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How iPads Helped Baseball Crowds ‘Return’ to Ballparks

Charlotte Henry ·

When Major League Baseball returned, without fans, during the coronavirus pandemic, those involved realised crowd noises still needed to happen. Oakland A’s executive producer for ballpark entertainment Amelia Schimmel and others told Sports Illustrated how iPads helped bring empty ballparks to life.

“When you see a fly ball that’s clearly not going out for a home run, but everybody does that oooh? That still has to happen,” says the A’s Schimmel. “Because we’re not trying to make it sound just like how we’d want it to sound. We’re trying to make it sound real.” The end result of all those layered noises is somewhere north of 1,000 individual sounds per game in Oakland, Schimmel estimates. (It’s common to have several different ones layered for each at-bat, she notes, as they try to adjust the background murmur a bit for every individual pitch in the count.) “It’s almost like playing the piano,” she says, with some buttons pressed together like chords and others on their own, all blended into one greater body of sound.

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WhatsApp Users Can Now Send Disappearing Messages

Charlotte Henry ·

WhatsApp finally gave users the ability to send that message that disappear after a certain period of time. As The Guardian noted, it’s something of a shift for the Facebook-owned app.

Unlike some competitors, such as the secure messaging app Signal, WhatsApp, which is owned by Facebook, decided against offering flexibility to users. There is no option to change the length of time messages are stored, for instance; and the service also removes images and videos sent. “We’re starting with seven days because we think it offers peace of mind that conversations aren’t permanent, while remaining practical so you don’t forget what you were chatting about,” the company says in a blogpost. “The shopping list or store address you received a few days ago will be there while you need it, and then disappear after you don’t. “While it’s great to hold on to memories from friends and family, most of what we send doesn’t need to be everlasting. Our goal is to make conversations on WhatsApp feel as close to in-person as possible, which means they shouldn’t have to stick around forever.”

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Michigan Prop 2 Passes; Police Need a Warrant to Search Your Devices

Andrew Orr ·

Voters in Michigan overwhelmingly passed Proposition 2 which adds “electronic data and electronic communications” to the state’s search and seizure laws.

The person, houses, papers, possessions, and electronic data and electronic communications of every person shall be secure from unreasonable searches and seizures. No warrant to search any place or to seize any person or things or to access electronic data or electronic communications shall issue without describing them, nor without probable cause, supported by oath or affirmation.

Translation: Michigan police need a warrant to search your electronic devices. And as a Michigander myself I definitely voted in favor of this.