“And take a shower, you look like shit.”

He did as instructed and things almost felt ok when he got on the plane, until Robin actually offered him the armrest in between the seats like that was something he normally did, instead of just throwing his forearm onto whatever material armrests were made of.

Plastic?

It was probably plastic.

“Nah,” Killian muttered. “You can have it.” “Ok,” Robin said and Killian wished he wasn’t actually sitting next to the window because it felt a bit like he was stuck.

“Will you guys shut up,” Will hissed from the other side of the aisle, leaning over a visibly perturbed Ariel. “Some of us are kind of exhausted.”

“God, Scarlet,” Ariel sighed, pushing against his shoulder and slapping at his jacket for good measure. “Will you get off me? You’re going to hurt yourself.” “Leaning over you is not going to somehow hurt my leg, A. And there’s no way you haven’t already gone through every possible test that I could have hurt my leg tonight. I am fine.” “Ok, first of all, we didn’t go through every test and you were the one who came to me complaining about how much your leg hurt as soon as you got off the ice.” “What?” Will snapped, sitting up and someone from the other end of the plane actually shushed him. “That’s not even remotely what happened,” he hissed, not quite reaching the appropriate level of whispering for a team flight from Calgary to Vancouver at some point after midnight.

“Will you shut up,” Robin muttered, but he sounded a bit like he did when he was disciplining Roland and Will’s jaw audibly snapped shut. Ariel looked a little pleased with herself. “Some of us are actually exhausted and didn’t get much sleep over the weekend.”

“Oh,” Will laughed, leaning back across Ariel. She used both of her fists to punch against his back. “What exactly was going on in LA, Locksley?”

Killian rolled his eyes and sighed when Robin glared across the aisle – Ariel’s punches coming just a bit harder and more frequently than they probably should have considering Will had only just been cleared to start skating again.

“Shut up, Scarlet,” Killian said, practically growling out the words from his window seat.

That talk about how he wanted to stay in New York and how he was going stay in New York and how dedicated he was to the team was going really well. He should probably apologize to them too.

He should make a list.

That was Emma’s job.

There weren’t any postgame text messages – just the usual from Liam and Elsa and Anna – and nothing but silence from the one person he wanted. He would have even taken a jab about the turnovers in the neutral zone or his plus-minus rating and he’d scored again – six-game streak now – but it didn’t really seem to mean anything if there weren’t postgame text messages.

“Sure, Cap,” Will said after a few moments. “Aye aye or whatever.” Robin didn’t say anything else for the rest of the flight, but Killian knew he hadn’t fallen asleep – no telltale signs of snoring or his arm inevitably falling off the armrest. He didn’t even use the armrest, hands crossed over his league-required jacket, and eyes straight ahead and neither one of them got the sleep they could probably use.

They landed at some indeterminate time in the middle of the night, stars dotting the sky when they were ushered off the plane and onto a team bus and into the team hotel and no one said anything about that story in the Los Angeles Times.

Robin threw his bag into the corner of the room, stepping on the heels of his shoes as he moved and Killian resisted the urge to start yelling.

Or maybe apologize.

Definitely apologize.

He texted Emma instead –  We’re here, Swan. No turbulence or anything. Smooth sailing. He groaned when he read what he wrote, nearly punching a hole in the screen of his phone as he tried to hit delete as quickly as possible.

Landed and in the hotel and you’re probably asleep, but let me know how today went when you wake up, ok? It went fine, better than, I’m sure.

No, that wasn’t good either. Killian sank onto the edge of the bed, only dimly aware that Robin was talking to him.

“You want first dibs at the sink, Cap, or you good for a second?” he asked.

“Hmmm?” Killian mumbled, glancing up at Robin and the very distinct bags under his eyes. He hadn’t noticed that with a visor blocking his face before. “No, no, I’m fine. I’ve uh…” He trailed off, pointing towards the phone and Robin just hummed in agreement.

“Ok, cool.”

He was gone half a moment later, sink running behind the closed door and Killian exhaled the breath he hadn’t realized he was holding.

We’re in Vancouver. No game until tomorrow, which, obviously, you know. We’ve got walk-throughs in the afternoon, but nothing later, so maybe we can talk then? Let me know how today went. I love you, Swan.

He sent it before he could delete the whole, stupid thing again, throwing the phone into the corner of the bed for good measure.

The knock came just half a second before Killian was certain he was about to fall asleep – he hadn’t even taken his shoes off yet – and he ran a hand over his face when he moved towards the door.

Will and Ariel didn’t even wait for him to open it completely before they walked in, matching looks of determination on their face and something that almost looked like a bottle...of orange juice.

“What the hell are you doing?” Killian asked, stepping out the way just quickly enough that he didn’t get run over by either one of them.

“Taking matters into our own hands,” Will answered and Ariel nodded behind him. She was holding champagne.

“And what matters are those, exactly?” “We’re going to get you and dad back together.” “What?” Ariel rolled her eyes. “Please, Cap, it’s like watching divorced parents. It’s just depressing. And we’re not dealing with a whole western swing of this nonsense, so we’re nipping this in the bud right now.”

Will nodded – as if that settled that – and Ariel made quick work of the champagne bottle. It unscrewed. “Where are your glasses?” Will asked. “There’s got to be glasses in here, right?” “Oh maybe we should have brought glasses with us,” Ariel mused, but Will brushed her off just as quickly.

“If they’re not on the desk, they’re probably in the bathroom,” Killian muttered, still a bit too stunned by whatever was happening in front of him to really put up much of a fight. It was almost three in the morning.

“Locksley,” Will shouted, kicking on the still-closed bathroom door. “Open up, we need glasses.” Robin swung the door open a second later, team-branded sweatpants and t-shirt on and a toothbrush still held in his hand. “What the fuck are you doing here? This isn’t your room.” “We’re parent-trapping you.”

“What?” Robin glanced towards Killian, eyes wide and he just shrugged in response.

“I have no idea what that even means,” he said.

“Mom and dad are fighting,” Ariel explained, squeezing past Robin to grab the hotel-provided cups sitting on the corner of the vanity. “And Scarlet and I have decided that’s completely unacceptable at this point in the season. So we come bearing alcohol and you two are going to talk out your problems.” “There’s nothing to talk about,” Robin muttered at the same time Killian asked “Where did you even find champagne?” “There’s a 24-hour liquor store up the block,” Ariel said. “Breaking curfew, Red?”

Ariel shrugged. “I’m not actually on the team. I don’t think Arthur can cut my shifts or anything. Also Scarlet knew where it was, so take that into account before you go passing judgement.”

“You guys have to get out of here,” Robin said, finally walking out of the bathroom and crashing onto his designated bed. “It’s the middle of the night.” “Not until we fix this,” Will argued. “It’s all weird when you guys are fighting. I don’t like it.” “Ah, well, if Scarlet doesn’t like it,” Killian muttered, earning a glare for his sarcasm. Ariel pushed a glass into his hand, eyebrows raised and a very particular look on her face – one that practically screamed you owe me.

“Shut up, Cap.” Will hooked his foot around the leg of the one chair in the room, sinking onto it as Ariel perched on the edge of the desk behind him. “Why didn’t you tell anyone?” Killian didn’t answer at first, tapping his finger against the top of the hastily-made mimosas and he’d barely had time to register that they’d made mimosas in the middle of the night, parent-trapping them in a hotel room in Vancouver.

It was kind of overwhelming.

And the idea of even the possibility of leaving this stupid team was suddenly so absurd Killian could hardly believed he’d entertained the thought to begin with.

“Killian,” Ariel muttered, kicking out one of her legs towards him. “Come on, was any of that story true?”

“No,” he said. There was barely any orange juice in this mimosa. That was probably for the best. “None of it.” “He was quoted.” “I know he was.” “How’d that happen?” “If I had an answer for you, Red, I’d tell you.” “Probably to screw you over for other teams,” Robin said softly and Killian nearly dropped his champagne-heavy mimosa.

“What?” Robin shrugged. “That’s the first thing I thought of, is that not the first thing you thought of?” “No,” Killian admitted. “That’s…” “Insane?” Will suggested and Robin just shrugged again.

“Maybe,” he said. “But it’s not like it’s totally out of the realm of possibility. I mean, think about it, he tells a huge newspaper that he wants Cap and how great Cap is and that they’re totally interested and teams think they don’t have a chance." “I don’t know,” Killian sighed. “Gina said there were a lot of other teams who were interested.” “How many other teams?” Ariel asked and if it weren’t the middle of the night Killian might have been offended by the note of surprise in her voice.

He took a drink before he answered. “A lot.” “That’s not very specific.” Killian held his hand up in the air, but didn’t actually start going down the list. Or the teams that weren’t on the list. “Us?” Ariel continued. “I thought you weren’t on the team, Red.” “Shut up. Did they counter yet?” “There’s not anything to counter. No one’s actually offered yet and they probably won’t until the deadline.”

“So we haven’t actually made a move yet?” Will asked, eyes darting to a frozen Robin. “That’s nuts.” “Well, to be fair,” Killian sighed. “I didn’t really make much of a move either. Or tell Gina to. I was...uh, pretty convinced I wasn’t coming back.” The entire room went silent, drinks held tightly in respective hands and eyes staring at feet and Killian chewed on the inside of his lip, guilt and disappointment and nerves mixing with cheap champagne in the pit of his stomach.

“Why, though?” Robin asked and it felt like hours since any of them had spoken.

Killian lifted his head, turning completely to meet Robin’s gaze. “Why did I think I wasn’t coming back?” He downed the rest of the champagne, squeezing his eyes closed when it landed like a rock. “A lot of reasons.” “Us?” Ariel asked softly and the boulder of alcohol moved until it felt like it was stuck in the back of his throat.

“It sounds awfully immature when you say it out loud like that,” Killian said. “I just, I don’t know, we were supposed to win last year and we didn’t and then…” “You went to Colorado,” Robin finished. His champagne was also gone – walkthrough was going to be interesting tomorrow. Or later that afternoon. It was three in the morning. “And they’ve got a backyard there.” “How could you possibly know that?” “You barely said two words about being out there when you got back. Scarlet and I knew something was up.” “Is that weird? Should I be concerned that that’s weird?” Robin actually laughed. “I don’t know, maybe. Is that where you wanted to go, though?” “Yeah,” Killian said and sitting up was actually proving to be a bit of a challenge when Ariel refilled his glass without even asking. “El and Liam weren’t pleased.” “They both knew?” Will exclaimed, practically leaping off the chair. “That’s bullshit, Cap.” “I’m not disagreeing with you.” “What’d they say?” Ariel asked. She was the only one without a refilled glass and Killian was half certain this whole thing had been her idea. He’d probably have to thank her at some point. If he ever remembered how to stand up or didn’t collapse from exhaustion on the ice the next morning.

“Exactly what you’d think,” Killian started. “There were threats of violence and punching me in the face, but I think they both knew it wasn’t actually going to happen.” “It’s not?” Will sputtered, gaze darting around the room like the reason for that was suddenly going to materialize out of thin air.

Ariel groaned, resting her empty glass on the desk behind her, and stared at Will in disbelief. “Are you really that dumb or just pretending?” “What?” “Emma,” Robin said, sounding as if he were explaining the most obvious thing in the world. It kind of was.

Will’s eyes widened as soon as the words were out of Robin’s mouth and Killian fell back onto the bed, the glass in his hand shaking just a bit when he moved. His phone hadn’t made a sound since he’d thrown it in the corner and, really, he hadn’t expected it to – it was six in the morning in New York – but he thought, maybe…

No.

There was no maybe. There was just him – messing up and messing this up and fuck the entire Los Angeles Times. And whoever showed Emma that story.

“What’d she say, Killian?” Ariel asked, sinking onto the mattress as well. He pulled his head up slightly, the overtired muscles in his neck protesting at the movement, and tried to shrug. It didn’t work.

“Nothing,” he said.

It wasn’t really a lie. He’d played the whole scene in the alley over and over in his head, felt every single syllable of every single word as keenly then as he had the night before and he was almost surprised he’d managed to skate, let alone put the puck in the back of the net when his mind was still in downtown Los Angeles.

He knew he should have told her before, but he’d changed his mind –  she’d changed his mind – and it shouldn’t have even been a problem.

There shouldn’t have been a story.

The Rangers should have made a move by now. Or at least the start of a move. This champagne was horrible.

Ariel lifted her eyebrows skeptically and Robin made some sort of disbelieving noise before tapping his glass meaningfully at Will. “Fill up Cap’s too,” he added.

“If I drink any more of your shit champagne I’m not going to be able to lace up my skates tomorrow,” Killian muttered.

“See, that’s just wrong,” Will objected. “We go out of our way to parent-trap you and Locksley and then you insult our champagne. Pickings are slim at three in the morning, you know.” “Out of curiosity, in this situation which one of us is which parent?” “Does it matter?” “I guess not.” Robin laughed again – and it almost sounded genuine, the smile on his face not nearly as forced as the impassive looks he’d been shooting Killian for the better part of the last twenty-four hours. “Gina’s thinking about suing the Times,” he chuckled. “For defamation.” Will nearly fell off the chair and Killian downed his third glass of mimosa before he could even consider all the reasons he shouldn’t.

“I think it’s called something else in print,” Ariel pointed out.

“Libel,” Will added. “It’s libel in print. And Cap doesn’t even fit into that spectrum because he’s a public figure. They can write about whatever they want as long as it’s remotely feasible. And him going to LA is, apparently, remotely feasible.” “How could you possibly know that?” “Not all of us went pro after freshman year. Some of us have degrees.” They laughed and the tension in the room seemed to fly out a window that absolutely wasn’t open. That was, of course, until Robin asked another question.

“She really didn’t say anything?” he murmured. “I mean with Los Angeles and everything.”

If you get a good offer you should consider it.

The words were practically tattooed on the back of his eyelids this point, flashing in front of his face every time he blinked and he was a selfish bastard because he wanted everything all at once. He absolutely didn’t deserve it.

He didn’t get the game and Emma.

The world just didn’t work that way.

“No,” Killian repeated and the lie didn’t even sound remotely convincing. Ariel rested her hand on his leg, staring at him with so much sympathy he was certain it couldn’t actually be her.

“What happens now?” she asked.

“Your guess is as good as mine. And probably better suited for Gina than me. She’s the one who talks to front office.” “She thinks it’s going to be fine,” Robbin added and Killian hadn’t expected that. “She finally gave up the truth last night after the story came out and, well, I was pissed at you for not telling any of us. Obviously. And then kind of mad at her for not telling me. Again, obviously. So she told me the truth and that you’d changed your mind.” “She didn’t tell you why?” “That one I figured out on my own. You noticed she tugs on the laces when she’s nervous?”

He shouldn't have had so much shitty champagne in such a short period of time because it wasn’t just sitting in his stomach or the back of his throat and Killian sat up before the room could actually start to spin.

He’d absolutely noticed.

And thought about that almost as much as the idea that Emma thought he should be looking at other teams.

“You should call her,” Ariel suggested.

“And say, what?” Will questioned, eyeing the now empty bottle of champagne critically. “I mean what’s he going to say that he hasn’t already?” “I don’t know. Tell her you love her an almost disgusting amount and she’s changed the whole world and you don’t know what you’d do without her.” “That’s laying it on a little thick isn’t it?” Robin cut in. “I mean that’s not really Cap’s style. He kind of broods.” “That’s just in front of us. Have you seen him look at Emma? He stares at her like she’s the center of the universe or something.”

“I’m sitting right here,” Killian muttered, words slurring just a bit and the room was spinning despite sitting up. Sitting up might have been a mistake. They drank a whole bottle of champagne in twenty minutes.

“And?” Ariel countered. “You look at Emma Swan like she’s the center of the universe. That’s just a fact.”

That was true. He did and she was and a slew of other sentimental nonsense that made a bit more sense several glasses of middle-of-the-night mimosa in. Killian could feel Robin’s stare on the side of his head and Ariel hadn’t actually moved her hand off his leg.

“Alright,” Robin announced and he was definitely the team dad. Killian tried not to laugh about that. “We’ve all made up, we’ve decided Killian is an idiot for even thinking about leaving New York and if he any of us get asked about his FA status, we just say we want him to come back here, agreed?”

Will and Ariel both nodded their head – which didn’t make much sense since no one was going to ask Ariel anything about his FA status, at least not in some sort of print or TV capacity – and she pulled her hand away from Killian’s leg to grab one of the pillows at the top of his bed.

“What are you doing?” Killian asked.

“If you think I’m walking back down the hallway to my room, you’ve got another thing coming. Come on, move over.”

Killian groaned, but that was as much of a fight as he was willing to put up, throwing another pillow in Will’s direction. Robin laughed again.

In the end, he found a spot on the floor, in between the two beds with promises from both Ariel and Robin that they wouldn’t actually step on him in the morning and Will stayed in the chair, mumbling something about not moving and it might have been the quickest Killian had fallen asleep – without Emma tucked against his side – in months.

He woke up before his phone – which was probably for the best since the three other people in the hotel room probably would have yelled if they heard his alarm before they had to – grabbing it from underneath the pillow he’d managed to commandeer the night before.

Well, a few hours before.

Killian had fallen asleep easily, but the champagne had been shitty and his head felt as if it was going to snap in half as soon as he opened his eyes to find no less than five text messages, two voicemails and one very wordy e-mail from Regina waiting for him.

He ignored the text messages and the voicemail – trying to also ignore whatever his stomach was doing at the sudden realization that there was nothing from Emma – and clicked on the e-mail. She’d sent that last and was clearly determined to make sure he knew she didn’t appreciate being ignored.

The actual coach of the Colorado Avalanche called me yesterday. On my phone. My cellphone. My actual cellphone. Not my work one. Don’t ask me how that happened, because I have no idea, but I just thought you should have some understanding of what I’m putting up with for you.

Because the actual coach of the Colorado Avalanche called my actual cellphone yesterday to ACTUALLY tell me how impressed he is with your game and that he thinks you can do a lot of good things in mountain air.

He used those words.

If that’s not enough to get you to want to stay as far away from the coach of the Colorado Avalanche then I don’t know what is. Anyway, they want to start throwing out some numbers and they’re serious – both in the idea of the number throwing and how big those numbers are. I don’t even know where Colorado is getting this kind of money.

I guess they’re willing to mortgage their entire team for you. Despite those garbage turnovers in the neutral zone last night. I hope Arthur yelled at you and then I hope Robin yelled at you too because he’s even more mad at you for all of this than I am.

And I, at least, get paid for it.

I need you to tell me what to say to Colorado. I tried to at least pretend like you were still interested in wasting your life with mountain air or whatever this coach was trying to sell me on, but if they come up with an even bigger number it might almost be something to consider. Maybe.

Also Ruby Lucas is going to kill you as soon as you get back to New York, so be prepared for that. - R

Killian read the message twice more before sighing softly and pushing off the floor. The door creaked slightly when he opened it, but it was still early and none of them moved when he pushed into the abandoned hallway, sinking onto the floor just outside the door.

He stared at his phone, eyes moving across the message again and his mind drifted back to the alley and Los Angeles and the way Emma’s eyes had ducked down when she’d tried to give him an out – If you get a good offer you should consider it.

The Avs would give him more than the Rangers could. He wasn’t front office, but he wasn’t an idiot either – no matter what Regina said.

He knew how cap space worked and what Robin had signed for last year and they’d probably want to get Phillip off his rookie deal if he kept setting up the rest of them the way he had been. There wasn’t that much money in New York.

There wasn’t that much money anywhere else in the league.

Killian sighed, resting his head against the wall as he tried to take a deep breath. But his lungs felt tight and his mouth was dry and he’d be willing to stay in New York for pennies now.

We.

She’d used the word we and he was holding onto that no matter what, even if she didn’t answer his text messages or offer up any unknown facts about the entire Vancouver Canucks organization.

He’d lied about plenty of things in the last few months – had lied about plenty of things even when plied with alcohol the night before – but he hadn’t lied about her and, well, Ariel was right. He absolutely looked at Emma like she was the center of the universe.

And his fingers were moving across his phone screen before he could stop himself, typing out a number he only vaguely realized he’d memorized weeks before.

It rang four times before it went to voicemail.

Hi, you’ve reached Emma Swan. I’m not here at the moment, but if you leave a message at the beep, I’ll get back to you as soon as I can.

“Swan,” Killian said, voice scratchy from sleep and shitty champagne. “I just...I know you’re swamped and you’ve probably got more meetings with Zelena today, but, well, I just, I wanted to talk to you. And this swing couldn’t have come at a worse time and I sleep like shit when you’re not here and I love you. More than anything. And, well, that’s it. Really. I love you. We’ve got walkthroughs, but I’ll be around….” The voicemail cut him off, asking if he was satisfied with his message and Killian hung up before he could even be tempted to delete it.

None of that had been a lie.

He hit reply on Regina’s e-mail, far too aware that he’d probably get more voicemails for responding to that and not her actual calls, thumb racing across the screen as he typed out his answer.

I’m not going Gina. Tell them that.

He tried not to think about it. Really. He did. It didn’t work very well – the weight of his silent phone and distinct lack of text messages practically making it all but impossible to move during walkthroughs and morning skate the next day.

Although that might have been the absolutely ridiculous amount of champagne he’d consumed in between games. Or maybe it was Robin’s constantly worried gaze, eyes lingering on Killian even after he’d skated to the other end of the ice and he could feel it even then, going through warmups in Vancouver without so much as anything from Emma.

And Killian wasn’t frustrated by that so much as he was disappointed in himself and how easily it had been to fuck everything up simply by trying to make sure he did the opposite.

Gina hadn’t responded to his e-mail, no update on on Colorado or New York or any of the dozen teams that, just a few weeks ago, had been willing to sign him well before the deadline.

It wasn’t just Robin staring at him either. Killian knew it would happen as soon as he got on the ice, was braced for the hit already, but that didn’t make him any less cautious when it came to lining up next to Humbert as soon as the puck dropped.

It didn’t make any of the hits hurt any less either – and there were a lot of them.

The first one made his breath catch, Humbert’s stick hitting just above the pads that covered his back and his shoulder blades, pushing Killian up against the boards in the corner of the zone. The second one hurt like hell – and got Humbert two minutes for slashing when the blade of his stick hit the one spot on Killian’s leg that didn’t have pads.

Humbert had been aiming for it. Killian didn’t blame him.

The third hit was absolutely going to leave a bruise, a cross-check that didn’t get called when Killian tried to move in front of the crease on a power play. Humbert didn’t stop hitting him, moving from his back down his thighs and then back up again for good measure, like he was trying to connect on a predetermined list of Killian’s less-padded body parts.

He probably was.

The whistle blew and Killian hadn’t even noticed that the puck had moved by his skate, finding its way past the Canucks goalie until the light when off and Humbert hit him again.

“Jesus Christ,” Killian sighed, spinning around so quickly he hit his own skates with ice. “Relax, I get the message.” Humbert shook his head and he was sweating, beads of moisture moving down his forehead towards the chin strap of his helmet and Killian nearly backed up under the force of his glare. “I honestly couldn’t care less,” Humbert hissed, knocking his stick against Killian’s ankle again.

“You’re going to get another penalty.” “Again. I don’t care.”

Killian groaned and one of the refs was blowing his whistle now, Phillip lingering just a few feet away by the faceoff circle. He tried to brush the rookie off, but that only seemed to draw him into the conversation.

“Everything ok, Cap?” Phillip asked, eyes falling on Humbert immediately. Humbert had, easily, five inches on Phillip.

“You got bodyguards now, Jones?” Humbert asked and the laughter in his voice made Killian’s grip tighten, eyes narrowing just a bit. “Where’s Scarlet? At least he’s got an almost threatening reputation.” “It’s fine, Rook,” Killian said. “Go change.” That one ref was still blowing his whistle shouting something that almost sounded like if you’re going to fight, go ahead and do it, there’s still a game here. Humbert lifted both his hands in the air, an unspoken challenge that Killian wasn’t particularly interested in.

“No,” Killian continued, shaking his head as he moved back towards his bench. “We’re not doing this. Back up Humbert.” “No, no, no,” Humbert argued quickly, tossing his stick to his side and the crowd actually ooooohed. Killian tried not to groan again. “We are absolutely doing this. Come on. Let’s go, you’ve got to take your gloves off, there are rules.” “I’m not fighting you, Humbert.” “Well, that’s too bad since I’m pretty certain I’m going to fight you.” He threw his gloves in the same direction as his stick and Killian closed his eyes, sighing softly – until he felt a fist collide with the side of his face. And then something kind of snapped. Fuck, that hurt.

Humbert had the front of his jersey in his hand, tugging on the laces until he pulled it away from Killian’s pads and he was actually shaking him, trying to get him off his skates before he could land another punch. Killian shook his right hand, glove falling onto the ice and the crowd, somehow, got louder.

His pulse thudded in his ears, or maybe that was just Humbert’s fist, and Killian felt his own fingers collide with a jaw, wincing slightly at the contact. He tried to avoid using his left hand – far too aware of what Ariel would say if he did – keeping it trained at his side and Humbert didn’t seem to care, simply intent on hitting Killian’s face as many times as possible before the refs intervened.

It took forever, far longer than any fight Killian had ever been involved in before and he landed a few more blows to Humbert’s chest before he heard the whistles and felt hands on the back of his jersey, tugging him towards the penalty box.

“Here,” the ref said, tossing Killian the one glove he’d managed to get off before the league official closed the door.

They both got five minutes and if Emma had been mad before, she was probably furious now – this seemed to decidedly fall into the realm of rescue. Killian slumped down slightly, earning a curious glance from the watcher in the box and even Humbert looked over at the sound.

“You alright?” he asked.

“You’re asking me that now? You just tried to take my head off.” “Nah, not really. It could have been a lot worse.” “Sure.” “I mean you’re not concussed or anything. And you absolutely deserved it. I saw the story.” “Everyone saw the story,” Killian muttered bitterly and Humbert chuckled softly under his breath. “I’m not going.” “Oh, I know that.” That caught him by surprise. He sat up a bit straighter, ignoring whatever the league guy was doing with his face, slightly scandalized that Killian and Humbert were talking in the middle of five-minute majors. “How?” Killian asked.

“Because you look at Emma like she’s the goddamn sun.”

They won again and Arthur didn’t actually break any whiteboards in another visitor’s locker room, but Killian had barely sat down, groaning softly to try and untie his laces before Ariel practically pulled him off the bench.

He hadn’t quite memorized the Canucks visitor’s locker room, but Ariel very clearly had a plan, muttering under her breath as she kept her hand trained on Killian’s back, pushing him down a short hallway and around a corner until he nearly collided with a table pressed up against the wall.

“Sit,” Ariel commanded, nodding towards the table and Killian hadn’t noticed she actually had a bag of ice in her other hand. She nearly threw the bag of ice at him, thrusting her hand forward, but she seemed to think twice before the bag collided with the bruise Killian was certain had blossomed just underneath his eye.

“It’s fine, Red,” he muttered. There was that word again.

“Sure it is. Did you know he was going to try and kill you?” “He didn’t.”

“Your face says otherwise.” She moved with a speed that almost impressed him, grabbing another roll of gauze and pushing his hand against his cheek until he hissed in air through his teeth, grimacing at the cold against the bruise. “Hand,” Ariel continued.

“Which one?” “Either one.” Killian held out his right hand and Ariel lifted one eyebrow, eyeing him critically, but she didn’t actually ask the question he knew she wanted to. He appreciated that. “He wasn’t trying to kill me,” Killian said. “You know that, right?” “Yeah,” Ariel admitted. “Still didn’t make it any less scary.” “You worried about me, Red?”

“No,” she said quickly, but she couldn’t quite look him in the eye either. “She ever call you back?” “Who?” “Killian!” He shook his head. “Nah, but she’s busy. She’s trying to save the game.” “I heard you did that. Got her a spot at the Piers.” “Who told you that?” “Gina. And told me that the Avs are ready to offer you a ridiculous amount of money to come out there. You tell El and Liam that?” “Gina needs to learn how to stop talking,” Killian said, shifting the ice against his cheek. God, this bruise was enormous.

“She’s worried too. And she didn’t tell Robin, that’s something.” “I guess,” he admitted. “And no, I didn’t tell El or Liam. I’m not going to Colorado. They don’t want me to go to Colorado.” “That’s not true at all.” Killian narrowed his eyes – as much as he could with a bag of ice pressed up against his face and Ariel groaned, tapping on his left hand once she’d finished wrapping up his right. “It’s not,” she said. “They just want you to be happy. And you are. Happier than I can remember seeing you ever.” The argument was on the tip of his tongue, the certainty that he’d messed up again and Emma hadn’t called back and Graham Humbert hitting him was nothing compared to what Ruby Lucas would do to him as soon as the team plane landed in New York next week.

He didn’t get a chance. His phone rang instead.

Emma.

He froze, eyes wide and ice practically pushing its way into his cheek painfully as he kept staring at his phone.

“God, Killian, answer her,” Ariel shouted. He nodded slowly, reaching out towards the phone and it kind of felt like he’d just drank another bottle of shitty champagne. Killian’s hand shook when he picked up the phone, far too aware of Ariel’s eyes on him and she muttered some excuse about checking on Will’s leg before she sprinted back towards the locker room.

“Swan?” he asked and his voice was shaking too.

“Hey,” she said softly, the sound of cars and maybe an ambulance in the background.

“Where are you? You’re not still at the Garden are you?” “It’s almost three in the morning here.” “That didn’t answer my question.” Emma laughed under her breath and he could nearly see the smile on her face. “No, I’m not. I almost left at a normal time actually.” “What’s normal in this situation?” “Before midnight.” “Swan.” “What? That’s an honest answer.” “Swan, what time?” “Like eight,” she said. “Eight thirty. Ish. I had to meet with Zelena to break down the schedule for everything at the Piers.” “Did that go alright?” Killian asked and Emma laughed again, humming in the back of her throat. A car honked and it was never that loud inside Mary Margaret’s loft. “Where are you, Swan? For real.” “I’m in the hallway.” “The hallway?” “It’s almost three in the morning,” she said again.

“Which would be a fair point if you were actually asleep,” Killian muttered, smiling in spite of himself when he heard Emma’s soft, frustrated sigh. He’d fallen back into rescue rather easily. “And you didn’t answer my question.” “Which one, there’s been so many.” “You’re the one who called me,” he pointed out, squeezing his eyes closed when he realized what he’d said. “That sounded worse than I wanted it to.” “No, no, I know what you meant.” “And?” “And what?” “And how did your meeting with Zelena go? Did Hopper give you the good rink?” She exhaled into the phone and Killian wondered if she’d been holding her breath too, his lungs were practically burning with the oxygen he was keeping in. “Zelena went fine,” Emma said. “She thinks the Piers are a good idea too.” “Do you?” “That’s another question.” “And one I’d love an answer to.” “Yeah,” Emma answered. “I do. It’s an incredible space and Hopper was more excited than just about anyone in the front office has been about any of it. He showed me your signed photos three different times.” “Jeez,” Killian sighed.

“It was nice. Bordering close to tooth-rottingly sweet.” “Is that why you called?” Emma made a noise, clicking her tongue and Killian pressed the ice against his cheek again. “Fuck,” he mumbled.

“That’s why,” Emma said.

“What was that, Swan?” “That’s why I called,” she explained and her voice didn’t shake, but he could hear the nerves there on the other side of a totally different country. “He shouldn’t have hit you. You didn’t want to fight him, I saw you shake your head.” “You watched the game?” He absolutely shouldn’t have been as surprised as he was.

“Of course. I...I watched the other night too. I just…” “I know, love,” Killian said, voice catching just before the nickname or the endearment or whatever they were calling it. Emma made a noise on the other end, a mix between a sigh and something that was very obviously disappointment.

“It was a good goal. Yesterday’s, I mean. Like a ridiculous shot, even with the turnovers in the neutral zone.” “You and Arthur should team up with your post-game speeches, Swan. He wasn’t very happy with the turnovers either.” “Good goal though and you totally screened on that power play, that’s why Phillip scored.” “Ah, it was a good shot.” “So self-deprecating. Seems a bit out of character” “No, Swan,” Killian argued. “Pretty par for the course if we’re being honest.” She made that disappointed noise again and Killian felt his grip loosen on the ice that, somehow, hadn’t started to melt yet. “Is your face ok though?” Emma asked. “And your hand?” “My face is fine if not just a bit purple and both of my hands are also fine. If not a little bruised as well.” “I’m sorry.” “For what?”

“This is my fault. Graham he...I mean he hated Neal and he couldn’t really beat him up and I didn't really even think about it…” “You shouldn’t have,” Killian said quickly, trying to erase that worry in her voice. “And you don’t. I’m fine. I knew it was going to happen before I got on the ice.” “Wait, what?” Fuck. Fuck and shit and then fuck again. The worry in Emma’s voice was gone, but it had been replaced by something else entirely – anger. He shouldn’t have said anything.

“Humbert may or may not have suggested he was ready to defend your honor over the weekend,” Killian said quickly, trying to rush over the words as fast as possible.

“Are you kidding me?” “No.” “I don’t need him to do that.” “Trust me, Swan, no one is more aware of that than I am.” “Is that why you didn’t want to fight him?” “No,” Killian answered immediately. “I didn’t want to fight him because I knew he was right.”

The phone went dead or maybe she hung up on him and Killian wasn’t certain which one was worse – he pulled the phone away glancing down at the screen and neither one was right. She just hadn’t answered him.

“Swan,” he said cautiously. “Are you ok?” “Fine.” “Emma.” He could hear her breath catch and she must have stood up because the floor creaked loudly in the background. She was pacing. “Don’t do that,” she whispered.

“What?”

“You never call me that. I hate it.” Killian bit his lip and, well, if his whole face was going to be bruised he might as well cut up his lip too. He groaned when he slumped forward, the bruises he hadn’t actually seen on his back and his chest protesting at the movement.

He didn’t care.

“Ok,” he said, not sure he remembered another word in the entire English language.

And he’d called her Emma when he meant something, when he couldn’t linger in nicknames and sarcasm and the bravado that she’d seen through from the very beginning. Every single one of his internal organs clenched at the idea that it didn’t mean quite as much as he thought it had.

“You’re really ok?” Emma asked. He could hear her key in the lock. “Did Ariel look at your hand, yet?” “Is that why you called, Swan?”

“I was worried.” That should have helped – his organs should have returned to their normal and slightly healthier positions, but they didn’t. They stayed as clenched as ever, Emma’s voice not quite ringing honest even several thousand miles away.

Killian closed his eyes and shifted the ice again as Mary Margaret’s door closed behind Emma. “I’ve got to go,” she said.

“Yeah, sure, Swan.” “The Piers are really good. It’s a great view and enough space. We’re going to send out official announcements later this week.” “I’m glad.” “Right,” she said, clicking her teeth on the final letter.

“It’s late.” He was just telling her facts now. She’d told him it was almost three in the morning twice already. She knew what time it was. And he couldn’t remember a single conversation, even that first one in the back corner of Eric’s restaurant, that was quite as difficult as this one. Goddamn western swing.

He wanted to go home.

He wanted to kiss Emma Swan.

He wanted a fucking contract extension.

“Also true,” Emma said, keeping her voice low with a presumably sleeping David and Mary Margaret just a few feet away. “You better go before Ariel attacks you in the middle of the Rogers.” “Already done. She was wrapping my hand when you called.” “You needed to get your hand wrapped?”

Killian was almost positive he didn’t mistake the change in tone, didn’t imagine the way her voice caught just a bit and maybe, maybe,  he hadn’t messed this up completely. Hope was a strange feeling in the middle of the Rogers Arena.

Or it was until Emma spoke again.

She took a deep breath and she needed her own apartment if only because the couch in Mary Margaret’s was absolutely some sort of torture device, creaking loudly when Emma sat down. “I’ve got to go,” she said again.

“Ok,” Killian muttered.

“I’ll, um, safe flight to Edmonton.” “I’ll let you know when we land?” “You don’t have to do that. You’ll probably be busy.” “It’s ok, Swan. I want to.” “Whatever you want to do.” Killian sighed again and Ariel had reappeared at some point, something that looked a hell of a lot like pity in her expression. “I’ll talk to you later?” “Of course.” The line went dead and he didn’t throw his phone at the wall, which felt as much like a victory as the one he’d actually been a part of earlier that night.

“You ok?” Ariel asked, approaching him slowly and tugging the half-melted ice away from his cheek.

“Fine.”

She didn’t call him out for the lie it absolutely was and Killian didn’t argue when she wrapped up his left hand.

[ao3-hipster-fangirl-trash]

Spilt (tea) Coffee

Stanfou: 48: You make me want things i can’t have // “You’re never going to let that go, are you?”

requested by anon and @kjs-s

I WANNA DO A COFFEE SHOP AU I DON’T KNOW WHY LET ME LIVE

Ok so i got the idea from this post

word count:1489

So Lefou works at Costa during the graveyard shift and Stanley, Tom and Dick work opposite the coffee shop and routinely come in sleep deprived and disassociating

aka Stanley is a drag queen and Lefou is an awkward lovable dork

The costa coffee that Lefou worked in was interesting to say the least.

In a couple of instances they had people come in and ask for weed or inquire if they could ‘hit the blunt’ in the back room, the manager of that certain shop had once decided to throw some sort of fancy dress party, which went well until the bookshop owner next door decided to show up and shut the place down, with a fire hydrant, two different employes had been caught spiking drinks with red bull and at least once someone had been pissed on (it was a long day).

But the one shift that anyone would have not wished upon their worst enemy was the graveyard shift, from 11pm to 6am every night, serving the crazies and eccentrics, but of course it was Lefou who took this shift, many people found that he had a way to talk to people, to really get to them, which is why even when he was off work, he would sometimes get a call from the shift manager on how to handle Carol, the crazy cat lady.

That particular night, it had been very quiet, with nothing to do except stare out of the windows and day (night?) dream. Some shops were still open for business, despite the lack of customers, such as the couture store across the street (Garderobe Custom Couture) which still had bright fairy lights illuminating the beautiful dresses and small fake birds at their feet.

He knew a few of the employes there, sometimes they would walk in covered in glitter, with a glue gun stuck to their hand and a 20, asking for the strongest thing they had and if they could a shot of vodka if you please.

His favorite from the shop, out of the trio of men that worked there, was Stanley, who would routinely walk in, wearing full drag with beautiful makeup and the most realistic wigs Lefou had ever seen, and on some days you could see a little bit of the spongy padding peeking out around the chest area. Once one of the new cashiers even asked for his number, believing truly that the person standing in front of him was a woman.

A bell sounded from the front door and Lefou looked up to see Tom and Dick walk through the door, Tom having half his hair sticking up and seemingly matted with glue, almost like a cow had licked the side of his face and his hair had decided to stay that way.

Dick however, was sporting some of the most exaggerated makeup that Lefou had ever seen, with cherry red lips and bright purple eyeshadow, covered in silver sequins, which would have been normal had the sequins not been shaped in a shape of a *ahem* phallic nature.

They walked up to the counter and drooped onto the counter as soon as they got to it.

“Bonsoir, I’m assuming you want something stronger than usual?” Lefou gave Tom's hair a little nudge, nope, completely solid.

They groaned in response, sliding a 20 euro note across the counter, which had a lipstick kiss and at least half a bucket of feather boas on it, none the less, Lefou accepted.

He walked back to the work station and grabbed two large cups, prepping a triple shot espresso for each man, and smiling to himself as he heard one of them whine like a puppy on the counter.

Lefou gave a small snigger, and whilst the coffee cup was wedged between the machine and his him, he pulled out his phone and took a picture of the two, laughing as the flash went off and both of them looked up simultaneously, confusion clouding their features.

“I swear I just saw a flash of light,” Dick said, looking around the room for the source of the flash.

The bell on the door dinged once more and both Tom and Dick looked up panicked, only to relax when they saw the twirl of a baby blue dress, as Stanley strutted into the room, with a pair of high heels in one hand and a piece of padding in the other, leaving a slightly mismatched chest.

“Eliizzaaaa!” Stanley belted out the line with expert showmanship, holding the note for at least 20 seconds before fistpumping the air and floating towards the counter with a smile on his face.

Tom and Dick both gave hearty laughs and began softly singing ‘Schuyler sisters’, clinging onto each other as if they needed to in order to survive.

Lefou would have thought that they were drunk, but he recognised exhaustion more than anyone else.

“Bonjour Lefou!” Stanley gave him a beaming smile and a small wave, making Lefou’s heart flutter slightly.

“Um- I- Hi Stanley,” He had begun to blush as he put the lids on Tom and Dicks now finished triple shot espressos.

“I have a request,” Stanley said, still smiling, “If you would, could I please have what the boys are having?”

“What, exhaustion or dissociation?”

Stanley laughed, not like a bark that you would usually hear from Tom and Dick, and certainly not like the giggle Lefou gave, but more like a smooth and gentle laugh that made him feel calmer.

“Non mon ami, a triple espresso please, with a shot of vanilla,” Lefou smiled and turned towards the machine, trying to hide his ever growing blush which had begun to crawl down his neck.

He got busy making the coffee, focusing on the steam rising and the gentle conversation of the trio behind him, all of them wrestling for the faux breast implant which Stanley had been holding on to when he had walked in.

When Lefou turned back he saw Dick with a large left breast, Stanley with a large right breast, and Tom standing between them poking at his flat chest, looking almost lost without a faux breast or at least some sort of bosom substitute.

He looked towards his friends and sighed, shaking his head.

“You guys, you’re making me want things I can’t have,” He stated, only for the boys around him to burst out into fits of laughter, filling the room and injecting the night with energy, as well as a few stray tears which leaked from crinkled eyes as everyone let themselves laugh.

Eventually, Stanley whipped out the second faux breast and tucked it into Tom’s shirt who gave him a beaming smile and placed a hand on it and giggled childishly.

Lefou shook his head and gave the coffee to Stanley who took it and looked around the cardboard container, only to frown slightly and look up towards Lefou with puppy dog eyes.

Lefou gave a small sigh, a smile then took the container back and brought out a sharpie placing the tip on the cardboard.

“Alright Monsieur, what would you like inscribed in your cup?”

Stanley brought his hand up to his chin and pretended to think for a moment, before giving a coy smile.

“How about your number?”

Dick spat out his coffee.

Lefou froze, looking at Stanley for some hint of a cruel smile or some sort of suppressed snort that people usually have when playing a cruel trick.

Instead, he simply leant against the countertop with beautiful brown innocent eyes which seemed completely genuine whilst asking for Lefou’s number.

He bent his head down and began writing the digits which he had memorised and chanted out several times with the same beat.

By the time he was done, all the boys were looking at him, as he drew a small flower on the end of the scrawl of numbers, and handed it to Stanley with a shaky laugh.

“Mon dieux, ton écriture c’est merveilleux!”

Dick rolled his eyes, or course Stanley was going to comment on Lefou’s handwriting and how pretty it was.

Tom tugged at Stanley’s sleeve and motioned towards Madame Garderobe’s shop, to see the woman herself standing at the doorway giving what could only be described as a sharp look.

They all slunk out towards the door, and seemed peaceful until Dick began laughing.

“What?” Stanley looked at him confused.

“‘How about your number?’ Jesus Stan how more direct can you be?” Lefou blushed behind them as they piled out of the door.

“You’re never going to let that go, are you?” Stanley replied, sighing.

“Nope.”

“No.”

“Alright then.”

As they all began to walk out of the door, Lefou saw Stanley turn around in his lush dress and wink at him.

As his heart began leaping in his chest, he sighed contently and began cleaning up the counter, which still had some coffee left over from Dick’s surprise, and ten minutes later he heard a buzz on his phone, and picking it up, he smiled.

Unknown number: Hey, its Stanley, the attractive drag queen from the opposite shop ;)

So maybe the night shift wasn’t so bad.

[ecoorganic]

‘That Dude Is Different’: Devin Booker Has Put the NBA on Notice

With Devin Booker leading the way, the Suns have a 5-0 restart record after beating Miami on Saturday night and are inching closer to the No. 9 seed

LAKE BUENA VISTA, Fla. – The texts live on Devin Booker’s phone, dozens of them, stored like a digital memorial. Kobe Bryant was more than just a brief peer. He was a confidant and advisor, a mentor and a friend. Every so often, Booker will pull up Bryant’s number and scroll through, reading the encouragement (Book ‘em! Bryant wrote after Booker dropped 70 on Boston in 2017), advice and endless string of emojis.

“Kobe,” Booker said, “loved emojis.”

Bryant believed in Booker. The NBA is catching up. The Suns are the talk of Central Florida, running their restart record to 5-0 after beating Miami on Saturday night, inching, improbably, closer to the No. 9 seed and a chance to compete for the Western Conference’s final playoff spot. Booker has been the catalyst. He has scored 30-plus in three of Phoenix’s five games. He dropped in 35, including the game-winner, in the Suns' win over the Clippers. He added another 35 against the Heat.

“I’ve been a fan of his since he was in college,” said Miami coach Erik Spoelstra. “His game has really grown.”

Phoenix Suns' Devin Booker (1) goes to the basket over Miami Heat's Andre Iguodala, left, and Tyler Herro, right, during the second half of an NBA basketball game at Visa Athletic Center on Aug. 8, in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

You know Booker by the scoring numbers, but is that all you know? Do you know the playmaking, the six-plus assists Booker has averaged the last two seasons? Do you know the defense, steadily improving, the insistence by Booker that he get the opposing team's toughest matchup every night? Do you know the work ethic on display since college, the all-around talent teams were stunned to see when this baby faced teenager declared for the draft after just one season at Kentucky?

In 2015, Miami brought Booker in for a pre-draft workout. Booker was brilliant, dominating assistant coach Chris Quinn, then just two years removed from a six-year playing career. After the workout, Spoelstra, Heat president Pat Riley and several team staffers took Booker to lunch. They had questions for Booker. He had more for them. “He wanted to know about the makeup of our team,” Spoelstra told SI. “He wanted to know the work ethic of our guys. He was really impressive.”

Ryan McDonough has a similar story. The ex-Suns GM watched Booker at Kentucky, but on a loaded ‘Cats team, there was only so many opportunities. Weeks before the draft, Phoenix brought Booker in as part of a group workout. Booker, says McDonough, was great. “He was so much more than just a catch-and-shoot player,” McDonough said in a telephone interview. “He could do it all.”

Competitive, too. At the end of the workout, the Suns gathered the players for a one-on-one knockout drill. You score, you stay on. You miss, you come off. Booker, McDonough recalls, scored 10 times in a row. Eventually, an assistant coach stepped in to stop the workout. Booker waved him off. “He said, ‘I’m not done until someone stops me,’” McDonough said. “Eventually someone did. But that competitiveness in him really stood out.”

That workout stuck with McDonough on draft night. The Suns had Booker ranked high, in a mix of wing players that included Stanley Johnson and Justise Winslow. Johnson came off the board at No. 8, to Detroit. Winslow went two picks later. Phoenix, sitting at 13, had Booker in its sights. When Utah, at No. 12, went on the clock, McDonough was confident he had his man.

Then, McDonough’s phone rang. It was Sam Presti, the Oklahoma City GM.

The Thunder, with the 14th pick, wanted to know if Phoenix would swap.

McDonough told Presti he needed to see who Utah picked.

When the Jazz selected Trey Lyles, McDonough told Presti the Suns were keeping the pick.

Presti, according to McDonough, asked who Phoenix was taking.

McDonough told him Booker. “And you could kind of hear or sense the air come out of the [OKC] room,” McDonough said. “You could tell they wanted him.”

Booker was everything the Suns asked for, a tireless worker. He cracked the rotation midseason and, says McDonough, “we knew he was there to stay.” Booker’s father, Melvin, was a standout star at Missouri and had a cup of coffee in the NBA. In 2008, after nearly a decade spent playing overseas, he moved back to Moss Point, a small coastal town in Southern Mississippi. Booker, then living with his mother in Michigan, went to live with him. Dad became coach, with Melvin leading his son through early morning workouts on the gravely beaches, cone drills, ladder drills, sprints, pushing Booker’s limits.

“Very intense,” Booker told SI. “We would go a couple of days without talking after some workouts. But I learned the most about becoming a man and how to approach and take this game seriously.”

Booker brought that work ethic to Phoenix. He arrived early and stayed late, hoisting thousands of shots. Robert Sarver, the Suns owner, had a court at his house, and it wasn’t unusual for Booker to pop over after practice to shoot some more.

The work paid off, with Booker quickly becoming a statistical star. Questions, though, lingered. The Suns struggled in Booker’s first four years, never winning more than 24 games. They cycled through coaches, four in all. Booker’s numbers, some reasoned, amounted to empty calories. He was a good player. He just wasn’t a winning player.

McDonough heard it. He knew Booker did, too.

“Not being a winner, hearing that, that was what bothered me most,” Booker said. “Winning is my main objective when I go out there every day. It's not about the numbers that I put up. As cliché as it sounds, I know everybody says it, but my main objective is to win and make the right play every time down court.”

Booker needed help, and the cavalry arrived last summer. There was Monty Williams, an unabashed Booker fan. Williams remembered watching Booker in 2016, when Booker was playing for USA Basketball’s select team. “He had no fear,” Williams said. “He was making a statement.” Last year, Philadelphia, with Williams on the bench, played in Phoenix. Late in the game, with the Sixers clinging to a seven-point lead, Philadelphia went zone. Booker busted it by knocking down a 27-footer.

Said Williams, “I was like, that dude is different.”

There was Ricky Rubio, the playmaking point guard Phoenix lavished a three-year, $51 million deal on last July. Rubio was everything Booker needed, a pass-first point guard eager to set him up, a sturdy defender who could handle tough assignments. Booker, says Rubio, is a “unique talent” whose footwork reminds him of Bryant. “I don’t think he gets enough credit for who he is and what he does,” Rubio said. “Hopefully he’ll get more respect … he is a winner.”

A winner. From Michigan to Mississippi, Kentucky to Phoenix, that’s all Booker has wanted. The Suns, regardless of what happens the rest of this season, are well positioned for the next one. “Get my man out of Phoenix,” is what Draymond Green said on TNT on Friday, but these aren’t the same old Suns. Booker and Rubio are locked into long term deals. Kelly Oubre is signed through next season. Ayton, Mikal Bridges and Cam Johnson are on rookie contracts. James Jones has seized control of the front office and Williams has brought stability to the bench.

Devin Booker #1 of the Phoenix Suns shoots the game winning basket over Paul George #13 of the LA Clippers at The Arena at ESPN Wide World Of Sports Complex on Aug. 04, in Lake Buena Vista, Florida.

“Since I’ve been in Phoenix, we haven’t had [team] success,” Booker said. “We owe it to the fans, we owe it to the organization. It’s been a long time for us. This bubble opportunity was big for us, and we’re taking advantage of it.”

Indeed. As Bryant would. There are similarities to Booker and Bryant, teen phenoms who made a quick impact, late lottery picks with something to prove. Before Bryant won he couldn’t win, not without Shaquille O’Neal, not without another accomplished star. Post-Shaq, pre-Pau Gasol, Bryant was the gunner, Bryant was the stat stuffer, Bryant was putting up gaudy numbers on a team going nowhere.

On Booker’s right forearm, a tattoo reads Be Legendary. It’s what Bryant wrote on a pair of sneakers he gave to Booker in 2016. Booker had it inked on weeks after Bryant was killed in a helicopter crash in January. It was his first tattoo. It will be his last. He is reminded of Bryant when he looks at his arm. He thinks of him when he scrolls through his phone. The last text he sent Bryant came the day of the crash, when word spread that Bryant was on the Southern California chopper.

He asked if Bryant was OK.

The message never went through.

“The most impactful moment in my life,” Booker said. “But Kobe is with me every day. The Mamba Mentality, the approach, the don't want to lose at all costs, the competitiveness, the whatever it takes attitude. Having that goal and then knowing the steps to get to it and not short cutting any of those. Every day is a grind. Every day is a new opportunity to get better.”

from Blogger https://ift.tt/2PDIaDb

[thisdaynews]

How an exit poll arms race could create election-night confusion

New Post has been published on https://thebiafrastar.com/how-an-exit-poll-arms-race-could-create-election-night-confusion/

How an exit poll arms race could create election-night confusion

In general elections, roughly four-in-10 voters cast their ballots in ways other than appearing in person on Election Day, making them unreachable by interviewers positioned outside polling places. | M. Spencer Green, File/AP Photo

2020 elections

Competing exit polls may leave the public with conflicting signals in the final hours of the 2020 election.

TORONTO — The demand for exit poll data has always outweighed the exit poll’s predictive accuracy.

The network-sponsored, election-night exit polls serve two purposes: guiding the news media as it covers national elections in real time and serving as a standing record of the composition of the electorate and what they thought about the candidates and issues.

Story Continued Below

But their problematic history has spurred a schism among America’s top news organizations, which have spent decades pooling their resources to conduct one universal exit poll. Now some outlets have splintered off to launch their own project, which debuted in last year’s midterm elections.

The 2020 elections will feature two parallel polls of voters designed to measure who voted, for whom they cast their ballots and why. And both providers — the National Election Pool and its exit poll, along with The Associated Press’ new VoteCast project — claim they’ve solved many of the problems that have confronted exit pollsters for decades.

It’s led to something of an exit polling arms race — with both camps, while collegial and collaborative in general, claiming their recent work has produced more accurate data for news organizations to project elections. The war of words kicked off here at the American Association for Public Opinion Research’s annual conference, where papers were presented at back-to-back panel discussions on Saturday.

“I do believe we have better data,” David Scott, AP’s deputy managing editor for operations, said in an interview.

“We achieved what we wanted to do in the two things that VoteCast is really designed to deliver,” Scott said. “We need really great data on election night to power the AP’s decision desk and to tell the story of the electorate and why the winners won.”

But new doesn’t actually mean better, said Joe Lenski, vice president of Edison Research, which conducts the exit poll for the TV networks.

“I think the exit poll data is the data of record for election analysis,” he said, referring to the work by media outlets and academics well after the election occurs.

The history of past exit poll failures is well-documented, even if the slip-ups aren’t actually that frequent. If the exit polls in 2004 were accurate, John Kerry would have been elected president. More recently, exit poll data suggested Hillary Clinton would defeat Donald Trump in 2016.

As a record of the composition of the electorate, the exit polls have been plagued for years by a number of historical biases — namely the over-representation of younger and more-educated voters, which, in recent elections, has led to a Democratic skew in the results.

And the exit polls have been under siege from external forces, too, with more voters nationally casting ballots before Election Day or through the mail, making them unreachable by interviewers positioned outside polling places. In general elections now, roughly four-in-10 voters cast their ballots in ways other than appearing in person on Election Day.

So now there will be two exit polls. If you watch the election returns on the three major broadcast networks, CNN or MSNBC, you’ll see the traditional exit poll that mostly consists of interviewers approaching voters leaving their polling places on Election Day. But if you’re watching Fox or the Fox News Channel or consuming news from any of The Associated Press’ thousands of affiliates across the country, you’ll get VoteCast.

Moreover, the members of the National Election Pool — ABC News, CBS News, CNN and NBC News — also get their election results from Edison, while the vast majority of other news organizations (including POLITICO) get their results from The AP. That means if the polls or the election results differ, Americans might get two diverging pictures of the election as results pour in that Tuesday night in November 2020.

But researchers on both projects say they’ve cracked the code, producing results on Election Night 2018 that were, on average, only 1 percentage point off from the final vote count. At a panel discussion here Saturday, Courtney Kennedy, the director of survey research at Pew Research Center, proclaimed that 2018 “improvements” and “innovations” to the traditional exit poll were “tremendous.”

“You made the national exit poll more accurate,” said Kennedy.

Meanwhile, the AP and its partner at NORC, a research institution that’s part of the University of Chicago, are celebrating what they consider a wildly successful 2018 launch here this week. They’re throwing a party at the Hockey Hall of Fame, featuring with an open bar and photo opportunities with the Stanley Cup, the sport’s iconic championship trophy.

While both are polls of voters and serve similar purposes, there are important differences between them. The National Election Pool’s exit poll combines the traditional exit polling approach — interviewing voters on their way out of the polling place — with telephone surveys in states with all-mail voting or robust in-person early voting.

Edison made two key changes in 2018, Lenski said. It experimented with in-person interviewers at large, early-vote centers in Nevada and Tennessee. And most importantly, Lenski said, Edison tweaked the way it asks voters about their own levels of educational attainment and adjusted the survey to reflect a truer balance along educational lines, producing a more accurate result early in the evening that carried through until all the votes were counted.

“We felt that those adjustments we had made based on education have done a really good job of giving us top-line numbers at 5 o’clock and at poll closing that told the story,” Lenski said in an interview. “Our members had the story on election night. We knew at 5 o’clock it was going to be a really good night for Democrats in the House and not-so-good night for Democrats in the Senate.”

AP VoteCast, on the other hand, looks more like a typical pre-election poll, combining traditional, probability-based polling with an online, opt-in survey of voters. VoteCast — which involves more complicated statistical modeling than the traditional exit poll — includes both those who say they voted, and those who say they didn’t.

The 2018 midterms marked VoteCast’s debut, and Scott, the AP editor in charge of the project, says it couldn’t have gone much better. AP and NORC researchers will present their results here on Saturday; in a public report, they’re calling VoteCast’s launch “an impressive success.”

“At that period between 5 o’clock on the East Coast and when polls close, the data for VoteCast was showing the right winner in 92 percent of the races that we looked at,” Scott said in an interview. “And our average margin of error was around 1 percent — still leaning toward the Dem, but still just a 1 percent margin of error. At that same time in our history with the exit poll — especially our recent history with the exit poll — you know, we’re looking at average errors of double digits in some states.”

The next test for VoteCast will be the 2020 presidential primaries and caucuses — contests that pose unique challenges. Unlike in general elections, primary electorates shift drastically from cycle to cycle, and there are few historical benchmarks to use in calibrating to get the right mix of voters. And since VoteCast is conducted beginning in the days before the vote, late-breaking events in the campaign — a candidate dropping out in the days between primaries in different states, for example — may be harder to measure.

“The scalability and infrastructure works a lot better when we’re doing all 50 states all in one night, as opposed to a series of events,” Scott said. “There’s also the technical: We’re in the field, looking for early voters at the same time that you might have an election going on.”

Lenski, who leads the traditional exit poll, thinks he has an advantage come next year’s primaries.

“I can’t speak for how AP VoteCast is planning on doing this, but I know the type of modeling they use in a general election is much tougher to do in a primary because there’s no really good history for a 23-candidate Democratic race to model what the electorate is going to look like,” he said.

“I know what we do works for a primary,” Lenski added. “It’s worked for 40 years. And we have the infrastructure in place to do event after event, week after week. It’s going to be a real grind. Starting February 3 with Iowa, going through March 17 — it’s just about every Tuesday, and sometimes Saturdays, and sometimes Mondays — there’s going to be an event. And we have the infrastructure in place to cover state after state.”

The 2020 presidential race consists not of one Election Day but a series of elections, beginning with the Iowa caucuses. That increases the chance, with different sources of voter polling and election results, that the trajectory of election night could look different based on where Americans get their news — a dangerous turn given Americans’ already declining faith in institutions of government and media, sometimes amplified by political leaders.

“I think that’s possible,” said Emily Swanson, the AP’s polling editor. “And I think that we would have a lot of confidence in the story that we’re telling.”

But Lenski maintains the traditional approach used for the network pool is best.

“We still believe that the best way to report voter opinions on Election Day is to actually talk to voters right after they voted,” he said.

Read More

[maxihealth]

It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019

This is not a watch. Well, not just a watch. It can track heart rate. And it’s not even pink. Well, rose gold, perhaps.

One of the benefits about being a woman attending CES is that there are no lines in the loos. The men’s rooms, however, are, shall we say, over-subscribed due to the big disparity between the number of male attendees versus females.

Clearly, women are under-represented in technology companies at all levels, as the ladies’ room observation and many other more statistical reports recognize.

But I’ve good news to report on the product front about women-focused consumer technology at #CES2019: there’s a lot more of it, and some of it very meaningful, impactful, and quality-of-life enhancing. I assert this through my health lens, as well as health-economic perspective.

Start with Fitbit, among the most mature digital health suppliers featured at CES over time. Here’s a slide I developed when the Versa came to market, where I curated pink versions of Fitbit trackers since the advent of the first digital tracker I ever used: the Zip.

I met Stacey Burr who led adidas digital sports group way back when, at CES in the Zip era. She and I attended a digital health session about getting fit with tech tools and apps. She and I were among the only women in the room. The entire panel (well, “manel” as my colleague Sherry Reynolds @Cascadia has called the phenomenon) was young men, fit and buff. Every example in the video demos fit on a continuum from Arnold Schwarzenegger to A-Rod. At the Q&A, I asked why there weren’t any women featured, either as companies’ marketers or in the consumer-user examples. The chaps were tongue-tied, and Stacey and I bonded at that moment and continue to be collegial friends and part of growing group of women-in-health-tech. (Update on Stacey: she’s now Chief of Google’s Wear OS, part of Google’s ever-morphing health team).

Fast forward to 2018, and Fitbit’s blog posted about women’s health tracking, using the words “menstruation,” “period,” and “sexual health.”

Well isn’t that what we call “real life” stuff?

How time is a tincture and retail health, well, a business recognizing that some demographics (like women committed to health, fitness, stress reduction, mental health promotion, and resilience) have money to spend on high-value and evidence-based products.

So welcome the Versa, one of many women-targeted health tools featured at CES 2019 that are getting real and impactful about women, tech and health. I’ve worn my Versa for about four months now: it’s my first smartwatch-health tracker, having been a decades-committed Skagen stainless steel band analog watch-wearer on my left wrist. On my right wrist, I’ve donned several Fitbit bands, and trackers from Garmin, Withings, Fossil, Jawbone, and others.

[As a sidebar, I’ve gifted all the devices I no longer use to Professor Lisa Gualtieri’s Recycle Health project at Tufts University. Lisa’s team cleans up the donated devices (stripping of data, etc.) and gifts them onto people in the Boston area who can use them. You can do the same with your old tech long stored in “that drawer” by getting a printed label on the Recycle Health website].

There’s more fashion embedded in technology each year at CES, with brands partnering and licensing their design ethos and personalities to many tech products. One of my personal favorites is Kate Spade, whom we lost in 2018 to suicide (which I covered here in Health Populi as my own sympathy post devoted to her and Anthony Bourdain, may they rest in peace). On a joyful note, Spade’s upbeat design sense lives on in 2019, featuring some adorable watches that track activity. This is among the first fashion brands to incorporate Google’s wearable device software, Wear OS. The watch can track heart rate, has GPS, and can make mobile payments using Google Pay.

Health tracking can cover a range of women’s health issues, nothing more intimate and emotionally powerful than fertility and baby-making. This demand has not gone unnoticed in the start-up and financing communities. In 2018, several direct-to-consumer fertility-tech companies garnered $million funding to begin commercializing and scaling their products.

The Ava Fertility Tracker 2.0 is one such innovator, raising a $30mm round of investment in mid-2018. This timing coincided with the announcement of Ava’s 10,000th birth for an Ava user. Ava was founded in Switzerland in 2014 and received the Best of Baby Tech Award at CES 2017. In 2019, the company launches Ava tracker 2.0. This new version replaces traditional basal temperature with pulse rate, skin temperature, and breathing to be more predictive about ovulation. The device runs $299 and bundles in online content and a one-year pregnancy guarantee.

Once pregnant, a woman’s best chance of having a healthy baby is borne out of good pre-natal care. Thanks to BabyScripts, a box of pre-natal goodness, women can self-care during the crucial nine months of fetal development. That box arrives in Mom’s mail and includes a WiFi enabled scale, a blood pressure monitor, an app and content with a warm and informative welcome message. Mom-generated data flows to a HIPAA-compliant platform which informs OB/GYNs about their patients’ progress. For low-risk mothers, BabyScripts can empower self-care and unneeded trips to the doctor. For the clinician, the program benefits workflow, patient engagement, and risk management. I met the co-founders, Anish and Juan Pablo, in 2014 when they were starting up, and since then the company has grown through fruitful partnerships with healthcare providers around the U.S. Babyscripts received a $6mm investment in November 2018 from Startup Health, NueCura, led by Philips whose Mother/Baby unit will partner with the company.

There’s a lot of Baby Tech at CES 2019, an entire track organized by Living in Digital Times. This is a $23 billion business, with 4 million babies born every year. The portfolio of products for baby boggles the mind: when my now-grown daughter was six months old, technology in her room was a baby monitor (walkie-talkie style) and a Diaper Genie (relatively new “tech” at the time). That was 1997. Two decades later, baby tech is app-ified, from tracking feeding and monitoring baby’s room and crib to cooking healthy food for little ones: smart pacifiers, smart baby bottles, GPS-embedded strollers, GPS-bracelets for security…bringing up baby has gotten smart-er.

But back to women, and managing everyday life. Women are their homes Chief Household Officers, balancing family, work, volunteer and community activities, friendships, self-health, and home-keeping. For this last and least-enjoyable life-flow, there are connected appliances to help make life easier and more streamlined for managing house tasks. The Roomba, the first such connected home appliance, is now in a mature category, with many competitors for robotic vacuuming. Room-by-room at home, there are offerings at CES ’19 to manage every kind of work-life flow: for cooking, cleaning, washing, drying, and even folding clothes. I met the Foldimate at CES 2018, and am very happy to see it’s back in 2019 and getting market traction. It’s still early days but if tech can help all of us, men and women, save time on home tasks, we can conserve time for family, friends, and alone time to just breathe and think.

Caregivers tend to be female, and they tend not to have that time to breathe and think: caregivers usually put those they care for first, including their pets (and yes, Pet Tech is also a growing category at CES). It’s encouraging to see that caregivers are called out in many marketing plans for innovations this year at CES. I was particularly keen to meet with folks working in the Stanley Black & Decker (SBD) Future Lab, who have developed the Pria, picture here.

Wait – “Stanley Black & Decker? Aren’t they the folks who make tools and the iconic Dustbuster handheld vacuum?” Yes, indeed. But the company also has a business-to-business reach into healthcare — namely hospitals for security. asset tracking, and climate control. That’s a twenty-year-old business. So it is natural for SBD to consider how to leverage B2B healthcare into the home, where the company has strong consumer brand equity.

Pria wears a lot of hats, as companion, weather forecaster, voice-activated encyclopedia, and first and foremost, medication dispenser. There are other medication management devices available, but Pria incorporates voice-activation that feels like an Amazon or Google assistant experience without the user having to share data beyond meds. The app allows caregivers to be part of the user’s care circle, along with pharmacies and clinicians.

Samsung comes to CES this year with several “bots,” including Bot Care to support caregiving. Bot Care has many uses, including medication management and adherence support, companionship, information channeling (for, say, healthy cooking, nutrition, and exercise), and other functions that make living and aging at home easier and safer. Here’s a short video on Bot Care to learn more.

Self-care is in short supply among women, who need to take time beyond caring for others. “Put your own gas mask on first” is sound advice for women, who can lead lives wearing so many hats. At CES this year, Procter & Gamble and their Life Lab attended CES as a supplier for the first time. Like Stanley Black & Decker, P&G has a strong consumer brand name, but the initials have never been confused with being a tech company. In the company’s Media Day presentation, I learned that their Life Lab was founded to innovate new products and enhancements to existing ones. They coined their session the “Consumer Experience Show” signifying the company was bringing their deep consumer market knowledge to bear while incorporating technology enhancements to well-known brands like Gillette (for shaving), Olay (for skin care), and Oral-B (for oral care). “We are innovating how we innovate,” they explained, through the Life Lab. Three innovations they presented were:

A new “warm” razor, giving the user the Old School barbershop + hot towel experience;

The Olay Skin Advisor asks, “what if you could get a personalized skin regimen with one selfie?” which uses the company’s proprietary VizID technology backed by AI and pinpointing personalized skin care routines to fit specific needs; and,

A new Oral-B Genius X toothbrush, recognizing your “personal brushing style” and providing real-time feedback that is meant to deliver better oral health to the user.

To come full circle, it’s encouraging to note that Gary Shapiro, President of the Consumer Technology Association, announced that CTA would invest $10 million in venture firms that support women and diverse leaders in technology. That’s a welcome commitment from the Association. Now, here’s a video from the first Women in Technology panel ever held at a CES, convened yesterday and sponsored by Lenovo and Intel.

  The post It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019 appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019 posted first on https://carilloncitydental.blogspot.com

[realselfblog]

It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019

This is not a watch. Well, not just a watch. It can track heart rate. And it’s not even pink. Well, rose gold, perhaps.

One of the benefits about being a woman attending CES is that there are no lines in the loos. The men’s rooms, however, are, shall we say, over-subscribed due to the big disparity between the number of male attendees versus females.

Clearly, women are under-represented in technology companies at all levels, as the ladies’ room observation and many other more statistical reports recognize.

But I’ve good news to report on the product front about women-focused consumer technology at #CES2019: there’s a lot more of it, and some of it very meaningful, impactful, and quality-of-life enhancing. I assert this through my health lens, as well as health-economic perspective.

Start with Fitbit, among the most mature digital health suppliers featured at CES over time. Here’s a slide I developed when the Versa came to market, where I curated pink versions of Fitbit trackers since the advent of the first digital tracker I ever used: the Zip.

I met Stacey Burr who led adidas digital sports group way back when, at CES in the Zip era. She and I attended a digital health session about getting fit with tech tools and apps. She and I were among the only women in the room. The entire panel (well, “manel” as my colleague Sherry Reynolds @Cascadia has called the phenomenon) was young men, fit and buff. Every example in the video demos fit on a continuum from Arnold Schwarzenegger to A-Rod. At the Q&A, I asked why there weren’t any women featured, either as companies’ marketers or in the consumer-user examples. The chaps were tongue-tied, and Stacey and I bonded at that moment and continue to be collegial friends and part of growing group of women-in-health-tech. (Update on Stacey: she’s now Chief of Google’s Wear OS, part of Google’s ever-morphing health team).

Fast forward to 2018, and Fitbit’s blog posted about women’s health tracking, using the words “menstruation,” “period,” and “sexual health.”

Well isn’t that what we call “real life” stuff?

How time is a tincture and retail health, well, a business recognizing that some demographics (like women committed to health, fitness, stress reduction, mental health promotion, and resilience) have money to spend on high-value and evidence-based products.

So welcome the Versa, one of many women-targeted health tools featured at CES 2019 that are getting real and impactful about women, tech and health. I’ve worn my Versa for about four months now: it’s my first smartwatch-health tracker, having been a decades-committed Skagen stainless steel band analog watch-wearer on my left wrist. On my right wrist, I’ve donned several Fitbit bands, and trackers from Garmin, Withings, Fossil, Jawbone, and others.

[As a sidebar, I’ve gifted all the devices I no longer use to Professor Lisa Gualtieri’s Recycle Health project at Tufts University. Lisa’s team cleans up the donated devices (stripping of data, etc.) and gifts them onto people in the Boston area who can use them. You can do the same with your old tech long stored in “that drawer” by getting a printed label on the Recycle Health website].

There’s more fashion embedded in technology each year at CES, with brands partnering and licensing their design ethos and personalities to many tech products. One of my personal favorites is Kate Spade, whom we lost in 2018 to suicide (which I covered here in Health Populi as my own sympathy post devoted to her and Anthony Bourdain, may they rest in peace). On a joyful note, Spade’s upbeat design sense lives on in 2019, featuring some adorable watches that track activity. This is among the first fashion brands to incorporate Google’s wearable device software, Wear OS. The watch can track heart rate, has GPS, and can make mobile payments using Google Pay.

Health tracking can cover a range of women’s health issues, nothing more intimate and emotionally powerful than fertility and baby-making. This demand has not gone unnoticed in the start-up and financing communities. In 2018, several direct-to-consumer fertility-tech companies garnered $million funding to begin commercializing and scaling their products.

The Ava Fertility Tracker 2.0 is one such innovator, raising a $30mm round of investment in mid-2018. This timing coincided with the announcement of Ava’s 10,000th birth for an Ava user. Ava was founded in Switzerland in 2014 and received the Best of Baby Tech Award at CES 2017. In 2019, the company launches Ava tracker 2.0. This new version replaces traditional basal temperature with pulse rate, skin temperature, and breathing to be more predictive about ovulation. The device runs $299 and bundles in online content and a one-year pregnancy guarantee.

Once pregnant, a woman’s best chance of having a healthy baby is borne out of good pre-natal care. Thanks to BabyScripts, a box of pre-natal goodness, women can self-care during the crucial nine months of fetal development. That box arrives in Mom’s mail and includes a WiFi enabled scale, a blood pressure monitor, an app and content with a warm and informative welcome message. Mom-generated data flows to a HIPAA-compliant platform which informs OB/GYNs about their patients’ progress. For low-risk mothers, BabyScripts can empower self-care and unneeded trips to the doctor. For the clinician, the program benefits workflow, patient engagement, and risk management. I met the co-founders, Anish and Juan Pablo, in 2014 when they were starting up, and since then the company has grown through fruitful partnerships with healthcare providers around the U.S. Babyscripts received a $6mm investment in November 2018 from Startup Health, NueCura, led by Philips whose Mother/Baby unit will partner with the company.

There’s a lot of Baby Tech at CES 2019, an entire track organized by Living in Digital Times. This is a $23 billion business, with 4 million babies born every year. The portfolio of products for baby boggles the mind: when my now-grown daughter was six months old, technology in her room was a baby monitor (walkie-talkie style) and a Diaper Genie (relatively new “tech” at the time). That was 1997. Two decades later, baby tech is app-ified, from tracking feeding and monitoring baby’s room and crib to cooking healthy food for little ones: smart pacifiers, smart baby bottles, GPS-embedded strollers, GPS-bracelets for security…bringing up baby has gotten smart-er.

But back to women, and managing everyday life. Women are their homes Chief Household Officers, balancing family, work, volunteer and community activities, friendships, self-health, and home-keeping. For this last and least-enjoyable life-flow, there are connected appliances to help make life easier and more streamlined for managing house tasks. The Roomba, the first such connected home appliance, is now in a mature category, with many competitors for robotic vacuuming. Room-by-room at home, there are offerings at CES ’19 to manage every kind of work-life flow: for cooking, cleaning, washing, drying, and even folding clothes. I met the Foldimate at CES 2018, and am very happy to see it’s back in 2019 and getting market traction. It’s still early days but if tech can help all of us, men and women, save time on home tasks, we can conserve time for family, friends, and alone time to just breathe and think.

Caregivers tend to be female, and they tend not to have that time to breathe and think: caregivers usually put those they care for first, including their pets (and yes, Pet Tech is also a growing category at CES). It’s encouraging to see that caregivers are called out in many marketing plans for innovations this year at CES. I was particularly keen to meet with folks working in the Stanley Black & Decker (SBD) Future Lab, who have developed the Pria, picture here.

Wait – “Stanley Black & Decker? Aren’t they the folks who make tools and the iconic Dustbuster handheld vacuum?” Yes, indeed. But the company also has a business-to-business reach into healthcare — namely hospitals for security. asset tracking, and climate control. That’s a twenty-year-old business. So it is natural for SBD to consider how to leverage B2B healthcare into the home, where the company has strong consumer brand equity.

Pria wears a lot of hats, as companion, weather forecaster, voice-activated encyclopedia, and first and foremost, medication dispenser. There are other medication management devices available, but Pria incorporates voice-activation that feels like an Amazon or Google assistant experience without the user having to share data beyond meds. The app allows caregivers to be part of the user’s care circle, along with pharmacies and clinicians.

Samsung comes to CES this year with several “bots,” including Bot Care to support caregiving. Bot Care has many uses, including medication management and adherence support, companionship, information channeling (for, say, healthy cooking, nutrition, and exercise), and other functions that make living and aging at home easier and safer. Here’s a short video on Bot Care to learn more.

Self-care is in short supply among women, who need to take time beyond caring for others. “Put your own gas mask on first” is sound advice for women, who can lead lives wearing so many hats. At CES this year, Procter & Gamble and their Life Lab attended CES as a supplier for the first time. Like Stanley Black & Decker, P&G has a strong consumer brand name, but the initials have never been confused with being a tech company. In the company’s Media Day presentation, I learned that their Life Lab was founded to innovate new products and enhancements to existing ones. They coined their session the “Consumer Experience Show” signifying the company was bringing their deep consumer market knowledge to bear while incorporating technology enhancements to well-known brands like Gillette (for shaving), Olay (for skin care), and Oral-B (for oral care). “We are innovating how we innovate,” they explained, through the Life Lab. Three innovations they presented were:

A new “warm” razor, giving the user the Old School barbershop + hot towel experience;

The Olay Skin Advisor asks, “what if you could get a personalized skin regimen with one selfie?” which uses the company’s proprietary VizID technology backed by AI and pinpointing personalized skin care routines to fit specific needs; and,

A new Oral-B Genius X toothbrush, recognizing your “personal brushing style” and providing real-time feedback that is meant to deliver better oral health to the user.

To come full circle, it’s encouraging to note that Gary Shapiro, President of the Consumer Technology Association, announced that CTA would invest $10 million in venture firms that support women and diverse leaders in technology. That’s a welcome commitment from the Association. Now, here’s a video from the first Women in Technology panel ever held at a CES, convened yesterday and sponsored by Lenovo and Intel.

  The post It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019 appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019 posted first on http://dentistfortworth.blogspot.com

[titheguerrero]

It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019

This is not a watch. Well, not just a watch. It can track heart rate. And it’s not even pink. Well, rose gold, perhaps.

One of the benefits about being a woman attending CES is that there are no lines in the loos. The men’s rooms, however, are, shall we say, over-subscribed due to the big disparity between the number of male attendees versus females.

Clearly, women are under-represented in technology companies at all levels, as the ladies’ room observation and many other more statistical reports recognize.

But I’ve good news to report on the product front about women-focused consumer technology at #CES2019: there’s a lot more of it, and some of it very meaningful, impactful, and quality-of-life enhancing. I assert this through my health lens, as well as health-economic perspective.

Start with Fitbit, among the most mature digital health suppliers featured at CES over time. Here’s a slide I developed when the Versa came to market, where I curated pink versions of Fitbit trackers since the advent of the first digital tracker I ever used: the Zip.

I met Stacey Burr who led adidas digital sports group way back when, at CES in the Zip era. She and I attended a digital health session about getting fit with tech tools and apps. She and I were among the only women in the room. The entire panel (well, “manel” as my colleague Sherry Reynolds @Cascadia has called the phenomenon) was young men, fit and buff. Every example in the video demos fit on a continuum from Arnold Schwarzenegger to A-Rod. At the Q&A, I asked why there weren’t any women featured, either as companies’ marketers or in the consumer-user examples. The chaps were tongue-tied, and Stacey and I bonded at that moment and continue to be collegial friends and part of growing group of women-in-health-tech. (Update on Stacey: she’s now Chief of Google’s Wear OS, part of Google’s ever-morphing health team).

Fast forward to 2018, and Fitbit’s blog posted about women’s health tracking, using the words “menstruation,” “period,” and “sexual health.”

Well isn’t that what we call “real life” stuff?

How time is a tincture and retail health, well, a business recognizing that some demographics (like women committed to health, fitness, stress reduction, mental health promotion, and resilience) have money to spend on high-value and evidence-based products.

So welcome the Versa, one of many women-targeted health tools featured at CES 2019 that are getting real and impactful about women, tech and health. I’ve worn my Versa for about four months now: it’s my first smartwatch-health tracker, having been a decades-committed Skagen stainless steel band analog watch-wearer on my left wrist. On my right wrist, I’ve donned several Fitbit bands, and trackers from Garmin, Withings, Fossil, Jawbone, and others.

[As a sidebar, I’ve gifted all the devices I no longer use to Professor Lisa Gualtieri’s Recycle Health project at Tufts University. Lisa’s team cleans up the donated devices (stripping of data, etc.) and gifts them onto people in the Boston area who can use them. You can do the same with your old tech long stored in “that drawer” by getting a printed label on the Recycle Health website].

There’s more fashion embedded in technology each year at CES, with brands partnering and licensing their design ethos and personalities to many tech products. One of my personal favorites is Kate Spade, whom we lost in 2018 to suicide (which I covered here in Health Populi as my own sympathy post devoted to her and Anthony Bourdain, may they rest in peace). On a joyful note, Spade’s upbeat design sense lives on in 2019, featuring some adorable watches that track activity. This is among the first fashion brands to incorporate Google’s wearable device software, Wear OS. The watch can track heart rate, has GPS, and can make mobile payments using Google Pay.

Health tracking can cover a range of women’s health issues, nothing more intimate and emotionally powerful than fertility and baby-making. This demand has not gone unnoticed in the start-up and financing communities. In 2018, several direct-to-consumer fertility-tech companies garnered $million funding to begin commercializing and scaling their products.

The Ava Fertility Tracker 2.0 is one such innovator, raising a $30mm round of investment in mid-2018. This timing coincided with the announcement of Ava’s 10,000th birth for an Ava user. Ava was founded in Switzerland in 2014 and received the Best of Baby Tech Award at CES 2017. In 2019, the company launches Ava tracker 2.0. This new version replaces traditional basal temperature with pulse rate, skin temperature, and breathing to be more predictive about ovulation. The device runs $299 and bundles in online content and a one-year pregnancy guarantee.

Once pregnant, a woman’s best chance of having a healthy baby is borne out of good pre-natal care. Thanks to BabyScripts, a box of pre-natal goodness, women can self-care during the crucial nine months of fetal development. That box arrives in Mom’s mail and includes a WiFi enabled scale, a blood pressure monitor, an app and content with a warm and informative welcome message. Mom-generated data flows to a HIPAA-compliant platform which informs OB/GYNs about their patients’ progress. For low-risk mothers, BabyScripts can empower self-care and unneeded trips to the doctor. For the clinician, the program benefits workflow, patient engagement, and risk management. I met the co-founders, Anish and Juan Pablo, in 2014 when they were starting up, and since then the company has grown through fruitful partnerships with healthcare providers around the U.S. Babyscripts received a $6mm investment in November 2018 from Startup Health, NueCura, led by Philips whose Mother/Baby unit will partner with the company.

There’s a lot of Baby Tech at CES 2019, an entire track organized by Living in Digital Times. This is a $23 billion business, with 4 million babies born every year. The portfolio of products for baby boggles the mind: when my now-grown daughter was six months old, technology in her room was a baby monitor (walkie-talkie style) and a Diaper Genie (relatively new “tech” at the time). That was 1997. Two decades later, baby tech is app-ified, from tracking feeding and monitoring baby’s room and crib to cooking healthy food for little ones: smart pacifiers, smart baby bottles, GPS-embedded strollers, GPS-bracelets for security…bringing up baby has gotten smart-er.

But back to women, and managing everyday life. Women are their homes Chief Household Officers, balancing family, work, volunteer and community activities, friendships, self-health, and home-keeping. For this last and least-enjoyable life-flow, there are connected appliances to help make life easier and more streamlined for managing house tasks. The Roomba, the first such connected home appliance, is now in a mature category, with many competitors for robotic vacuuming. Room-by-room at home, there are offerings at CES ’19 to manage every kind of work-life flow: for cooking, cleaning, washing, drying, and even folding clothes. I met the Foldimate at CES 2018, and am very happy to see it’s back in 2019 and getting market traction. It’s still early days but if tech can help all of us, men and women, save time on home tasks, we can conserve time for family, friends, and alone time to just breathe and think.

Caregivers tend to be female, and they tend not to have that time to breathe and think: caregivers usually put those they care for first, including their pets (and yes, Pet Tech is also a growing category at CES). It’s encouraging to see that caregivers are called out in many marketing plans for innovations this year at CES. I was particularly keen to meet with folks working in the Stanley Black & Decker (SBD) Future Lab, who have developed the Pria, picture here.

Wait – “Stanley Black & Decker? Aren’t they the folks who make tools and the iconic Dustbuster handheld vacuum?” Yes, indeed. But the company also has a business-to-business reach into healthcare — namely hospitals for security. asset tracking, and climate control. That’s a twenty-year-old business. So it is natural for SBD to consider how to leverage B2B healthcare into the home, where the company has strong consumer brand equity.

Pria wears a lot of hats, as companion, weather forecaster, voice-activated encyclopedia, and first and foremost, medication dispenser. There are other medication management devices available, but Pria incorporates voice-activation that feels like an Amazon or Google assistant experience without the user having to share data beyond meds. The app allows caregivers to be part of the user’s care circle, along with pharmacies and clinicians.

Samsung comes to CES this year with several “bots,” including Bot Care to support caregiving. Bot Care has many uses, including medication management and adherence support, companionship, information channeling (for, say, healthy cooking, nutrition, and exercise), and other functions that make living and aging at home easier and safer. Here’s a short video on Bot Care to learn more.

Self-care is in short supply among women, who need to take time beyond caring for others. “Put your own gas mask on first” is sound advice for women, who can lead lives wearing so many hats. At CES this year, Procter & Gamble and their Life Lab attended CES as a supplier for the first time. Like Stanley Black & Decker, P&G has a strong consumer brand name, but the initials have never been confused with being a tech company. In the company’s Media Day presentation, I learned that their Life Lab was founded to innovate new products and enhancements to existing ones. They coined their session the “Consumer Experience Show” signifying the company was bringing their deep consumer market knowledge to bear while incorporating technology enhancements to well-known brands like Gillette (for shaving), Olay (for skin care), and Oral-B (for oral care). “We are innovating how we innovate,” they explained, through the Life Lab. Three innovations they presented were:

A new “warm” razor, giving the user the Old School barbershop + hot towel experience;

The Olay Skin Advisor asks, “what if you could get a personalized skin regimen with one selfie?” which uses the company’s proprietary VizID technology backed by AI and pinpointing personalized skin care routines to fit specific needs; and,

A new Oral-B Genius X toothbrush, recognizing your “personal brushing style” and providing real-time feedback that is meant to deliver better oral health to the user.

To come full circle, it’s encouraging to note that Gary Shapiro, President of the Consumer Technology Association, announced that CTA would invest $10 million in venture firms that support women and diverse leaders in technology. That’s a welcome commitment from the Association. Now, here’s a video from the first Women in Technology panel ever held at a CES, convened yesterday and sponsored by Lenovo and Intel.

    The post It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019 appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

Article source:Health Populi

[rickhorrow]

15 TO WATCH/5 SPORTS TECH/POWER OF SPORTS 5: RICK HORROW’S TOP SPORTS/BIZ/TECH/PHILANTHROPY ISSUES FOR THE WEEK OF JUNE 4

with Jamie Swimmer & Jesse Leeds Grant

The revenue the Golden Knights have pumped into the NHL will "help deliver the largest salary cap increase" since 2014. According to TSN.ca., NHL Deputy Commissioner Bill Daly said that the current projection for the 2018-2019 salary cap upper limit "remains between" $78-82 million. Even if the NHL and NHLPA "decide not to enact an inflator, that means the salary cap will rise" at least $3 million from this season’s $75 million. The cap has risen an average of $2 million over "each of the last three summers, with revenue remaining mostly flat." League-wide revenue is approaching $5 billion per season, and the success of not just the Golden Knights, but "also a 31st team in general, has helped." Said Daly, “There’s a lot of revenue certainly generated by the Las Vegas franchise. Certainly on their jersey sales and licensed merchandise, it’s off the charts…It’s an amazing story in every category.” Meanwhile, Game 1 of the 2018 Stanley Cup Finals between the Capitols and Golden Knights handed NBC Sports an average of 5.279 million viewers across NBC, the NBC Sports app, and NBCSports.com, making it the most-watched Game 1 in three years. Overall, the 2018 Stanley Cup Playoffs remain the most-watched in 21 years, and are on track to be the highest-revenue series of the current era as well.

This year’s NBA Playoffs have been incredibly successful for the league from a viewership standpoint thus far, and the Finals appear to be no different. According to SportsBusiness Journal, as LeBron James and the Cleveland Cavaliers continue their battle against Stephen Curry, Kevin Durant, Klay Thompson, and the Golden State Warriors for the fourth year in a row, the NBA is able to celebrate its best playoff viewership since 2012. Through the conference finals, TNT, ABC, ESPN, ESPN2, and NBA TV averaged 4.6 million viewers for the 77 telecasts, coming in just short of the 4.9 million average six years ago. The NBA Playoffs have also “won the night on cable TV nearly 92% of the time (34 of 37 nights)” this year. Two of the most-watched contests were the Game 7 matchups in both Eastern and Western Conferences, which averaged just under 9 million viewers apiece. The Warriors-Rockets Game 7 ultimately finished with 14.8 million viewers, “marking the second-best figure for an NBA game in cable TV history.” Starting with a thrilling Game 1 in Oakland, won by the Warriors, this year’s Finals could produce higher ratings than even initially expected.

As the French Open enters its second week, Amazon is set to agree to a two-year deal for the exclusive global broadcast rights to the Laver Cup. Sources told the Australian Financial Review that the agreement will allow the tech giant to show the three-day international team tennis tournament on its Prime Video subscription service. Plans for associated content, including behind-the-scenes videos and a related mini-series, will reportedly also be included. The Laver Cup, which launched last year, is named after Australian tennis icon Rod Laver. It is owned and operated by Team8, the management company set up by Roger Federer and his long-time agent Tony Godsick, in conjunction with Tennis Australia and the USTA. In a format reminiscent of golf’s Ryder Cup, the competition pits ‘Team World’ against ‘Team Europe’, who were captained last year by John McEnroe and Bjorn Borg respectively. This year's Laver Cup is due to be held in Chicago in September. News of the latest deal comes as Amazon continues to expand its portfolio of tennis broadcast rights. Last year, it outbid Sky Sports for rights to the ATP World Tour in the UK, while it also won rights to the U.S. Open in that market for the next five years.

Minor League Baseball has partnered with EVERFI to bring a summer learning course to rising fifth grade students in key markets. The digital course, Summer Slugger, teaches students literacy and math skills through the game of baseball. Multiple MiLB clubs will participate in the pilot, which will reach thousands of students including the Las Vegas 51s, the Richmond Flying Squirrels, the Charlotte Knights, the Lexington Legends, the Charleston RiverDogs, and the Omaha Storm Chasers. On May 22, the Omaha Storm Chasers hosted a program launch event at Gateway Elementary School with 240 students. The Las Vegas 51s also hosted a launch event on May 10 at Eva G. Simmons Elementary School, with 270 students. Minor league baseball has always been known for its innovation, creativity, and family-friendly atmosphere. The deal with EVERFI takes that mindset from the ballpark to the classroom, aided by an equally creative, innovative partner.

As the U.S. Open prepares to tee off at Shinnecock next week, Tagmarshal, the golf course intelligence and pace-of-play system, is operational at Pinehurst Resort & Country Club. Pinehurst is a former U.S. Open host, host of the 2019 U.S. Amateur Championship, and one of Golf Digest’s top-five courses worldwide. With more single golf championships than any other site in America and nine challenging golf courses, Pinehurst will enhance its already renowned player experience by using Tagmarshal’s sophisticated geo-tagging and pace algorithm software. Partnering with Tagmarshal gives courses proven operational efficiencies, while superintendents use Tagmarshal data to better manage pin placements, wear patterns, and hole set-ups. Equipped with these vital statistics, some courses can expect to see a 15-17 minute decrease for each round and increased maintenance efficiency. Recent system installments across the country have led to 70% of rounds being played on pace or within five minutes of target goal times. Top-ranked courses trusting Tagmarshal include Carnoustie (The 2018 Open Championship), The Ocean Course at Kiawah Island Golf Resort (2021 PGA Championship), Whistling Straits, and more. The amount of time it takes to play a round of golf is one of the sport’s major deterrents, so any innovation that leads to quicker play will only benefit the industry as a whole.

The NFL has repeatedly stated its intent to stay out of politics, though President Trump’s criticism of players protesting the national anthem this season “pushed the league to shift its stance” on the issue. According to the Wall Street Journal, President Trump’s repeated and direct criticism of NFL players kneeling during the national anthem ultimately resulted in team owners making private “political calculations” in response to the president’s strong words. “This is a very winning, strong issue for me,” Trump told Dallas Cowboys owner Jerry Jones last year. “Tell everybody, you can’t win this one. This one lifts me.” Multiple owners, including Miami Dolphins Owner Stephen Ross, cited their support for the players up until Trump made his comments. “He changed the dialogue,” said Ross. The NFL pushed back against Trump’s comments last season, but the decision to change the policy this year came from the owners themselves – most of whom lean conservative and many of whom have backed Trump with campaign contributions.

The NFL stadium being built in Los Angeles could find its way into the regular rotation of Final Four hosts, much to the dismay of Phoenix. According to the Arizona Republic, the Chargers and Rams’ new stadium, which is expected to cost as much as $4.963 billion, is becoming an “attractive option” for one of the country’s biggest annual sporting events. Los Angeles is currently one of seven cities bidding to land a Final Four over a four-year span, competing against Phoenix, Dallas, Houston, San Antonio, Detroit, and Indianapolis. “There is interest in Los Angeles,” said NCAA Men’s Basketball Committee member Tom Burnett. “And as I’ve told the others, we have a math issue here. There’s a presumption that Indianapolis will get one of those because of their NCAA arrangement, so (it could be) six for three years.” This past year’s Final Four in San Antonio delivered an economic impact of $185 million, and the 2017 rendition in Phoenix turned out an impressive $324.5 million positive impact. With the warm Los Angeles weather and a state-of-the-art stadium in the works, L.A. sits as a serious contender to land a Final Four in the near future.

The Supreme Court’s recent decision to legalize sports betting across all 50 states will impact more than professional sports leagues – it will also have a direct effect on college athletics. According to SportsDay, Big 12 presidents and athletic directors recently got a crash course on the ruling and how it will play out on a collegiate level. With a conference as geographically spread out as the Big 12, different universities will be forced to react in different ways to the ruling depending on how their respective states elect to handle the issue. “Well, in all frankness, I wish I knew how it was going to affect the landscape,” said Big 12 Commissioner Bob Bowlsby. “You just look at our footprint. We have five different states that are going to have five different sets of rules and laws.” Just as multiple professional leagues have already noted, universities are beginning to talk about pushing for an “integrity fee,” hoping that the fee would be put toward “enhanced compliance and gambling education.” With college athletic department funding mostly down at all but the power conferences top-tier schools, it goes unsaid that sports gambling integrity fees could also put some much-needed revenue into AD coffers.

A new economic impact report claims that Super Bowl LII at U.S. Bank Stadium in downtown Minneapolis brought in “net new spending” of $370 million to the Twin Cities. According to the Minneapolis Star Tribune, the Super Bowl celebration that lasted from January 26-February 4 in Minnesota delivered on its promised economic impact, coming in $50 million over initial pre-event projections. The $370 million can largely be attributed to the $179 million spent by broadcast and event planners – the most ever for a Super Bowl. The ultimate number was reached “after subtracting about $80 million for displaced tourism (people who were kept away from the area by the event).” The number, which is still being disputed by a few parties, confirms that Minnesota – Minneapolis and St. Paul specifically – know how to host mega sporting events successfully and profitably, boding well for the 2019 Final Four also being held at U.S. Bank Stadium.

The Milwaukee Bucks are on the verge of signing a naming rights partner for their new $524 million downtown arena. According to SportsBusiness Journal, the Bucks are working to finalize the deal with Fiserv, a Wisconsin-based financial tech firm, that could be worth as much as $6 million per year for 20 years. If agreed up by both parties, the Bucks’ new home could become either Fiserv Arena or the Fiserv Center, though no ultimate ruling has been made public yet. The Bucks had initially been looking for more money in their search for a suitable naming rights partner, prompting them to walk “away from the same deal with similar terms within the past year.” “We certainly have been in negotiations with three or four different entities over the last year,” said Bucks President Peter Feigin. The new 17,500-seat arena will host both the Bucks and Marquette University upon opening. Per NBA tradition, there’s likely also an NBA All-Star Game in the future for the Bucks’ new house – February Wisconsin weather notwithstanding.

FC Cincinnati has officially been unveiled as Major League Soccer’s 26th franchise. According to the Cincinnati Enquirer, the club will begin play in the top flight of American soccer in 2019, marking a significant milestone for a franchise that only joined the USL in 2016. In 16 home games last season at Nippert Stadium, the team averaged an impressive 21,000 fans while also “beating two MLS clubs in the U.S. Open Cup in front of 30,000-plus fans.” Putting that attendance figure into perspective, of the 22 MLS teams in the league last year, only seven had a higher average attendance over the course of the season. A 21,000-seat soccer-specific stadium is currently planned to open for the 2021 season, which should be at capacity each game based on the club’s current trajectory. FC Cincinnati will have to pay a $150 million expansion fee ahead of joining the league, marking a 15-fold hike in price from the $10 million that Toronto FC paid to join MLS only 10 years ago.

Detroit has officially been announced as the host of a new PGA Tour event beginning in June, 2019. According to the Detroit News, Quicken Loans, the title sponsor for the event, helped deliver the news, making the Michigan city a PGA Tour event destination “for the first time ever.” Detroit Golf Club is expected to host the new event, which will replace The National on the PGA Tour’s schedule. Quicken Loans was The National’s title sponsor from 2014-2017, meaning that the Detroit-based company will be able to leverage its extensive presence across its hometown to promote the event. Quicken Loans officials already said that they are “planning for a multi-week event, complete with concerts and other attractions, with the golf tournament as the centerpiece.” The Buick Open hosted in Grand Blanc back in 2009 was the most recent PGA Tour event held in the state of Michigan, so this news comes as a huge positive for the rebuilding city and its state.

The battle between North America and Morocco for hosting rights to the 2026 World Cup is heating up just ahead of the June 13 decision. According to Reuters, the joint bid between the United States, Canada, and Mexico is working relentlessly to fend off Morocco, a “feisty rival” that poses a significant threat due to its African support base. Of the 211 total votes that will be cast by each country’s FA, 54 of those votes come from Africa, Morocco’s home. Because of that, both bids have made the African continent their “primary focus” over the past week or two, with the joint bid trying to steal a few African votes away from Morocco. Liberia has already voiced its support for the North American bid, and South Africa’s government has urged its FA to vote that way as well, citing its “strained relations” with the Moroccan government. The North American bid is poised to generate more than $5 billion in short-term economic activity, per a report from BCG, with individual cities expecting approximately $160-620 million each in incremental economic activity. While these numbers dwarf those expected out of Morocco, FIFA has shown its new desire to factor in more than money when making these decisions. Whichever way the vote falls on June 13, expect continued debate and outcry about it to be part of the soundtrack of the imminent World Cup in Russia.

As the 2018 World Cup in Russia quickly approaches, now less than two weeks away, FIFA remains under heavy scrutiny for awarding Qatar the right to host the 2022 event. According to the London Daily Mail, a watchdog organization recently uncovered more evidence of corruption directly relating to Qatar’s successful bid back in 2010. The Foundation of Sports Integrity said that Qatar’s vote victory was “completely illegitimate” as part of a new investigation. Evidence cites that Qatar paid “millions to members of FIFA’s executive committee as they considered which country would be awarded the tournament.” One confirmed “mystery payment” ahead of the 2010 vote was £3.6 million deposited into Argentine FIFA executive Julio Grondona’s Swiss bank account; Qatar also allegedly paid off a £50 million debt owed by the Argentine FA. Qatar beat out the United States, South Korea, Japan, and Australia to become the smallest nation by area ever to have been awarded a FIFA World Cup, and while bribery has long been alleged as the reason why, as evidence piles up it is quickly morphing from whisper to fact.

Despite being met by some opposition at the onset, Jacksonville Jaguars Owner Shahid Khan’s $1.19 billion bid to buy Wembley Stadium is pushing forward. According to the London Times, there was no “outright opposition” among FA councilors at a recent meeting to discuss the potential sale. English FA CEO Martin Glenn laid out an ambitious vision to the councilors were the sale to go through, as it could result in upwards of $1.3 billion being put into grassroots soccer across the UK by 2030. Also to ease the emotions of the councilors and preserve the sanctity of the historic venue, Glenn confirmed that “any new owner would have to agree to numerous projections until 2057, such as not selling naming rights for the stadium and ensuring the Royal Box remains in place.” “Receiving an offer to sell Wembley Stadium is not a betrayal,” said Glenn of the deal. “It is not selling the soul of the game…What we have in front of us is simply an opportunity.” Expect Khan to prevail in the purchase. But don’t expect him to be moving the Jaguars to London anytime soon.

Tech Top 5

NBA unveils augmented reality 360 Portals. The NBA announced the launch of 360 Portals, a new augmented reality (AR) experience available in the NBA AR app that allows fans to live within memorable, behind-the-scenes moments from the 2018 NBA Playoffs and Finals.  The NBA AR app, which launched for iPhone in October 2017, is now also available for free on Android devices. In addition to featuring AR experiences from the NBA Playoffs, including team huddles, player introductions, and postgame celebrations, 360 Portals will include special on-demand NBA Finals content that will be captured and made available throughout the series.  Using Apple’s ARKit and Google’s ARCore technology, 360 Portals superimposes a virtual door that fans can walk through to immerse themselves in NBA action. Said Melissa Rosenthal Brenner, NBA Executive Vice President, Digital Media, “We hope fans around the world check out the NBA AR app throughout the Finals for a unique perspective on our biggest event of the year.” 360 Portals is the latest AR offering from the NBA. ��In October 2017, the NBA became the first U.S. sports league to offer an AR game when it launched virtual pop-a-shot on the NBA AR app.

Youku acquires World Cup streaming rights in China. Youku, a Chinese streaming site owned by e-commerce giant Alibaba, has won Chinese digital streaming rights to the 2018 World Cup. According to Caixin Global, a Beijing-based media site, the streaming site entered into a partnership with state broadcaster China Central Television (CCTV), China’s exclusive World Cup broadcaster. The content deal with CCTV, which holds domestic rights to the national team soccer tournament, will see the Alibaba-owned video hosting service live stream 64 World Cup matches. The agreement also allows Youku to provide online highlights and on-demand content for its users in China. All content will be made available on the Youku mobile app and website, as well as on select smart TVs. The news comes after Migu, a video-streaming company owned by mobile carrier China Mobile, announced in May that it had acquired online rights from CCTV to broadcast the 2018 World Cup, with Chinese media reports estimating the price for the rights at ¥1 billion (US$155.8 million). CCTV holds exclusive media rights to several FIFA competitions between 2018 and 2022, including the 2018 and 2022 FIFA World Cup, the 2019 FIFA Women’s World Cup, and the 2021 FIFA Confederations Cup.

Analytics startup monitors athletes’ off-field behavior. Sports analytics platform Avrij Analytics has raised $1.2 million. The funding was led by the New Brunswick Innovation Foundation (NBIF), which invested $500,000 in the company. Technology Ventures Corp and other private and public investors also participated in the round. Launched in 2016, Avrij Analytics’ founders saw the need to develop a sports analytics platform while working as data science consultants in New York. The team said that they returned to New Brunswick to take advantage of the province’s startup resources. Avrij Analytics provides sports organizations with a software platform that tracks, monitors, and predicts an athlete’s off-field behavior. The company’s goal is to protect athletes’ brands and help sports organizations optimize the recruitment and management of their teams. Avrij Analytics takes into account activities like community involvement, an athlete’s online tone of voice, and a player’s charity work. In addition to merely monitoring and monitoring on-line conversations and interactions, Avrij believes it could predict conduct.

IndyCar strikes analytics deal with Hookit. IndyCar, the sanctioning body of the Indianapolis 500, has partnered with leading sponsorship valuation provider Hookit. Through the long-term partnership, Hookit, now the Official Data Supplier of IndyCar and Indianapolis Motor Speedway, will provide insights and evaluation for IndyCar on the performance of its events and promotional campaigns for its sponsors. As part of the partnership with IndyCar, Hookit is providing data and insights to all IndyCar teams, building on the pillars of Innovation and Technology within the series. Kimberly Cook, Chief Revenue Officer at Hookit, praised the partnership, saying, “At Hookit, we continue to grow our presence within the motorsports community and are excited to be partnering with IndyCar which has among the most dedicated fan base in the world, especially in the Indy 500 and at Indianapolis Motor Speedway. Sponsors are at the core of racing, so helping IndyCar prove the great value it brings along with its fans and teams to its partners is key to continued growth in the sport.”

Arccos provides users analytics for every swing. Arccos, the golf analytics startup that works as a digital caddie, deepened its partnership with Microsoft this week. A brand new model of its app will supply golfers actual-time swing methods and analyses for each shot on any course on earth. By means of an up to date function within the firm’s app, referred to as Arccos Caddie 2.0, the Microsoft Azure-powered service will use synthetic intelligence to supply customers with recommendations about methods and predict outcomes as they work their approach down the golf course. Among the many elements Caddie 2.0 will think about are a consumer’s shot historical past, the historic efficiency of different Arccos customers, climate circumstances comparable to wind velocity and path, elevation modifications, gap geometry, and hazard places. “Your complete sports panorama is being revolutionized by superior analytics, and golf is probably the very best sport for the appliance of those ideas,” stated Arccos CEO Sal Syed, in a press release. “Working with Microsoft, we’re plugging into a really conventional framework—the caddie/participant relationship—and taking it to the subsequent degree via the facility of AI.”

Power of Sports 5

Cal Ripken Jr.'s playing career is best remembered for being baseball's Iron Man, never missing a game for 17 years. His career after baseball has been built on furthering a love for the game. Last Wednesday, according to the Oklahoman, Ripken along with hundreds of students, faculty, and alumni gathered at Oklahoma City’s newly-renovated Southeast High School Sports Complex for its grand unveiling. In partnership with Fields & Futures (backed by Group One Thousand One), the Cal Ripken Sr. Foundation, and Oklahoma City Public School Athletics, the new field and electronic scoreboard for baseball and softball were unveiled to the public. "This is big league," Ripken said. "This is the same caliber of field that we would've gotten to go out there and play on. If you really get excited about the field you are playing on, you start to do really good things all around." Southeast became the 22nd OKCPS athletic field to be renovated, and became the first to feature a synthetic turf infield. Ripken said it was important to him and his family foundation to partner with Fields & Futures because of its mission of restoring baseball to poorer schools and neighborhoods.

Ronnie Brewer plans annual foundation weekend. Former NBA player Ronnie Brewer will hold his annual charity weekend this week. The Ronnie Brewer Jr. Foundation supports communities in at-risk situations while promoting education, physical fitness, and the importance of working together as a team. This year’s events will begin Friday, June 8 with a bowling tournament at Ozark Bowling Lanes. The weekend events continue on Saturday with the annual gala held at Pratt Place Barn. This year's theme is “A Night with the Stars: The Best of Northwest Arkansas.” The gala will include dancing, local food, and a silent auction. Ronnie Brewer Jr. was motivated to start this foundation because he found it important to give back and support communities in ways he felt supported while he was growing up. Since joining the NBA, Brewer Jr. and his family have dedicated themselves to making a difference in each community in which he has been blessed to reside. While playing pro basketball, Brewer Jr. has managed to support the Salt Lake City, Chicago, and New York City areas. He also provides enormous support to his hometown of Fayetteville.

NFL alumni to host charity event at MetLife Stadium. The RHF Foundation was chosen by the NFL Alumni (NFLA) to host a charity event on June 13th at MetLife Stadium. The event allows attendees to play on a NFLA charity flag football team, which includes playing with and meeting NFL players, a coaching session, field access, photo and autograph opportunities, stadium tours, and Under Armour gear. Guests can also participate in tournaments for cornhole and KanJam. The event will benefit the Ferraro Brothers for Brothers Scholarship Campaign in partnership with the Folded Flag Foundation, as well as Law Enforcement Against Drugs. The NFL Alumni is a charitable organization composed primarily of former professional football players guided in their volunteer efforts by the motto “Caring for Kids.” They serve as passionate advocates for greater quality of life benefits for all former NFL players. The NFLA eagerly pursues greater benefits and the implementation of programmatic services devoted to enhancing the health and productive acuity of retired NFL players and their families.

Aaron Rodgers honored with doctorate for charity work. This week, Green Bay Packers quarterback Aaron Rodgers received an honorary doctorate of humanities from the Medical College of Wisconsin. The honor was given in recognition for his commitment to helping children with cancer through his work with the college and the MACC (Midwest Athletes Against Childhood Cancer) Fund. There was no public ceremony to recognize Rodgers. "It is with great pride that we welcome Aaron to the MCW community," Dr. John R. Raymond Sr., president and chief operating officer of MCW, said in a statement. "Honorary degree recipients exemplify the MCW commitment to the highest standards of education, scholarship, innovation or community engagement. When conferring an honorary degree, we honor those individuals in our community who have embraced our ideals and have dedicated a substantial portion of their lives to bettering the world around them." According to the school, Rodgers has helped raise $2.8 million in research and continues to make appearances on behalf of the MACC Fund.

Carson Wentz holds charity softball game. Philadelphia Eagles quarterback Carson Wentz will hold his first annual charity softball game this week. The event will feature current Eagles players swinging for the fences during a Home Run Derby, followed by a softball game where Eagles offensive players will square off against Eagles defensive players. Funds raised will benefit The Carson Wentz AO1 Foundation, which funds three initiatives. One objective is to support Philadelphia youth by providing service dogs to assist with their development and quality of life. The second objective is to provide food, shelter, and education opportunities to underprivileged youth. The third objective is to offer hunting and outdoor opportunities for individuals with physical challenges or life threatening illnesses or U.S. veterans living in the Midwest. Autographed items can be bid on at a silent auction, which will include meet-and-greet opportunities with Wentz and others, with proceeds being donated to the foundation.

[flauntpage]

Your Tuesday Morning Roundup

You can’t win them all. And that was put on display last night inside the Wells Fargo Center.

The Sixers suffered their first loss in 17 games with a 113-103 defeat to the Miami Heat. Erik Spoelstra’s defensive adjustments for this game proved to be the difference maker, as the Heat came out aggressive against the Sixers offense.

Philly also struggled mightily from the three-point line, going 7-for-36 from deep. Even a four-point line wouldn’t have helped. Dario Saric made three of those deep balls, while Marco Belinelli made two 3s and Robert Covington and JJ Redick made one each. Covington continued his struggles against Miami, scoring seven points with a +/- of -12.

Ben Simmons had a near triple-double again with 24 points, eight assists, and nine rebounds, which was the only bright spot of this game.

Six Heat players scored in double digits, including Dwyane Wade, who had a game-high 28 points in under 26 minutes. It was a vintage performance from the 36-year-old.

The Sixers have a couple of days to regroup and figure out a way to come out swinging in Miami for Game 3 on Thursday. They might have Joel Embiid back, and he had some words to say on his Instagram story last night. Or maybe not:

Joel Embiid to ESPN on the frustration behind his IG post from earlier, “I promised the city the playoffs and I’m not on the court and I may not be on Thursday either. I wish more than anything that I was out there. I just want the green light to play.”

— Ramona Shelburne (@ramonashelburne) April 17, 2018

Prior to the game, the Sixers and the basketball community mourned the loss of Hal Greer, who passed away at the age of 81. Charles Barkley and Brett Brown remembered Greer:

"It was an honor and a privilege to get to know Mr. Greer."

Chuck & the crew remember the late @sixers legend, Hal Greer. pic.twitter.com/FQ5xKgbJ5O

— NBA on TNT (@NBAonTNT) April 17, 2018

"He was a graceful man. He was class."

Coach reflects on Hal Greer's legacy. pic.twitter.com/S65Gojcv6p

— Philadelphia 76ers (@sixers) April 16, 2018

The Sixers will wear a black band with Greer’s #15 for the rest of the playoffs.

The Roundup:

Have a wedding coming up? Save 25% on flowers with our partners Enjoy Flowers and I Do & I Will!

The Phillies’ six-game winning streak ended at the hands of the Atlanta Braves, as they fell 2-1. The game was centered around Odubel Herrera. He batted in the Phils’ only run of the game in the first inning on his first homer of the season.

But bad Odubel also showed up. In the third inning, Herrera had a double in his hands, except he didn’t slide into second and was called out. Instead of having two runners in scoring position with one out, the Phils had one runner at third with two outs. No run was scored.

Then, an inning later, Herrera failed to communicate with Aaron Altherr on a fly ball. Altherr came all the way from right field to make the catch, but a run managed to score. That proved to be the eventual game-winner. After the game, manager Gabe Kapler talked to him and he apologized to the media:

“It’s something I have to learn from,” he said, referring to the whole night.

Well let’s hope he learns from it.

Similar to the Sixers, the Phils hope to start a new winning streak tonight against the Braves at 7:35 PM on NBC Sports Retirement. Nick Pivetta looks to continue his very good season.

After the team’s 5-1 loss to Pittsburgh in Game 3, it’s another period of time for the Flyers to make adjustments in hopes of tying the series once again. They have until tomorrow to do so. Head coach Dave Hakstol might make some line changes and swap some players from the lineup:

“We always take a close look at it and try to consider whether it’s a tweak in combinations, whether it’s potentially a change in personnel,” he said. “I think that all has to be on the table on a daily basis during the playoffs. That doesn’t mean there will be [changes], but I can tell you we are looking close at everything.”

Among his options: playing winger Jordan Weal for the first time in the series, and flip-flopping third-line winger Travis Konecny and first-line winger Michael Raffl. He could also play defenseman Robert Hagg.

Hakstol said he was looking at “how we can get a little more out of our team and be a little bit better in our five-on-five play.”

He should play Robert Hagg. It’s still befuddling to not know why he’s not on the ice after a very good rookie campaign. And he’s not in over Brandon Manning? Crazy.

One player that needs to get something going is Wayne Simmonds.

OTAs have begun:

"The new normal starts today."#FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/ry9gmYvvf2

— Philadelphia Eagles (@Eagles) April 16, 2018

We know more about Daryl Worley and what he was charged with after getting cut by the Birds on Sunday:

Former Philadelphia Eagles cornerback Daryl Worley has been charged with six offenses including driving under the influence, possession of an instrument of crime and resisting arrest following an alleged incident near the team’s training facilities early Sunday morning, court records show.

The Eagles released Worley on Sunday evening after review of the information and a discussion among the key decision makers.

Records show that Worley posted a portion of his $25,000 bail and has a preliminary hearing scheduled for May 1.

One charge might be a felony. Meanwhile, Worley’s attorney is looking for a way to his client to continue his NFL career:

Daryl Worley's attorney, Fortunato Perri Jr., told Inquirer-Daily News reporter Chris Palmer that he is "still reviewing the circumstances" of Worley's arrest, and "we're hopeful that we can resolve this matter so he can resume his career in the NFL."

— Les Bowen (@LesBowen) April 16, 2018

Kevin explained the difference between the Worley and Michael Bennett situations.

Taking a look at possible defensive tackles in the NFL Draft.

Jason Kelce got married over the weekend:

Had to get one with the boys. Love this team and love this city. #FlyEaglesFly pic.twitter.com/TOYOgjA5tP

— Brandon Brooks (@bbrooks_79) April 14, 2018

In other sports news, a big second half gave Golden State a 116-101 win over the Spurs and a 2-0 series lead.

In the Stanley Cup playoffs, Toronto, New Jersey, and Colorado earned their first wins of their respective series in Game 3s. San Jose put up eight goals against Anaheim to take a commanding 3-0 series lead.

Was Dak Prescott a big reason why Dez Bryant got cut from the Cowboys?

Yuki Kawauchi and Desiree Linden won their respective Boston Marathon races.

In the news, prosecutors support a new trial for Meek Mill.

Michael Cohen’s third and unnamed client: Sean Hannity of Fox News.

The Philly Starbucks manager is no longer with the company.

Kendrick Lamar was awarded a Pulitzer Prize for his album “Damn.”

Your Tuesday Morning Roundup published first on https://footballhighlightseurope.tumblr.com/

[tunaforbernadette]

No Humans Required: Exploring the Possibility of Computer Generated Fiction

Guest post by Wil Forbis

“It’s not hard to generate a story. It’s not hard to tell a story. It’s hard to tell good stories. How do you get a computer to understand what good means?”

Mark Riedl, associate professor at the Georgia Institute of Technology

Lately, I’ve been playing around with self-editing apps such as AutoCrit, ProWritingAid and SlickWrite. These tools, all of which offer some functionality for free, scan a user’s text and flag common literary transgressions like poor word choice, word repetition, improper sentence length and passive verbs. The apps aren’t perfect and tend to be biased towards a modern, no-frills writing style (the work of Lovecraft would caused their circuits to overload) but they can be helpful. They have caught errors that I would have otherwise missed.

The robust feature set of these apps makes the point that writing is not a single process but many. Proper word choice, balanced sentences and good grammar are key to successful writing as are larger concerns about structure, style and narrative. A good writer ties these skills together though no one masters them all. Some writers are known for excellent pacing but banal vocabulary. Others earn acclaim for great plotting while being damned for wooden dialogue. 

These editing apps do not, of course, make editing decisions for you; they simply offer suggestions. Still, I find myself wondering whether they could be used to automate the editing process. Then the question arises: will software eventually write? Will computers create works of fiction out of nothing, no humans required?

This question might seem premature. The apps I’m playing with are helping with the more mundane, technical aspects of writing but they aren’t anywhere near the creative side. They aren’t developing plots or characters, or exploring the emotional symbolism of colors or religious icons. And it’s hard to imagine they could.

Still, we recognize that creativity is not magic; it is a process that can be studied and deconstructed. Bookstores are filled with volumes about using the right side of the brain, or developing creative “flow”, or finding a step-by-step process to awaken the muse. And employing process-oriented steps is exactly what software is good at.

Additionally, creative computers are not science fiction. In the world of music, computers have been composing for some time. Programmer/musician David Cope has used software to generate thousands of hours of classical pieces. Several tech start-ups such as Amper and Jukedeck have been automating the creation of background music used in online videos and films. The quality of the music varies---nothing has yet appeared to make hit songwriters nervous---but it’s credible enough.

Computers are also getting into the writing game, specifically journalism. The “natural language generation” technology of a company called Automated Insights has been used by the Associated Press to write finance articles. A competing tech company, Chicago based Narrative Science, has been generating sports and other statistics heavy news stories for years. Jeff Bezo’s Washington Post is using an AI bot called Heliograf to massage raw data about politics into human readable text.

Of course, journalism is not fiction (well, not all of it) and fiction is the kind of writing that requires the most creativity. Even there progress is being made. A European academic project, the What-If-Machine (WHIM), constructs basic plot premises by analyzing data on the web. (The WHIM software teamed up with another program, PropperWryter, to write the plot structures for a musical that recently ran in London.  ) Another software tool, Scheherazade, developed at the Georgia Institute of Technology, writes original short fiction after analyzing human penned stories. These tools haven’t produced anything that’s going to put authors out of work but we are at a point where speculation on how computers could create stories and novels is valid.

As mentioned previously, writing is really many different skills, and exploring every function software will need to obtain to pen fiction is beyond the scope of this article. I’m going to consider the possibility of software tackling three tasks inherent in narrative writing: plotting, pacing and word choice.

Plotting Let’s define a plot as the “who, what, when, where, how and why” of a story. The form of it can vary between a one-paragraph synopsis or a ten-page story breakdown.

Automated plot development is not new; classic pulp fiction authors often used primitive plot generators. Erle Stanley Gardner employed a “plot wheel” to randomly combine story elements for his Perry Mason stories. Lester Dent swapped out elements in his “master fiction” plot to create stories for his Doc Savage novels.

Those early efforts were crude compared to what today’s technology offers. We now have computers with incredible processing power and the ability to parse written material and learn to correlate meaning to words. Computers are starting to “understand*” that Sweden is a place and bound to the various restrictions that places are bound to, or that dogs are living creatures and subject to various canine behaviors. As this capability expands in the future, software should have no problem filling in the “who, what, when, etc.” required for plot development.

* I realize I’m on tenuous philosophical ground when I imply computers can “understand” meaning, a feat that would presume they have some kind of consciousness. This is merely a writing shortcut: I make no claims about computers being able to think.

Early attempts will doubtless be underwhelming. (The WHIM software mentioned above already does this kind of plot development but only rarely creates gems.) Computers will need to not only understand what plots are, but what good plots are. How can this happen?

Two possibilities come to mind. One is that computers submit their plots to human reviewers. Via a crowdsourcing platform, plots could be ranked by engagement. As good plots are highlighted and bad plots down-voted, the data could then be fed back into machines that could analyze the differences. For example, computers might learn that lots of action or exotic locales are important to a good plot. (At least as defined by some readers.)

Another possibility hinges on a technique gaining ground in the world of artificial intelligence: deep learning. In this process, computers digest large amounts of data and observe trends and correlations in that data that might be missed by humans. Via deep learning, computers could analyze the text in every fiction book ever digitized*, as well those books’ sales figures and critical reception. This could lead to numerous observations about what makes plots good or bad. That data could then be used to aid a WHIM type tool in plot development.

* This kind of analysis is already occurring. Recently, scientists at the University of Vermont ran computer analysis on hundreds of stories and confirmed Kurt Vonnegut’s theory that most stories follow one of six plot outlines.

Pacing Pacing can be thought of as the flow of a story, the speed with which it progresses. Action scenes (battles/break-ins/romantic encounters, etc.) speed up the pace while expository scenes (dialogue/ruminations/descriptions etc.) slow things down. Good stories balance these two elements, though there’s no single, perfect formula.

Can computers automate the task of setting a story’s pace? To do so, they would need to be able to identify action scenes and expository scenes within text.

One way to define a scene’s nature is by identifying word types. Action scenes have a lot of action or emotion words like “scream,” “break,” “shoot,” “stab” and so on. Expository scenes have a lot of cerebral and calm words like “considered,” “wrote,” “says,” “mused” and so on.

Sentence length also indicates a scene’s character. Action scenes tend to have short, curt sentences that capture the frantic pace of what is being described. Expository scenes move more languidly and flesh things out over longer sentences.

These are two of many attributes that can be used to identify the pacing of text. With these tools in hand, computers could analyze stories and move scenes around to achieve a good balance between action and exposition.  

There’s much more to pacing than described here, but this provides a high level view of how computers might tackle this writing challenge.

Word Choice The need for variety drives good word choice. Readers don’t want to see the same word echoed over and over. All of the self-editing apps mentioned above already flag repeated words.

Of course, choosing word substitutes is not about blindly swapping out synonyms.  Several factors affect our choices. They include…

• Alliteration We sometimes take advantage of the sound of language when finding a word. Say you’ve already used the word “snake” and now want to refer to it again prefaced it with the adjective “repulsive.” Instead of saying "the repulsive snake" you may choose "the repulsive reptile" to play off the alliterative properties.

• Syllable Count Sometimes a you want a word that has some beef to it. You may be referring to a “reprise” but instead choose “recapitulation” as a meatier substitute. In other situations you may seek shorter words to balance a sentence correctly.

• Genre/Style The nature of the work will always have an effect on the words used. In a period detective story, a female character might be a “dame” or “moll,” while in a high society novel she may be a “lady” or “ingénue.”

• Intended Audience Every author must writer for his or her readers. Complex words should be avoided in kids’ novels but embraced in the fiction section of The New Yorker magazine.

There are many additional factors. Each of these could be thought of as a rule that could then be applied by software in the writing process. Via deep learning, computers could analyze existing stories and suss out the delicate ways these rules interoperate and influence each other. Computers may even develop new “styles” of word choice that humans find unique and engaging.

Summing it up I don’t want to make any of this sound easy. Efforts to automate writing will likely evolve in fits and starts, and the road to progress will be littered with failures. I suspect much of the development will not be in the interest of replacing human authors but aiding them. Who wouldn’t want a “pacing recommendation engine” or an “automatic thesaurus”?

There’s also the possibility that there is some unique property, some tic of the human brain, that grants a magic spark to the best human created fiction. Computer authors may never replicate this. But it’s a mistake to think they have to. Computers don’t need to write like Shakespeare to be competitive in the marketplace since most published human authors don’t meet that standard. Sometimes “good enough” is fine.

When all this could happen is hard to say. According to the science fiction of yesteryear, we should all be flying around in jet packs right now. Predicting the future is a fool’s errand but I’m enough of a fool to claim that within 20 years we will have an automated writing tool capable of generating readable fiction. And in 50, 100, 500 years? Who knows?

[realselfblog]

It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019

This is not a watch. Well, not just a watch. It can track heart rate. And it’s not even pink. Well, rose gold, perhaps.

One of the benefits about being a woman attending CES is that there are no lines in the loos. The men’s rooms, however, are, shall we say, over-subscribed due to the big disparity between the number of male attendees versus females.

Clearly, women are under-represented in technology companies at all levels, as the ladies’ room observation and many other more statistical reports recognize.

But I’ve good news to report on the product front about women-focused consumer technology at #CES2019: there’s a lot more of it, and some of it very meaningful, impactful, and quality-of-life enhancing. I assert this through my health lens, as well as health-economic perspective.

Start with Fitbit, among the most mature digital health suppliers featured at CES over time. Here’s a slide I developed when the Versa came to market, where I curated pink versions of Fitbit trackers since the advent of the first digital tracker I ever used: the Zip.

I met Stacey Burr who led adidas digital sports group way back when, at CES in the Zip era. She and I attended a digital health session about getting fit with tech tools and apps. She and I were among the only women in the room. The entire panel (well, “manel” as my colleague Sherry Reynolds @Cascadia has called the phenomenon) was young men, fit and buff. Every example in the video demos fit on a continuum from Arnold Schwarzenegger to A-Rod. At the Q&A, I asked why there weren’t any women featured, either as companies’ marketers or in the consumer-user examples. The chaps were tongue-tied, and Stacey and I bonded at that moment and continue to be collegial friends and part of growing group of women-in-health-tech. (Update on Stacey: she’s now Chief of Google’s Wear OS, part of Google’s ever-morphing health team).

Fast forward to 2018, and Fitbit’s blog posted about women’s health tracking, using the words “menstruation,” “period,” and “sexual health.”

Well isn’t that what we call “real life” stuff?

How time is a tincture and retail health, well, a business recognizing that some demographics (like women committed to health, fitness, stress reduction, mental health promotion, and resilience) have money to spend on high-value and evidence-based products.

So welcome the Versa, one of many women-targeted health tools featured at CES 2019 that are getting real and impactful about women, tech and health. I’ve worn my Versa for about four months now: it’s my first smartwatch-health tracker, having been a decades-committed Skagen stainless steel band analog watch-wearer on my left wrist. On my right wrist, I’ve donned several Fitbit bands, and trackers from Garmin, Withings, Fossil, Jawbone, and others.

[As a sidebar, I’ve gifted all the devices I no longer use to Professor Lisa Gualtieri’s Recycle Health project at Tufts University. Lisa’s team cleans up the donated devices (stripping of data, etc.) and gifts them onto people in the Boston area who can use them. You can do the same with your old tech long stored in “that drawer” by getting a printed label on the Recycle Health website].

There’s more fashion embedded in technology each year at CES, with brands partnering and licensing their design ethos and personalities to many tech products. One of my personal favorites is Kate Spade, whom we lost in 2018 to suicide (which I covered here in Health Populi as my own sympathy post devoted to her and Anthony Bourdain, may they rest in peace). On a joyful note, Spade’s upbeat design sense lives on in 2019, featuring some adorable watches that track activity. This is among the first fashion brands to incorporate Google’s wearable device software, Wear OS. The watch can track heart rate, has GPS, and can make mobile payments using Google Pay.

Health tracking can cover a range of women’s health issues, nothing more intimate and emotionally powerful than fertility and baby-making. This demand has not gone unnoticed in the start-up and financing communities. In 2018, several direct-to-consumer fertility-tech companies garnered $million funding to begin commercializing and scaling their products.

The Ava Fertility Tracker 2.0 is one such innovator, raising a $30mm round of investment in mid-2018. This timing coincided with the announcement of Ava’s 10,000th birth for an Ava user. Ava was founded in Switzerland in 2014 and received the Best of Baby Tech Award at CES 2017. In 2019, the company launches Ava tracker 2.0. This new version replaces traditional basal temperature with pulse rate, skin temperature, and breathing to be more predictive about ovulation. The device runs $299 and bundles in online content and a one-year pregnancy guarantee.

Once pregnant, a woman’s best chance of having a healthy baby is borne out of good pre-natal care. Thanks to BabyScripts, a box of pre-natal goodness, women can self-care during the crucial nine months of fetal development. That box arrives in Mom’s mail and includes a WiFi enabled scale, a blood pressure monitor, an app and content with a warm and informative welcome message. Mom-generated data flows to a HIPAA-compliant platform which informs OB/GYNs about their patients’ progress. For low-risk mothers, BabyScripts can empower self-care and unneeded trips to the doctor. For the clinician, the program benefits workflow, patient engagement, and risk management. I met the co-founders, Anish and Juan Pablo, in 2014 when they were starting up, and since then the company has grown through fruitful partnerships with healthcare providers around the U.S. Babyscripts received a $6mm investment in November 2018 from Startup Health, NueCura, led by Philips whose Mother/Baby unit will partner with the company.

There’s a lot of Baby Tech at CES 2019, an entire track organized by Living in Digital Times. This is a $23 billion business, with 4 million babies born every year. The portfolio of products for baby boggles the mind: when my now-grown daughter was six months old, technology in her room was a baby monitor (walkie-talkie style) and a Diaper Genie (relatively new “tech” at the time). That was 1997. Two decades later, baby tech is app-ified, from tracking feeding and monitoring baby’s room and crib to cooking healthy food for little ones: smart pacifiers, smart baby bottles, GPS-embedded strollers, GPS-bracelets for security…bringing up baby has gotten smart-er.

But back to women, and managing everyday life. Women are their homes Chief Household Officers, balancing family, work, volunteer and community activities, friendships, self-health, and home-keeping. For this last and least-enjoyable life-flow, there are connected appliances to help make life easier and more streamlined for managing house tasks. The Roomba, the first such connected home appliance, is now in a mature category, with many competitors for robotic vacuuming. Room-by-room at home, there are offerings at CES ’19 to manage every kind of work-life flow: for cooking, cleaning, washing, drying, and even folding clothes. I met the Foldimate at CES 2018, and am very happy to see it’s back in 2019 and getting market traction. It’s still early days but if tech can help all of us, men and women, save time on home tasks, we can conserve time for family, friends, and alone time to just breathe and think.

Caregivers tend to be female, and they tend not to have that time to breathe and think: caregivers usually put those they care for first, including their pets (and yes, Pet Tech is also a growing category at CES). It’s encouraging to see that caregivers are called out in many marketing plans for innovations this year at CES. I was particularly keen to meet with folks working in the Stanley Black & Decker (SBD) Future Lab, who have developed the Pria, picture here.

Wait – “Stanley Black & Decker? Aren’t they the folks who make tools and the iconic Dustbuster handheld vacuum?” Yes, indeed. But the company also has a business-to-business reach into healthcare — namely hospitals for security. asset tracking, and climate control. That’s a twenty-year-old business. So it is natural for SBD to consider how to leverage B2B healthcare into the home, where the company has strong consumer brand equity.

Pria wears a lot of hats, as companion, weather forecaster, voice-activated encyclopedia, and first and foremost, medication dispenser. There are other medication management devices available, but Pria incorporates voice-activation that feels like an Amazon or Google assistant experience without the user having to share data beyond meds. The app allows caregivers to be part of the user’s care circle, along with pharmacies and clinicians.

Samsung comes to CES this year with several “bots,” including Bot Care to support caregiving. Bot Care has many uses, including medication management and adherence support, companionship, information channeling (for, say, healthy cooking, nutrition, and exercise), and other functions that make living and aging at home easier and safer. Here’s a short video on Bot Care to learn more.

Self-care is in short supply among women, who need to take time beyond caring for others. “Put your own gas mask on first” is sound advice for women, who can lead lives wearing so many hats. At CES this year, Procter & Gamble and their Life Lab attended CES as a supplier for the first time. Like Stanley Black & Decker, P&G has a strong consumer brand name, but the initials have never been confused with being a tech company. In the company’s Media Day presentation, I learned that their Life Lab was founded to innovate new products and enhancements to existing ones. They coined their session the “Consumer Experience Show” signifying the company was bringing their deep consumer market knowledge to bear while incorporating technology enhancements to well-known brands like Gillette (for shaving), Olay (for skin care), and Oral-B (for oral care). “We are innovating how we innovate,” they explained, through the Life Lab. Three innovations they presented were:

A new “warm” razor, giving the user the Old School barbershop + hot towel experience;

The Olay Skin Advisor asks, “what if you could get a personalized skin regimen with one selfie?” which uses the company’s proprietary VizID technology backed by AI and pinpointing personalized skin care routines to fit specific needs; and,

A new Oral-B Genius X toothbrush, recognizing your “personal brushing style” and providing real-time feedback that is meant to deliver better oral health to the user.

To come full circle, it’s encouraging to note that Gary Shapiro, President of the Consumer Technology Association, announced that CTA would invest $10 million in venture firms that support women and diverse leaders in technology. That’s a welcome commitment from the Association. Now, here’s a video from the first Women in Technology panel ever held at a CES, convened yesterday and sponsored by Lenovo and Intel.

  The post It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019 appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019 posted first on http://dentistfortworth.blogspot.com

[realselfblog]

It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019

This is not a watch. Well, not just a watch. It can track heart rate. And it’s not even pink. Well, rose gold, perhaps.

One of the benefits about being a woman attending CES is that there are no lines in the loos. The men’s rooms, however, are, shall we say, over-subscribed due to the big disparity between the number of male attendees versus females.

Clearly, women are under-represented in technology companies at all levels, as the ladies’ room observation and many other more statistical reports recognize.

But I’ve good news to report on the product front about women-focused consumer technology at #CES2019: there’s a lot more of it, and some of it very meaningful, impactful, and quality-of-life enhancing. I assert this through my health lens, as well as health-economic perspective.

Start with Fitbit, among the most mature digital health suppliers featured at CES over time. Here’s a slide I developed when the Versa came to market, where I curated pink versions of Fitbit trackers since the advent of the first digital tracker I ever used: the Zip.

I met Stacey Burr who led adidas digital sports group way back when, at CES in the Zip era. She and I attended a digital health session about getting fit with tech tools and apps. She and I were among the only women in the room. The entire panel (well, “manel” as my colleague Sherry Reynolds @Cascadia has called the phenomenon) was young men, fit and buff. Every example in the video demos fit on a continuum from Arnold Schwarzenegger to A-Rod. At the Q&A, I asked why there weren’t any women featured, either as companies’ marketers or in the consumer-user examples. The chaps were tongue-tied, and Stacey and I bonded at that moment and continue to be collegial friends and part of growing group of women-in-health-tech. (Update on Stacey: she’s now Chief of Google’s Wear OS, part of Google’s ever-morphing health team).

Fast forward to 2018, and Fitbit’s blog posted about women’s health tracking, using the words “menstruation,” “period,” and “sexual health.”

Well isn’t that what we call “real life” stuff?

How time is a tincture and retail health, well, a business recognizing that some demographics (like women committed to health, fitness, stress reduction, mental health promotion, and resilience) have money to spend on high-value and evidence-based products.

So welcome the Versa, one of many women-targeted health tools featured at CES 2019 that are getting real and impactful about women, tech and health. I’ve worn my Versa for about four months now: it’s my first smartwatch-health tracker, having been a decades-committed Skagen stainless steel band analog watch-wearer on my left wrist. On my right wrist, I’ve donned several Fitbit bands, and trackers from Garmin, Withings, Fossil, Jawbone, and others.

[As a sidebar, I’ve gifted all the devices I no longer use to Professor Lisa Gualtieri’s Recycle Health project at Tufts University. Lisa’s team cleans up the donated devices (stripping of data, etc.) and gifts them onto people in the Boston area who can use them. You can do the same with your old tech long stored in “that drawer” by getting a printed label on the Recycle Health website].

There’s more fashion embedded in technology each year at CES, with brands partnering and licensing their design ethos and personalities to many tech products. One of my personal favorites is Kate Spade, whom we lost in 2018 to suicide (which I covered here in Health Populi as my own sympathy post devoted to her and Anthony Bourdain, may they rest in peace). On a joyful note, Spade’s upbeat design sense lives on in 2019, featuring some adorable watches that track activity. This is among the first fashion brands to incorporate Google’s wearable device software, Wear OS. The watch can track heart rate, has GPS, and can make mobile payments using Google Pay.

Health tracking can cover a range of women’s health issues, nothing more intimate and emotionally powerful than fertility and baby-making. This demand has not gone unnoticed in the start-up and financing communities. In 2018, several direct-to-consumer fertility-tech companies garnered $million funding to begin commercializing and scaling their products.

The Ava Fertility Tracker 2.0 is one such innovator, raising a $30mm round of investment in mid-2018. This timing coincided with the announcement of Ava’s 10,000th birth for an Ava user. Ava was founded in Switzerland in 2014 and received the Best of Baby Tech Award at CES 2017. In 2019, the company launches Ava tracker 2.0. This new version replaces traditional basal temperature with pulse rate, skin temperature, and breathing to be more predictive about ovulation. The device runs $299 and bundles in online content and a one-year pregnancy guarantee.

Once pregnant, a woman’s best chance of having a healthy baby is borne out of good pre-natal care. Thanks to BabyScripts, a box of pre-natal goodness, women can self-care during the crucial nine months of fetal development. That box arrives in Mom’s mail and includes a WiFi enabled scale, a blood pressure monitor, an app and content with a warm and informative welcome message. Mom-generated data flows to a HIPAA-compliant platform which informs OB/GYNs about their patients’ progress. For low-risk mothers, BabyScripts can empower self-care and unneeded trips to the doctor. For the clinician, the program benefits workflow, patient engagement, and risk management. I met the co-founders, Anish and Juan Pablo, in 2014 when they were starting up, and since then the company has grown through fruitful partnerships with healthcare providers around the U.S. Babyscripts received a $6mm investment in November 2018 from Startup Health, NueCura, led by Philips whose Mother/Baby unit will partner with the company.

There’s a lot of Baby Tech at CES 2019, an entire track organized by Living in Digital Times. This is a $23 billion business, with 4 million babies born every year. The portfolio of products for baby boggles the mind: when my now-grown daughter was six months old, technology in her room was a baby monitor (walkie-talkie style) and a Diaper Genie (relatively new “tech” at the time). That was 1997. Two decades later, baby tech is app-ified, from tracking feeding and monitoring baby’s room and crib to cooking healthy food for little ones: smart pacifiers, smart baby bottles, GPS-embedded strollers, GPS-bracelets for security…bringing up baby has gotten smart-er.

But back to women, and managing everyday life. Women are their homes Chief Household Officers, balancing family, work, volunteer and community activities, friendships, self-health, and home-keeping. For this last and least-enjoyable life-flow, there are connected appliances to help make life easier and more streamlined for managing house tasks. The Roomba, the first such connected home appliance, is now in a mature category, with many competitors for robotic vacuuming. Room-by-room at home, there are offerings at CES ’19 to manage every kind of work-life flow: for cooking, cleaning, washing, drying, and even folding clothes. I met the Foldimate at CES 2018, and am very happy to see it’s back in 2019 and getting market traction. It’s still early days but if tech can help all of us, men and women, save time on home tasks, we can conserve time for family, friends, and alone time to just breathe and think.

Caregivers tend to be female, and they tend not to have that time to breathe and think: caregivers usually put those they care for first, including their pets (and yes, Pet Tech is also a growing category at CES). It’s encouraging to see that caregivers are called out in many marketing plans for innovations this year at CES. I was particularly keen to meet with folks working in the Stanley Black & Decker (SBD) Future Lab, who have developed the Pria, picture here.

Wait – “Stanley Black & Decker? Aren’t they the folks who make tools and the iconic Dustbuster handheld vacuum?” Yes, indeed. But the company also has a business-to-business reach into healthcare — namely hospitals for security. asset tracking, and climate control. That’s a twenty-year-old business. So it is natural for SBD to consider how to leverage B2B healthcare into the home, where the company has strong consumer brand equity.

Pria wears a lot of hats, as companion, weather forecaster, voice-activated encyclopedia, and first and foremost, medication dispenser. There are other medication management devices available, but Pria incorporates voice-activation that feels like an Amazon or Google assistant experience without the user having to share data beyond meds. The app allows caregivers to be part of the user’s care circle, along with pharmacies and clinicians.

Samsung comes to CES this year with several “bots,” including Bot Care to support caregiving. Bot Care has many uses, including medication management and adherence support, companionship, information channeling (for, say, healthy cooking, nutrition, and exercise), and other functions that make living and aging at home easier and safer. Here’s a short video on Bot Care to learn more.

Self-care is in short supply among women, who need to take time beyond caring for others. “Put your own gas mask on first” is sound advice for women, who can lead lives wearing so many hats. At CES this year, Procter & Gamble and their Life Lab attended CES as a supplier for the first time. Like Stanley Black & Decker, P&G has a strong consumer brand name, but the initials have never been confused with being a tech company. In the company’s Media Day presentation, I learned that their Life Lab was founded to innovate new products and enhancements to existing ones. They coined their session the “Consumer Experience Show” signifying the company was bringing their deep consumer market knowledge to bear while incorporating technology enhancements to well-known brands like Gillette (for shaving), Olay (for skin care), and Oral-B (for oral care). “We are innovating how we innovate,” they explained, through the Life Lab. Three innovations they presented were:

A new “warm” razor, giving the user the Old School barbershop + hot towel experience;

The Olay Skin Advisor asks, “what if you could get a personalized skin regimen with one selfie?” which uses the company’s proprietary VizID technology backed by AI and pinpointing personalized skin care routines to fit specific needs; and,

A new Oral-B Genius X toothbrush, recognizing your “personal brushing style” and providing real-time feedback that is meant to deliver better oral health to the user.

To come full circle, it’s encouraging to note that Gary Shapiro, President of the Consumer Technology Association, announced that CTA would invest $10 million in venture firms that support women and diverse leaders in technology. That’s a welcome commitment from the Association. Now, here’s a video from the first Women in Technology panel ever held at a CES, convened yesterday and sponsored by Lenovo and Intel.

  The post It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019 appeared first on HealthPopuli.com.

It’s Not All About Pink for Women’s Tech at CES 2019 posted first on http://dentistfortworth.blogspot.com