It's sort of hard to explain what Nintendo's first app, Miitomo, actually is. It's kind of a game, but it's kind of not. It's kind of a social network, but not really. But all the way through it screams "Nintendo."

If you've played any Nintendo product since the Wii, you'll know what a Mii is. A Mii is Nintendo's customizable character model that you create on their systems to represent you in certain games. Miitomo is sort of Nintendo testing the waters by opening their network up to mobile. There isn't really a point to it, but it's still a fun thing to check daily. It lets you create Miis, buy clothes with Miitomo Coins, add friends from various social networks, take pictures (or Miifotos), and most importantly, answer questions.

Yes, Nintendo's first mobile app revolves around answering questions. I'm a little concerned about this being their main selling point, here. Especially considering you can't even think of the questions to ask, yourself, like Ask.fm or Tumblr. What Miitomo does is generate questions, (Think: "What is your favorite food?" or "Do you recommend any TV shows lately?") and asks you them. Your answers to these questions are then displayed for your friends to see, and they can like or comment on them. It's fun, for a bit, but kind of gets old. Something that makes Miitomo more entertaining is that there is a voice synthesizer that speaks all of the things different Miis say. The voices are customizable so each Mii sounds different. Besides this, they have a few games. They're all "Miitomo Drop" where you try to win prizes, though.

The app experience is laggy at best. When you change screens, there's always a few second loading delay before it actually switches. I don't know why this is, other than Nintendo trying to emulate the experience on its consoles. (Burn!) Besides changing screens, the 3D elements are very well done. They're smooth on my Nexus 6P and actually look very nice. I would love for them to have done more with this, other than a static room and Miis. Animal Crossing or an actual game would be amazing using these kinds of graphics on mobile.

Despite all of its flaws, Miitomo has a certain charm to it that makes me nearly forgive them. Even though the app has flaws, it does feel polished. There are a ton of outfits, positions, expressions, and possibilities. If anything, I'd download it and play with it. It's free, and it's fun. It isn't going to be a craze or something that will even be relevant a year from now, but it's still enjoyable.

I talked about the FBI attempting to force Apple to unlock their iPhone for them, but now it seems like the FBI doesn't need that anymore. That's because they've allegedly hacked the encryption on the iPhone themselves, and are already agreeing to help Arkansas prosecutors hack their iPhone as well. While we don't know exactly how the FBI hacked the iPhone, we do know one thing. If it can be done to one, it can be done to them all. Most people aren't against the government having the ability to get into their homes if they're breaking the law (and for probable reason) but this isn't just one phone. Imagine the government making a master key that can unlock every person's house door. What if it got stolen? What if a corrupt official were to use it without probable cause? These kinds of questions are what are being raised about the technique the FBI used to hack the iPhone.

Not only is this bad news for us, but it's also bad news for Apple. Now there is a security issue in their phones, which can cause people to not buy them. This is the government directly getting in the way of free enterprise. If the government keeps this all-access key instead of giving it up to Apple to fix, I can only see Apple retaliating. For a country that is so lucky to have so many tech giants' headquarters reside, it sure is odd that our government is so against technological progress.

Thankfully, the government probably won't have use for this vulnerability for much longer. Since it's almost inevitable that an exploit like this will not stay a secret, it will eventually get leaked and make its way back to Apple. Still, when so many iPhones will stay in evidence, unupdated, it begs the question of just how many iPhones local and federal governments will have access to.

Those who would give up essential Liberty, to purchase a little temporary Safety, deserve neither Liberty nor Safety.  - Benjamin Franklin

Image source: Forbes 

Today the "YouTube for sounds" service SoundCloud announced the launch of SoundCloud Go, a subscription service which unlocks many tunes from big-name labels and offline storage. Having tried it, I'm completely underwhelmed. I love SoundCloud as a service, I really do. It is my go-to platform to discover new music. And while Go is a good effort, its implementation falls short.

For $9.99 or $12.99 a month, it's hard to not compare to Spotify or other big name music streaming services. After all, it's the same price. But what you're getting isn't the same value. I love SoundCloud for its collection of unique indie artists, and that's there whether I have Go or not. Go is supposed to add licensed music from big-name labels, but it doesn't. Searching for the likes of Lady Gaga, Katy Perry, or any other superstar artist just doesn't pull up any real results. Go results are in their own separate page when you search so it's easy to distinguish, but it's almost never what I'm looking for. The organization of the songs is random at best, sometimes putting covers or tributes ahead of the actual music. Forget artist or album pages, too. When I first saw Go on the SoundCloud homepage this morning, I was hoping SoundCloud could do something YouTube is still struggling to do. Find a happy medium between user generated content and licensed music. I was let down hard.

Sure, you get an ad-free experience and the ability to download tracks, but that's hardly worth $9.99/month. If they implemented this licensed music functionality in a decent manner and added more organization tools, and signed up more labels, and bundled their Pro features, then and only then it might be worth the price tag.

Like I said, I love SoundCloud. I just wish they would stop limiting themselves and try to become a real contender. This half-baked implementation of a Spotify-esque streaming system just shows that SoundCloud needs to get its act together. There have been many rumors circulating of SoundCloud losing huge amounts of money, which doesn't surprise me. Their only ways of income are ads and pro sales. (And now Go sales.) But paying off record labels so they don't sue and the cost for hosting music is crushing them. Unfortunately, the only solution to this is a paid tier that doesn't, well, suck.

Sources: SoundCloud, Engadget

A few days ago, Apple's event shocked millions with more amazing innovation. Just kidding. Apple's "Let us loop you in" press event was a failure of the highest caliber. First of all, they announced the iPhone 4—I mean, the iPhone SE. No doubt you've heard of it, with every iPhone Apple announces making national news due to the exclusivity of its platform. Nevertheless, design-wise, the phone is reverting Apple back to 2010. Sure, it updated it with Touch ID and some new specs, but who cares? In an ever-evolving smartphone world, companies should be trying to be new and innovative, not going back to six years ago. Coupled with this, Apple announced the iPad Pro, something literally everyone was expecting. It's a bigger iPad. That's basically it.

Apple has shown in the last few years to not be a pursuer of innovation, but one of greed. Apple knows that it can release and re-release whatever it wants and it will not suffer a significant loss in sales. And when it does take chances, say, with the Macbook, it's a massive failure. Near-mobile specs and thinness that sacrifices usefulness? Yeah, that sounds like a great laptop. But with Apple's demographic, as long as it comes in a pretty color and boasts a new "thinness" nobody will care. Why is this?

Apple's advertising and brand revolves around the "magic" of "it just works." Apple hides its specs behind buzzwords such as "Retina" which causes users to become too trusting in the brand. When Apple is "magic" and other brands are "nerdy tech" it isn't a competition between what phone is better. It doesn't matter if one phone has the processing power of four iPhones, as long as Apple can say it has the "The most advanced chip ever in a smartphone," the vast majority of consumers will not care. Apple knows all of this and exploits this. It uses this as an excuse to not innovate. 3D touch was a cool concept, but in practice, nothing more than a novelty. I think that in the past few years not only has Apple been lacking in innovation, but it has become a one trick pony.

I have no doubt the iPhone SE and the iPad Pro will sell like hot cakes. That's the kind of consumers Apple panders to. I just hope that Apple will see that it doesn't have to use repeat designs and uninnovative tactics. You're one of the biggest tech companies in the world! Do something with what you have.

Microsoft, in an effort to further AI research (?) released a Twitter AI yesterday, and within 24 hours it was taken offline by Microsoft for becoming racist, offensive, and Hitler-loving. After all, what can Microsoft expect, releasing a teenage chat bot upon Twitter? Tay's websites says that Tay is intended for "18 to 24 year olds in the U.S., the dominant users of mobile social chat services in the US."

TayTweets, or Tay.ai, learns from interactions with other users when they mention her or DM her. Bots like this have been around on Twitter forever, but this is the first time I've ever seen where a bot this sophisticated has been released to the masses to receive such a huge audience. It replied to 96,000 tweets in just under a day. 96,000 human interactions that each influence Tay.

Now, here's where the problem is. When you create a chat bot with no filter and release it on the Internet, you can't expect great results. The bot began to tweet the N word, saying it hates feminists, and basically turned into a Nazi. AI is complex, and currently our technology is not strong enough to provide it a sense of morality or prejudice. Tay learned from what people told it, and if people told it bad things, it would repeat them.  When I say Tay was taken offline, I don't mean she was deleted. She made a tweet saying she was going to sleep, presumably so the AI engineers could work out this PR disaster in the making.

But what's really amazing about this whole thing is how realistic Tay's responses were. If I didn't know anything about Tay and I glanced at its profile, I would think it was an actual teen. It uses all lowercase, uses emojis, slang, everything. It could hold a real conversation and give responses that made logical sense, albeit sometimes a bit odd. I hope Tay comes back online with some improvements in order to stop it from learning prejudice things, but over-all it's incredible to me how much Tay learned in just under a day. If Tay was up for a week, or a month, I could only imagine how realistic Tay could become.

Source: Twitter

A lot of people see programming as a very mathematical and logic-oriented field, and while this is true, there is a whole other aspect to it. To be a programmer, you need creativity and ideas. I think it's more important to have perseverance and strong ideas than be good at math or logic.

This year I really started getting into learning actual programming. Previously, I had only been interested in HTML and CSS, which are markup languages. Basically, you code how things look. It does not actually do much of anything. There is no logic or processing. This year, with my computer science course, I've learned Python and am starting to learn Java. There is a huge difference between a markup language and a programming language. Programming languages allow for user input to solve a problem. Solving problems is what programmers do.

When I started learning Python, I loved the problem solving aspect the most. You have to think of creative ways to get around problems with your code. Not every problem has the same solution, and there are multiple ways to get around the same problem. Code is personalized, not robotic.

I started programming a simple Android app earlier this year and had many problems along the way. I wanted something that could be useful in everyday life. When I began, I had no idea what I was doing. I didn't know Java. I didn't know XML. But the ability to learn and Google my problems let me get through making most of my app. Eventually though, I got to a problem that I just couldn't solve. That's when I realized I needed more knowledge of Java. So while I'm currently learning Java, I'm beginning to understand more and more about the language and about programming as a whole. In the end, it's for the user. And I think a good programmer should know that to create a good program, it has to have the user in mind. I think this is why certain software (Linux) doesn't reach mainstream success. It is not focused on the end-user. Design, creativity, and problem solving are the main aspects of a good programmer in my opinion.

I hate math class, and I feel like programming is wrongly equated to mathematics. You do have to have some math knowledge, but the amount of math you use compared to problem solving and creativity is minute. Think of all of the experiences you have had with technology. All of those experiences were made possible by programmers. Your Twitter, YouTube, Facebook. It takes one great idea and perseverance to become a successful programmer.