Volume 17, Issue 38 Atari Online News, Etc. October 9, 2015 Published and Copyright (c) 1999 - 2015 All Rights Reserved Atari Online News, Etc. A-ONE Online Magazine Dana P. Jacobson, Publisher/Managing Editor Joseph Mirando, Managing Editor Rob Mahlert, Associate Editor Atari Online News, Etc. Staff Dana P. Jacobson -- Editor Joe Mirando -- "People Are Talking" Michael Burkley -- "Unabashed Atariophile" Albert Dayes -- "CC: Classic Chips" Rob Mahlert -- Web site Thomas J. Andrews -- "Keeper of the Flame" With Contributions by: Fred Horvat Mathias Wittau To subscribe to A-ONE, change e-mail addresses, or unsubscribe, log on to our website at: www.atarinews.org and click on "Subscriptions". OR subscribe to A-ONE by sending a message to: dpj@atarinews.org and your address will be added to the distribution list. To unsubscribe from A-ONE, send the following: Unsubscribe A-ONE Please make sure that you include the same address that you used to subscribe from. To download A-ONE, set your browser bookmarks to one of the following sites: http://people.delphiforums.com/dpj/a-one.htm Now available: http://www.atarinews.org Visit the Atari Advantage Forum on Delphi! http://forums.delphiforums.com/atari/ =~=~=~= A-ONE #1738 10/09/15 ~ Google.com Bought: $12 ~ People Are Talking! ~ Firebee News! ~ Sony Cuts PS4 Price! ~ Facebook "Reactions"! ~ Is OS Really Secure? ~ Xbox Head: Beat Sony? ~ Firebee News Update! ~ The Surface Pro 4! -* Verizon Curbs Zombie Cookies *- -* Facebook Supercharges Like Button! *- -* Alphabet Can't Buy alphabet.com, Gets This *- =~=~=~= ->From the Editor's Keyboard "Saying it like it is!" """""""""""""""""""""""""" It's been another long and busy week - they keep flying by! The one thing that hasn't really been busy is the tech news - at least news that you and I might find interesting. The news we have for you this week has taken a slightly different direction than normal. Usually, some of the articles that we bring you deal with all kinds of "cybercrime" stories - hacking, security lapses, etc. But, we really didn't see that kind of news this week. Most of what we found deal with new products, updates, social media, and a few "related" aricles - nothing overly serious to be concerned about. I guess, for a change, that's a good thing! So, let's dive right into this week's issue and see what we've got for you this week! Until next time... =~=~=~= Firebee News By Mathias Wittau We reached 36 preorders now. So only 14 more orders are missing before we can go into production of this 2nd series! And in general, please everybody update the links to the new website http://firebee.org at your websites, blogs and other links. FireBee News Update By Fred Horvat Setting the FireBee up as a day to day machine has taken longer than expected. Partially due to time constraints and also to not used an Atari computer in almost 20 years as a main machine. Some things I just clearly forgot. Then I am not doing a single section at time like Web Browsing or Document handling separately but doing some from all the categories a little at a time. Hopefully next issue I will have a section ready to report to you. I am open to feedback and questions on my submissions to AONE. My E-mail Address is fmh (at) netzero.net Best place though for questions on the FireBee is at the FireBee section at Atari-Forum.com http://www.atari-forum.com/viewforum.php?f=92 More people can address questions there but I will answer any questions sent directly to me. Maybe I will include them in my AONE articles especially if they are corrections and useful tips. =~=~=~= ->In This Week's Gaming Section - Sony Cuts PlayStation 4 Price To Match Xbox One """"""""""""""""""""""""""""" Xbox Head: I Don't Know If We Can Beat Sony =~=~=~= ->A-ONE's Game Console Industry News - The Latest Gaming News! """""""""""""""""""""""""""""""""" Sony Cuts PlayStation 4 Price To Match Xbox One The PS4 drop to $350 in the United States and to 430 Canadian dollars in Canada starting Friday, according to Sony Computer Entertainment America (SCEA). "Our goal at PlayStation has always been to offer the best place to play at a compelling value to gamers," SCEA chief executive Shawn Layden said. While PS4 has led the market since its release two years ago, Microsoft recently began gaining ground with the release of Xbox One consoles with a reduced price of $350 because they come without Kinect motion-sensing accessories. Layden touted the pending releases of eagerly anticipated games including "Call of Duty: Black Ops III" and "Star Wars Battlefront" along with PS4-only blockbuster "Uncharted 4: A Thief's End." Game studios usually create versions of hot titles for both major consoles to cater to a broad audience of players. As performance differences between the two major video game consoles have narrowed, competition has focused increasingly on getting exclusive titles or early access to coveted games, as well as on price. Sony and Microsoft earlier this year introduced consoles with ramped-up storage space, playing into a trend of people downloading game software onto drives instead of buying disks. PS4 consoles trounced Xbox One after the new generation consoles hit the market in late 2013. Microsoft later lowered the price and increased the focus on game play, rather than features such as streaming films, and has begun narrowing the sales gap. Sony has shipped a total of 25.45 million PS4 consoles worldwide, while Microsoft has shipped 13.88 million Xbox One consoles, according to industry tracker VGChartz Network. Xbox Head: I Don't Know If We Can Beat Sony As this console generation nears two years-old, it's no secret that Xbox has spent the entirety of that time playing catch-up to PlayStation. Sony's platform started off with a huge lead in sales, and while Xbox may have closed the gap to some degree, PS4 still holds a sizable advantage. In fact, it's so large that Microsoft's top brass questions whether it can ever recover. At the recent GeekWire Summit, when asked whether Xbox One could beat PS4 this generation, Xbox boss Phil Spencer said "You know, I don't know. You know the length of the generation... [Sony has] a huge lead and they have a good product. I love the content, the games line-up that we have." Understandably, Spencer chalks a good chunk of the sales disparity up to losing consumer trust before the console ever launched. "I feel really good about the position and the product and the brand right now, but I was at the GameStop Manager's Meeting about three weeks ago and I'm sitting with 5,000 GameStop managers in Las Vegas and they'd come up and they still have customers that walk in the store that think that the Xbox One won't play used games." Spencer elaborated "Just to be clear, Xbox One has always played used games from day one. But that perception that gets set early on, because consumers have five seconds to internalise your brand and your message and then they move on. They're not going to spend time to read what we say afterwards. 'Oh Xbox One, that's that thing. If I want it I'll go buy it and if I don't I won't.' Regaining that trust and the mindshare with the customer, the gamer, is incredibly difficult." Reversing that mindset feeds directly into Xbox's ultimate goal these days: Gaining as many customers as it can. Spencer says that his team isn't even motivated by beating Sony anymore. According to him, it just wants to build a platform that's for the consumer, not for the people making it. He thinks that doing that will gain back that trust, which will, in turn, lead to more people adopting the Xbox One. =~=~=~= A-ONE's Headline News The Latest in Computer Technology News Compiled by: Dana P. Jacobson Verizon Curbs ‘Zombie Cookies,’ But They’ll Still Stalk You Last year privacy advocates discovered that Verizon has been inserting tracking codes into most of its mobile web traffic—so-called “zombie cookies.” Now the company plans to use those codes to target personalized ads served by AOL, which Verizon acquired earlier this year. But the company says it’s curbing the ability to use the codes beyond its corporate reach. The company revealed its plans yesterday in a privacy notice spotted by non-profit news outfit ProPublica. Typically, in order for a website to track its visitors it must leave a small file called a “cookie” on the user’s device. But cookies are tied to the user’s web browser. If they’re using a smart phone app instead of their web browser, it’s difficult to track that user. Plus users can block or delete these cookies. To get around this, Verizon inserts a code called a Unique Identifier Header (UIDH) into all unencrypted traffic that flows through its networks by default. That code was useable by any website owner or advertising network to which a user connects. Verizon didn’t promote UIDHs as a tool for other companies to use, but ProPublica has identified at least one advertising company, called Turn, that took advantage of them. Verizon now says it will soon stop inserting the unique identifier into all traffic, instead limiting its use to only Verizon-owned sites and the company’s partners, a company spokesperson told to WIRED today. “The UIDH will be sent only to Verizon companies, including AOL, and to a select set of other companies that help Verizon provide services,” Verizon’s chief privacy officer Karen Zacharia wrote in a blog post today. “These companies will not be allowed to use the UIDH for any purpose outside of providing the Verizon and AOL services.” While non-Verizon-linked third-party companies will no longer have access to the identifiers, news that AOL will begin using them means that they’re not going away any time soon, and may even see more widespread use than before. AOL’s ads appear on many sites across the web, not just on sites owned by AOL, such as the Huffington Post. Whether those identifiers actually help AOL serve better performing ads than, say, Google remains to be seen, but the strategy is clear. By limiting which companies can access these unique identifiers, Verizon is giving itself and its partners an edge: no other company will be able to target ads to Verizon’s large base of mobile internet customers in quite the same way. We normally think of our Internet service providers as providing essentially dumb pipes that carry data back and forth without manipulating it. But as companies like Google and Facebook have minted fortunes off those pipes, ISPs are trying to find new ways to make money off the information that passes through their infrastructure. That’s why Verizon bought AOL in the first place, and it’s why it’s launching things like a new streaming video service. The question as to how and when an Internet service provider can use or manipulate the data it handles are only going to become more important as Google and Facebook become Internet service providers themselves through initiatives like Google Fiber and Internet.org. Verizon promised earlier this year that it would allow customers to opt out of the tracking code program. This Secure Operating System Can Protect You Even if You Get Hacked Hackers, Government Agencies and sophisticated malware, are collecting every piece of Digital data that we transmit through our Computers, Smartphones or Internet-enabled Gadgets. No matter how secure you think you might be, something malicious can always happen. Because, "With the right tools and Talent, a Computer is an open book." Many people ask, How to stay safe and secure online? And, Answer is... ...Knowledge of Cyber threats, little Smartness and a Secure Operating System. Nearly every Operating System is designed with Security as a requirement, but believe me… there can't be a truly Secure Operating System. If you are Interested in Security and Hacking, you have probably already heard of various security-focused Operating Systems like Tails, Whonix and Kali Linux. All these operating systems, including Windows, Linux, BSD, even OSX, are all based on a Monolithic Kernels, and it requires just one successful Kernel Exploit to hack the whole system. So, a reasonably secure operating system is one that keeps all crucial elements and activities isolated from each other. Introducing… Qubes OS, "Security by Isolation." Qubes OS is a Linux based security-oriented and open-source operating system for personal computers, which runs everything inside the virtual machines. Its visualization mechanism follows ‘Security by Isolation’ (Software Compartmentalization) principle to secure the systems, i.e. enabling the Principle of least privileges. So, If you are a victim of a malicious cyber attack, doesn't let an attacker take over your entire computer. Last week, the team at Invisible Things Project has announced the official release of Qubes 3.0 (Version 3), which is now based on Hypervisor Abstraction Layer (HAL), Xen 4.4 virtualization technology and supports Debian Linux. Qubes is often misunderstood as a Linux distribution, but instead it can be called as Xen distribution. Xen is a Native or Bare-Metal Hypervisor that uses a microkernel framework and offer services that allow multiple operating systems to execute on the same computer hardware simultaneously. A Hypervisor is a computer software, firmware or hardware that allows multiple operating systems to share a single hardware host, where: Each operating system appears to have the host's processor, memory, and other resources all to itself. A Hypervisor is of two types, Native/Bare Metal and Hosted Hypervisor; with one running directly on the system hardware and hosting Guest OS and other runs within a Host OS and Hosts Guest OS inside it respectively. The native/bare metal hypervisor is considered as the Pure Hypervisor as it promises security compartmentalization, reliability and higher security. Similarly, Xen Hypervisor handles memory management and CPU scheduling of all virtual machines ("domains"), and for launching the most privileged domain ("dom0"). ‘dom0’ i.e. Domain Zero, is the control domain of the Xen Hypervisor that has direct access to hardware. Like Xen, Qubes works in a similar manner by: Enabling execution of each separate component in its window environment on the same screen. Also, you can view and use each active "window" much like how Linux allows you to open many windows on one desktop screen. By using Xen Hypervisor, Qubes has tightened the security of a system, as for an attacker, he must be capable of destructing the hypervisor itself in order to compromise the entire system, which is hard task to achieve. “It is like using a VMware server with multiple guest OSes,” explained Joanna Rutkowska, founder and CEO of Invisible Things Lab. Further, it supports all the operating system environment like: Microsoft Windows Linux distributions Whonix Whonix is another security focused Linux-based operating system (Debian); it is capable of providing privacy, security and anonymity on the internet. It enforces only Tor-based communication and allows Qubes users to connect to the Internet via a more secure anonymity-focused VM. The team sitting at the ‘Invisible Things Project’ with the release of Qubes 3.0 are focussing on its successor, and they have already planned the maturing of the next version by the end of October. Doesn’t sound so great does it? Moreover, they have also given what features are going to support Qubes 3.1, and they are: UEFI support Live USB Edition Management/pre-configuration stack: The Big Killer Feature of the upcoming 3.1 release, which will make it easy to provide out of the box configurations for things such as: out of the box Whonix/Tor, or Split GPG, or default USB sandboxing VM, which currently the user must do manually. Finally, If We See, Why do we need Qubes? Answer is: ‘Security Isolation.' As Qubes allows various segments of your daily digital activities to run separately through virtualization. With virtualization comes security isolation, where each activity runs on an isolated different and unique virtual machine (VM). Why "Security Isolation"? Answer is: When on a single physical device, different instances (VMs) of varied activities are maintained, therefore this allows increased security- as on occurrence of an intrusion only the unique VM gets compromised without affecting the Host and other VMs. Security isolation or software compartmentalization allows shielding from the cyber attacks, as when they hit you, your complete digital life goes topsy-turvy. The architecture itself is set up to protect you as well, but Qubes OS is best for proactive users who don't mind doing a bit of work to set up a secure environment. This Guy Bought Google.com for $12 Anyone who's tried to buy a website recently knows how difficult it is to get a really good .com name. Former Googler Sanmay Ved struck gold Tuesday when he was able to purchase one of the most recognizable domain names on the Internet - Google.com - from Google Domains, not for billions or millions or even hundreds of dollars, but just $12. Ved published a blog post on LinkedIn Pulse on Tuesday outlining the experience, showing proof that his Discover credit card was charged the $12 fee. He also received emails from two automated Google.com email addresses, which he said is further indication of his successful purchase. Ved said he has used Google Domains to purchase and register domain names in the past, and hadn't received emails from those addresses for those purchases. Ved said he started to get webmaster-related messages intended for the Google.com domain name in his Google Search Console, Google's webmaster toolkit that provides messages and other tools site owners need to maintain their website. Ved's ownership of Google.com was short-lived, however, he said, as he received a notice a short time later that his order had been cancelled. Google was able to quickly and successfully re-secure Google.com because it owns Google Domains, but it might have been a headache for the company otherwise. It's unclear exactly what made Ved's purchase possible, but he told CNET's Crave blog that Google is investigating. Google declined to comment on this story. This isn't the first such high-profile purchase we've seen. Microsoft had a similar problem in 2003 when it lost the hotmail.co.uk website, though the person who bought it reached out to Microsoft and returned the domain name the same day. Ved previously held positions at Google as a display specialist and account strategist, according to his LinkedIn profile, which also says he worked in online media sales. Ved's post mentions that Google's Security Team acknowledged the incident in response to a message Ved sent the company after the purchase went through. Microsoft Unveils Its First Laptop, The Surface Pro 4 Microsoft is back in a big way. The company that was once about as hip as your father’s geriatric accountant has just taken the wraps off of a gaggle of cool new gadgets. So impressive, in fact, they might just cause Apple’s Tim Cook to lose sleep. Let’s start with the big news: Microsoft is making its very first laptop … kind of. Called the Surface Book, this 3.34-pound Windows 10 laptop features a 13.5-inch display with a ridiculously high 3,000 x 2,000 pixel resolution. That means images and videos will look incredibly crisp. And if you just want to relax and watch a movie, you can pop that big, beautiful 1.6-pound display right off of its 1.7-pound keyboard base and hold it in your hands. That’s because the Surface Book is not really a pure laptop, it’s laptop-tablet hybrid. Semantics aside, Microsoft says the Surface Book will be an absolute powerhouse. It comes with Intel’s latest 6th-generation Core i-series processors, and can be equipped with up to 16GB of RAM. Inside the keyboard base, Microsoft has outfitted the Surface Book with your choice of a standard Intel graphics chip or a high-powered Nvidia chip. When you plug the Surface Book into the base, you should be able to run graphic-intensive programs like video editors and even play some high-end games. The Surface Book won’t be cheap, though. A base model will set you back $1,500 when it goes on sale Oct. 26th, or $200 more expensive than a similarly configured MacBook Pro. That said, with its detachable keyboard and the ability to use Microsoft’s new Surface Pen with the Book (more on that later), it might be worth it. In addition to the Surface Book, Microsoft also unveiled its new Windows 10-powered Surface Pro 4. Billed as the tablet designed to replace your laptop (as long as that laptop isn’t a Surface Book), the Surface Pro 4 comes with a larger 12.3-inch display, up from 12 inches, and Intel’s latest 6th-generation Core M and i-series processors. Despite its increased screen size, Microsoft actually managed to shrink the 1.63-pound Surface Pro 4’s footprint, albeit ever so slightly. The Surface Pro 4 also gets a new Type Cover keyboard, with improved backlit keys, a more responsive touchpad, and a fingerprint reader. Like the Surface Book, the Surface Pro 4 can also use Microsoft’s new Surface Pen. The stylus offers 1,024 levels of pressure sensitivity, which means it can sense when you are writing with a light touch and when you are really pushing down hard. Microsoft also said that the Surface Pen’s battery will last a whopping 1 year before giving up the ghost. The Surface Pro 4 hits also stores Oct. 26th and starts at $899. Alphabet Couldn't Buy Alphabet.com, So It Got This Instead Alphabet has acquired the domain abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com since it could not buy the already registered domains alphabet.com or abc.com.The company already owns the domain abc.xyz. Google recently became the subsidiary of Alphabet and its Wall Street debut had the domain abc.xyz. However, since Alphabet could not purchase the already registered domains alphabet.com (owned by BMW) and abc.com (owned by Walt Disney Company's ABC Television Network), it did the next best thing possible and went for a URL that would be in alignment with the company's identity. Alphabet has acquired the domain abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com. This domain was created in 1999 per Whois and was privately owned. The company already owns the ABC.xyz domain, which Google revealed in August when it made the Alphabet announcement. However, not content with just one domain, Alphabet decided to cover all the bases and have a domain name with the entire alphabet. The new domain's purchase was confirmed by Alphabet. "We realized we missed a few letters in abc.xyz, so we're just being thorough," explained a spokesperson for Google. So now Alphabet owns the 26-letter domain name. The new URL was espied by DomainInvesting.com who spotted it in Whois records. It is not known how much the company shelled out for the privately-owned URL's transfer. Currently, navigating to the URL leads one to an inactive website. Experts are of the opinion that Alphabet possibly made abcdefghijklmnopqrstuvwxyz.com's purchase to stop the likes of Facebook and Apple from acquiring the domain - a defensive move so others could not snap up the domain name. It is a common practice among many companies to purchase related URL names, so that in the event people misspell the domain name they are navigated to the correct site belonging to the company. For instance, Alphabet not only owns Google.com, but also Gogle.com and Googl.com. If the two incorrect spellings are typed, one is automatically redirected to Google.com. The defensive buying is also common and it is for that purpose Alphabet also owns the domain name GoogleSucks.com. Traffic to this URL is forwarded to Google.com. With Reactions, Facebook Supercharges The Like Button With 6 Empathetic Emoji In September, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg made some waves when he hinted Facebook was working on a way to expand its famous Like button — not by adding the much-fabled “dislike” option, but by making it way more empathetic, expressing sadness and other emotions. Today, Facebook is taking the wraps off what form the new Like may take. It is rolling out “Reactions,” a new set of six emoji that will sit alongside the original thumbs-up to let users quickly respond with love, laughter, happiness, shock, sadness and anger. Facebook tells us that the pop-up feature will first start out as a test in two markets only, Spain and Ireland, before it decides whether to tweak it and/or how to roll it out further. (The reason for those two countries? Adam Mosseri, Facebook’s director of product, says it’s because both have largely national user bases without extensive international friend networks, so they work better as closed test groups. Ireland is English speaking, while Spain lets Facebook test out how well the wordless emoji play with non-English users.) Having more reactive set of emoji might sound familiar to you. In the wake of reports that Facebook was working on a “dislike” button in September, our resident Facebook whisperer Josh Constine suggested that Facebook might instead work on a small selection of emoji to convey a more nuanced set of responses. It turned out that Facebook had even filed a patent for how such an emoji response feature might work and look. (Those pointers appeared to be spot-on.) More generally, a small set of reactive emoji is definitely not an unfamiliar interface for online users: social networks like Path and sites like Buzzfeed already give users the ability to respond to posts with different reactions beyond simple likes and faves. Screen Shot 2015-10-07 at 17.18.42The new set of reactions will appear across both mobile and desktop versions of the app and on all posts in the News Feed — be they from friends, Pages/accounts you follow, or advertisers. At this point, there are no plans to put them into Messenger or other Facebook-owned products, Mosseri tells me. (Although you could see how this would make a lot of sense in a product like Instagram, too, for example.) The reactions will work simply enough. On mobile, the emoji will come up when you touch the like button on your screen; on desktop they will come up as you hover the mouse over the like or click on it. Facebook’s move to add in the emoji come from a few different challenges and trends that the social network was noticing. First, there was the basic demand that users were making of Facebook to provide more than just a simple like. Sometimes a thumbs-up simply isn’t the quick response that you are looking for, if the news in question is shocking in a bad way for example. Then there is the issue of people interacting on mobile devices. Mobile is increasingly the default platform for more and more Facebook users, so the fact that some people don’t like to spend time tapping out responses on mobile handsets is an important thing to address for a social network that very much relies on user engagement to work as a business. Mosseri says that some people were already using Stickers as a wordless way of registering their responses, but this will give them a quicker way to do this. “Typing on mobile is difficult,” Mosseri says, “and this is way easier than finding a sticker or emoji to respond to in the feed.” Offering different emoji will also mean that Facebook will start to tally and show those different responses: so, just as today you see how many people and who Liked a post, now you will see which people loved it, or found it surprising, or sad, and so on. For Page owners and publishers, this data collection will also eventually make its way to Facebook’s analytics dashboard. So, just as today social media managers can monitor shares and likes of certain posts, they will be able to now get more granular data about how people are emotionally responding to content on the social network, which should also help Facebook in its bigger play for selling advertising and simply getting more relevant content to users. Mosseri says that just as with the Like button or with comments overall, once these do come to your feed, you will be stuck with them — no option to turn off responses as publishers sometimes do with comments on articles in websites. Giving users the option to turn off the emoji was “somethng we considered”, Mosseri said, but they decided against it. “If you think about the user experience first, that option could become confusing, with people thinking something was broken instead.” Facebook Reactions Are Here, And They're Worse Than We Feared I can see why Mark Zuckerberg thought Facebook Reactions were a good idea. Worn down by years of users asking him why there was no to "dislike" things on Facebook, he finally saw a way to give them an alternative to the Like button without turning Facebook into Reddit, where posts live and die based on how many upvotes or downvotes they get. The answer: Facebook Reactions, a strip of emoji that appear when you either hover (desktop) or long-press (mobile) the Like button. Comprising emoji that represent Like, Love, Haha, Yay, Wow, Sad and Angry, Reactions allow a user to quickly respond to a Facebook post with something other than a Like. Now, instead of "liking" a sad status update, you can respond with a sentiment that feels a little more appropriate. Zuckerberg says Facebook Reactions are about letting people express empathy, and I believe him, but it's likely only part of the impetus. You see, Facebook's News Feed is algorithmically driven to surface the posts with the most engagement, and one of the key factors it looks at is Likes. The thing is, people tend not to Like difficult things, even though engagement (through commenting, time spent, etc.) on such a post might be otherwise high. The News Feed algorithm compensates for this in various ways, of course, but it would be much neater if only it could look at some similar metric for those non-Likeable posts. Enter Reactions, which seems tailor-made to solve this problem. Over time, as people get used to the emoji and begin "Yaying," "Wowing" and "Sadding" various posts, Facebook will get better guidance for the News Feed, and users get more choice in how to interact with what they see. Everybody wins, right? Today we're launching a test of Reactions — a more expressive Like button. The Like button has been a part of... Posted by Mark Zuckerberg on Thursday, October 8, 2015 What looks good on the Menlo Park whiteboard, however, doesn't always jibe with the real world, and we're already starting to see social-politics issues arise now that Reactions has begun to roll out to a couple of regions. Reacting badly Right off the bat, it's clear that sarcastic Reactions are going to be a thing. A post highlighting a recent John Oliver segment about pumpkin spice lattes garnered at least one Angry reaction, which is either from a really passionate latte drinker or someone who just thinks he's funny (I suspect the latter). johnoliver It's not a big leap from there to Sad reactions to pet or baby pictures and Yay-ing complaints of first-world problems. I'm calling it now: When this rolls out to Pages (as it's supposed to), for brands, sarcastic Reactions will be the new "bashtagging." Then there's the hot button: Angry. Then there's the hot button: Angry. I understand the motivation for including it. People share stories about various injustices (public and personal) all the time on Facebook, and anger is an appropriate emotion for those. But outside of those contexts, it's a one-click recipe for cyberbullying. What happens the first time an ex reacts with Angry on a post where their former partner is celebrating finding new love? At what point do the courts start pointing to Angry reactions on Facebook to prove someone was behaving in a threatening manner? As a user experience, though, the social politics of Reactions isn't even the main problem. It's that they offer too much choice. Time and again it's been shown that if you offer users too much choice, they simply won't make one. (Facebook has even seen this itself: Disaster-relief donations from its Donate Now button spiked when they stopped asking users to select specific amounts and organizations.) And for serious issues, Facebook's Reactions still don't feel right. Does it make sense to compress the nuanced feelings you may have about, say, the Syrian refugee crisis into a goofy-looking yellow face with a teardrop on one eye? Is that kind of drive-by reacting really any better than just not leaving any reaction at all? If you really care about the issue, leaving a comment — even a short one — feels far more appropriate. Feeling it out In the end, Facebook Reactions strikes me as an imperfect solution to a problem that's largely created by a desire for better analytics. And I don't mean to use the word dismissively. Analytics aren't just for engineers and marketers — we all want to see "engagement" on our posts, even when we post something sad or troubling. That engagement, though, doesn't always lend itself to short, one-click solutions. Facebook Reactions' heart is in the right place: The feature is trying to change a bland, binary choice into a rich experience that better reflects our feelings, but the emotion it'll probably end up inspiring most is ambivalence. =~=~=~= Atari Online News, Etc. is a weekly publication covering the entire Atari community. Reprint permission is granted, unless otherwise noted at the beginning of any article, to Atari user groups and not for profit publications only under the following terms: articles must remain unedited and include the issue number and author at the top of each article reprinted. Other reprints granted upon approval of request. Send requests to: dpj@atarinews.org No issue of Atari Online News, Etc. may be included on any commercial media, nor uploaded or transmitted to any commercial online service or internet site, in whole or in part, by any agent or means, without the expressed consent or permission from the Publisher or Editor of Atari Online News, Etc. Opinions presented herein are those of the individual authors and do not necessarily reflect those of the staff, or of the publishers. All material herein is believed to be accurate at the time of publishing.