Logitech Lift :: Vertical Mouse für Links- und Rechtshänder

Logitech bringt heute eine neue ergonomische Maus. Die soll Schmerzen in Hand, Ellenbogen und Schultern vorbeugen. Die tennisarmgeplagte Scheffin sagt, das funktioniert!

Logitech Lift ist kleiner als Logitech MX Vertical und wird für die linke und die rechte Hand angeboten. Der Listenpreis sinkt von 120 auf 80 Euro. Der Marktpreis muss sich erst noch etablieren. Ich habe für Heise einen längeren Bericht geschrieben.

Logitech MX Vertical passt nur in große Hände, Logitech Lift (rechts) taugt auch für mittlere und kleine Hände.

Voyager 5200 UC is fixed

It took over a year, but Poly, the company formerly known as Plantronics, managed to fix this one-of-a-kind headset. This month, they have released a firmware update and the release notes for version 513 state two changes:

Updated audio tuning to improve transmit performance

Enable HD Voice by default

“Improve transmit performance” is corp speak for “we are sorry, but it was completely broken and now it works”. The issue was that your voice was no longer transmitted properly. People on the other end could no longer understand you.

I need you to install this update and tell me if your headset is OK now.

Mine was never broken, but Poly changed something in the hardware and newer ones did not work in loud environments. Old and new with the same firmware. Old one worked, new one did not. Then I was told that they changed the hardware yet again, and now it would be OK. I told you that you would be safe now, but you were not.

The 513 firmware changed that. I have multiple reports that 2022 Voyager 5200 are now working properly. To be clear about this, we are looking at three generations of the same hardware and I do not know exactly when they went bad. Old ones which are way out of warranty were never broken. Those bought in 2020 and 2021 had a problem. Newer ones are now as good as the really old ones.

If you have a 2020 or 2021 Voyager 5200 please install the 513 firmware and try to call from a really noisy environment. In a car at 100 km an hour, with the window down. Can people understand you? They should. Let me know.

And the other change? HD Voice should be enabled. Yes, please. Otherwise, you sound like you are talking from the moon.

Social media is a destructive force

Mark Zuckerberg may not have wished for any of that. But by rewiring everything in a headlong rush for growth—with a naive conception of human psychology, little understanding of the intricacy of institutions, and no concern for external costs imposed on society—Facebook, Twitter, YouTube, and a few other large platforms unwittingly dissolved the mortar of trust, belief in institutions, and shared stories that had held a large and diverse secular democracy together.

Read the whole piece. It explains very well why everything seems so broken.

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Bargeldlos einkaufen

Bargeldlos einkaufen geht mittlerweile wunderbar. Nur der Einkaufswagen will noch eine Münze. Oder eine Unterlegscheibe nach DIN 9021 für M8 Schrauben. Außendurchmesser 24 mm.

Vor 25 Jahren hat mir mein Freund Henri mal einen Beutel mit diesen Unterlegscheiben vermacht. Das ist die letzte und ich werde nachkaufen. 100 Stück, 7 ct das Stück, Edelstahl. Einfach in alle Hosentaschen verteilen.

Eric Migicovsky on Success & Failure at Pebble

I’ve been giving a talk on the importance of learning from failure to every YC batch for last few years. I wrote this post in 2017 but never published it. I dusted it off for the 10 year anniversary of Pebble’s launch on Kickstarter.

Eric Migicovsky, ex-CEO Pebble

tl;dr: lack of longterm vision, driving up OPEX too fast, excess inventory because of overestimating growth.

I loved the original Pebble and was disappointed by Pebble Time. A bland color display just made no sense. Either way, Pebble would have been squeezed out by Apple from the top and cheap Chinese knockoffs from the bottom.

Interesting reading for everybody familiar with Pebble.

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Will Hybrid Work Last?

Two years into the pandemic, the older generation of executives — even those inside Silicon Valley — aren’t accustomed to managing workforces remotely. “Leaders find it really hard to lead virtually,” Bock said.

Source: Bloomberg

And that’s it. Despite an uptick in productivity, it is the inability of managers to adapt. Plus, you cannot project status and perks when everybody is just a Teams avatar.

OTOH, companies will find it hard to attract the best people if they make them sit in traffic.