Donald Trump was elected on a pledge to bring more jobs to more Americans. He pitched his deal-making skills as the key to job growth.
But anyone who has been paying close attention to the economy for the last 20 years knows that those jobs are not going to come from traditional manufacturing. Since 2000, America has lost 5 million manufacturing jobs, and there’s little to nothing Trump can do to bring those jobs back. No amount of tariffs or tough talk on trade is going to make American manufacturing cheaper than foreign manufacturing; like it or not, we are living in a global economy.
Although the majority of the tech industry (aside from Peter Thiel) completely rejected Trump’s candidacy, Trump’s presidency could present it with a golden opportunity. As the future of employment skews largely digital, the tech industry must now step up and show how technology can generate a more expansive economy, creating more, better jobs in the coming years.
Technology innovations have always spurred our economy in the past. From a recent article in the San Francisco Chronicle :
“In the 1950s, average annual GDP growth topped 7 percent, thanks to a booming population and robust automobile sales. From 1996 to 2000, GDP grew at about a 4 percent clip, fueled by personal computers and the Internet; in the 2000s, the best performance came in 2004, when broadband connections started taking hold.”
Recent tech innovations have focused on the consumer experience or making small improvements to existing technologies. The personal enterprise economy is booming thanks to companies like Uber, Airbnb and Thumbtack supporting a vital new period of entrepreneurship. This is critical growth, but we can do even more.
Technology is far more than just cool apps and gadgets. President-elect Trump has proposed spending $550 billion to improve our nation’s infrastructure. Here is a chance for the author of The Art of The Deal to put his skills to work for an FDR-inspired new deal. The tech industry should be front and center in all of these discussions.
We don’t need to just rebuild our crumbling roads and bridges; we need to make them smarter. Sensors and video analytics could help move traffic more efficiently and tell when roads need to be repaired, and solar panels could be embedded in the “pavement” itself. The sensors could also pave the way for driverless cars, which would cut down on traffic accidents and take more emissions-spewing vehicles off the road.
Building new apps to analyze water-use data could go a long way toward helping deal with droughts in the southern part of the U. S. and help engineers build smarter water transportation systems.
Our electrical grid needs a major overhaul, and technology could help make electricity move more efficiently. Although the President-elect hasn’t promoted renewable energy, it’s a growing market, and technology can come up with better ways to move energy to big cities (that need more energy) from places where it may be very sunny (for solar) or windy (for wind power).
We also must improve our telecommunications networks, an often-forgotten but critical part of our national infrastructure. It’s the foundation upon which innovation occurs. Whether we’re talking about building gigabit fiber networks across broad swaths of the country or unleashing vast amounts of spectrum to fuel ongoing mobile growth, we must modernize our communications infrastructure to keep pace with constantly accelerating demand.
By incorporating tech into these plans, the new president could create thousands of new jobs for groups that expand beyond coders and software engineers in cities and towns outside of Silicon Valley and Austin. We can employ construction workers, civil engineers, architects and countless others to help rebuild America.
But in order to do this we need to realign our values with those of all Americans, no matter where they live. That means that politicians have to listen to leaders from the technology world and include them at as many tables as possible. And the tech industry needs to work with elected officials and regulators to assuage their fears about job-killing technologies. Government needs to avoid the urge to over-regulate the tech industry and destroy job-creating companies. But the tech industry also needs to make sure it’s working with government to create common-sense regulations that can help protect consumers and workers.
This challenge creates the opportunity for tech and government to work hand in hand to deliver on the bold promises and potential of technology. This is a new deal we must get done together.

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As someone who considers themselves to be into meditation, I don’t meditate very often. I’ve had Headspace on my phone for over a year at this point, but I’ve probably used it fewer than 20 times. In the last couple of days, I’ve been trying out a recently launched meditation app for iOS called Aura.
Aura’s bread and butter is short, three-to-seven-minute meditations based on your current mood — be that stressed, anxious, happy or sad. Other meditation apps tend to focus on longer, at least 10-minute-long meditations. Aura also collects data around demographics and age to better understand what types of meditations certain people are looking for.
“We’re trying to build intelligence around how to make people happier,” Aura Health co-founder and CEO Steve Lee told me. “Most people really have a hard time forming a habit around meditation and building a foundation for that. We’re playing around with the shortest possible amount of effort it takes to make it a habit while receiving the benefits of meditation.”
Aura is free to use if you’re just into one, three-minute meditation a day. Premium users, who pay $12.99 a month or $7.92 a month if they buy the full year in advance, get access to seven-minute meditations and can access them more than once a day.
There are currently about 200 meditations available, which Aura Health serves up to you based on the mood you say you’re in.
“We’re fundamentally an intelligence company,” Aura Health co-founder Daniel Lee said. “We’re leveraging machine learning to personalize every session for users.”
Aura Health is currently bootstrapped, but the company says it’s open to raising funding in the future. Other companies in the space, like Headspace and Calm, are pretty well funded. Headspace has raised over $30 million and Calm has raised $1.5 million.

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Three days ago, OnePlus released another preview of its Android 7.0 update. Like its other beta releases, the latest one was exclusively available for the 3 — but with no sign of a preview for the 3T, and with only a few days of the year remaining, it seemed very unlikely that the company would fulfill its promise to begin upgrading both handsets to Nougat by the end of 2016.
But in the last few hours of the year, OnePlus said that it had begun rolling out OxygenOS 4.0, based on Android 7.0 Nougat, to both the 3 and the 3T. The firm’s list of key improvements for both flagship-class handsets is identical:
OnePlus says that its over-the-air update will be «incremental», reaching a small percentage of users initially, before a broader rollout begins «in a few days».
As the company had previously warned, if you’ve been running one of the preview builds on your OnePlus 3, you’ll have to reset your handset and wipe its data to be able to install the official, non-preview release of OxygenOS 4.0.
Source: OTA update details for OnePlus 3 / OnePlus 3T

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There are millions of people around the world on the Windows Insider Program , helping Microsoft to test previews of Windows 10, and suggesting improvements and new features — many of which are then developed and integrated into updates for the hundreds of millions of devices running the OS. But the company is keen to develop the program further, making it about far more than just getting early access to new OS builds.
In 2016, Microsoft launched #WINsiders4Good, an initiative to explore how the enthusiasts helping it to improve Windows 10 could come together to solve wider problems using its software and technologies. In October, for example, Microsoft hosted a ‘Create-A-Thon’ event in London , encouraging Insiders to consider how best to use Windows 10 and the company’s app development tools «to tackle housing issues in our local communities».
Windows Insider Program chief Dona Sarkar said that initiatives such as these have proved extremely popular among Insiders, and that in 2017, the program will expand further on two fronts. In addition to making new Windows 10 builds available for testing and feedback, she said that Microsoft will be making a greater effort to bring the Insider community together, offering new insights into how the development process unfolds, while also encouraging Insiders to do even more to «use tech to make a lasting impact in the world».
Recognizing that such efforts go beyond just Windows 10, the #WINsiders4Good campaign is now known as #Insiders4Good. Coinciding with that change, Microsoft has also launched a new blog , a home for the Windows Insider community itself.
The blog is «a way for us to talk to you,» Dona said, «for you to talk to each other and for us to talk to the outside world about our various projects, passions, and challenges. » She added that the Insider team at Microsoft has been «experimenting with ways for [Insiders] to communicate and collaborate» over the last two weeks, and that the new blog is just the first step in its plans.
The blog already includes guest posts from some Insiders and Fellows around the world, and those who wish to contribute and share their stories on the blog can email Microsoft via NinjaCatTeam@outlook.com .
But while the #Insiders4Good blog «will focus more on the community and projects aspect» of the Insider Program, Dona said that Microsoft will continue to improve its existing channels like the Windows Blog to keep Insiders informed on new builds and other developments, and to offer deeper and more frequent insights into how the program is managed. She explained:
You can find out more about Microsoft’s #Insiders4Good program on its site , and you can check out the new Insider blog via the source link below.
Source: Windows Insider community blog

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Now thanks to a new law dubbed “the right to disconnect,” having to worry about being contacted out of hours may soon be a thing of the past for French citizens.
From January 1, 2017, companies with more than 50 employees will be forced to conduct discussions as to when workers have the right to ignore e-mail and other communications without repercussions.
In the event that a deal between employer and employee can’t be reached, The Guardian notes that the employer must publish a charter that explicitly outlines the demands on, and rights of, employees when not on the clock.
At the same time, Xavier Zunigo, a French workplace expert, said workers won’t want to lose the autonomy and flexibility that digital devices afford.
France has had a work week of just 35 hours in place for nearly 20 years.
Supporters of the law claim that employees that are required to work out of hours aren’t being compensated for the extra work. What’s more, they say that the overuse of such digital devices can lead to increased stress, burnout, sleeplessness and even relationship problems.
Declining to work after hours may also reflect poorly on an employee, giving the impression that said employee isn’t committed to their employer.

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S. Somasegar @SSomasegar
S. Somasegar is a venture partner at Madrona Venture Group and the former head of Microsoft’s Developer Division.
More posts by this contributor: Every company is a technology company, but most don’t behave like one , Escaping the trough of disillusionment for virtual and augmented reality Join the network
Linda Lian @LindaMLian
Linda Lian is an associate at the Madrona Venture Group. Join the network
There’s an age old saying that humans tend to overestimate what can be accomplished in one day, but underestimate what can be accomplished in one year. As 2016 comes to a close, it is a good time to zoom out the lens, and get reflective on what has happened this year, and predictive about what we are excited about for the coming 3-5 years.

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