from the maybe-stop-looking-down-at-your-phone dept.
Employees are injuring themselves by walking into the glass walls of Apple's fancy new headquarters:
The centerpiece of Apple Inc.'s new headquarters is a massive, ring-shaped office overflowing with panes of glass, a testament to the company's famed design-obsessed aesthetic.
There's been one hiccup since it opened last year: Apple employees keep smacking into the glass.
Surrounding the Cupertino, California-based building are 45-foot tall curved panels of safety glass. Inside are work spaces, dubbed "pods," also made with a lot of glass. Apple staff are often glued to the iPhones they helped popularize. That's resulted in repeated cases of distracted employees walking into the panes, according to people familiar with the incidents.
Some staff started to stick Post-It notes on the glass doors to mark their presence. However, the notes were removed because they detracted from the building's design, the people said. They asked not to be identified discussing anything related to Apple. Another person familiar with the situation said there are other markings to identify the glass.
What kind of markings? Bloodstains?
Also at TechCrunch and MarketWatch.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:20AM (7 children)
Form without function more like.
(Score: 2) by FatPhil on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:59AM (5 children)
Great minds discuss ideas; average minds discuss events; small minds discuss people; the smallest discuss themselves
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @12:12PM (3 children)
Naw, stupid shit is much easier to design than clever.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 4, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @02:01PM (2 children)
Shit, I've read TWO of your posts today I agree with. STOP IT. Right now.
(Score: 5, Insightful) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:58PM (1 child)
That means your brain's cynicism levels are starting to reach appropriate levels. Another six months tops and you'll be rejecting identity politics. A few years after that you'll reject both major parties.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 2) by el_oscuro on Monday February 19 2018, @02:12AM
I think that happened to me when I was about 8, when my mom found some donated cans tainted with botulism in a church charity drive. Identity politics have always sucked, but it did take me a bit longer to reject both parties.
SoylentNews is Bacon! [nueskes.com]
(Score: 2) by driverless on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:49AM
All they need to do is put a honkin' great black notch at the top of each pane of glass, then people will notice it and stop walking into it.
(Score: 3, Interesting) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:04PM
I don't recall where but its design is quite striking.
Before they actually built it, someone managed to clue in to that the blueprints didn't include any restrooms.
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 2, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:37AM (5 children)
Make a location-aware app for the phones that warns you if you're about to run into a door. The doors would have to transmit open or closed status.
(Score: 4, Funny) by acid andy on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:59AM
Without using any Indian characters [soylentnews.org].
Consumerism is poison.
(Score: 5, Funny) by VLM on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:15PM (3 children)
Hook up some AI to the infinite number of security cams and have Alexa or whatever apple's weak clone is, her name's sarah or something, yell at people about to walk into walls. Given the God-like all knowing all seeing all controlling technical architecture, you could tap right into people's bluetooth headphones if necessary to yell at them.
Eventually people are going to be able to do weird shit that's quite useless in normal life but technologically interesting. Given AI good enough to drive a car, you should be able to close your eyes while walking down a busy street. There's been a lot of "Internet of I'm a thing" where people get called biohackers or something similar glorious for merely implanting a magnet or COTS livestock RFID capsule in their fingers or whatever. The logical next step is hacking NMES physiotherapy machines such that you put on Apple iYogaPants and the embedded NMES wiring operates your muscles to make your legs walk. I wonder how little upper body coordination you could get away with in terms of wiring up the Apple iShirt such that your phone could take you for a walk down a crowded street while you're literally asleep. From talking to a dude at the gym who underwent NMES therapy with a PT for a recovery after some kinda surgical muscle injury thing (didn't really want the gross details) it might be too stimulating to sleep thru, but then again look at American opiate and alcohol consumption maybe SOME people could sleep thru it. I would imagine the military finds this concept interesting assuming either I'm not googling correctly or its classified to hell and back, although it seems pretty obvious in the sense of "exploiting known atomic forces to make a big ass bomb" as a general concept was pretty obvious to at least some of the public in the 1930s.
Imagine the comedy of getting a nice virus infection in your Apple iYogaPants, pay 0.001 bitcoin in ransom or your NMES iYogaPants will twerk you to death whenever you're near facebook friends so as to embarrass you. Or pay 0.001 BTC for illegal iYogaPants unlicensed software and it'll give you an electrical stimulation orgasm. Or pay 0.001 BTC to disable the virus that electrically stimulates your pants to give you orgasms at totally random times, which might be kinda fun the first few times but would get old real fast. That might be an interesting solution to the "walking into glass walls" thing, I was gonna walk into that glass wall three seconds from now, but suddenly I'm REALLY distracted...
(Score: 2) by pvanhoof on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:03PM
Aldous, is that you? Is this the first chapter of a follow up on your book?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:07PM
Or, better still, use all that AI power to predict far enough ahead that it can send a text to everyone else in the immediate area. "Come watch a moron walk into a glass wall! *Thud* predicted in 14 seconds!"
Figure out a way to extend that to 30 seconds with false positive (no *thud*) and false negative (unreported *thud*) rates below 25% and I'd pay a few bucks a month for that service.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:11AM
"Alexa or whatever apple's weak clone is, her name's sarah or something"
Siri. It means "ass" (尻) in Japanese. I laugh my 尻 off when Japanese people interact with their iPhones.
(Score: 4, Funny) by acid andy on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:54AM (1 child)
How did you get that bruise? You walked into a glass wall? Sure. That's what they always say.
Consumerism is poison.
(Score: 4, Funny) by krishnoid on Saturday February 17 2018, @10:49PM
"I told you, I can't come in to work today because my office beat me up. No, that's not the worst excuse I've ever come up with!"
(Score: 1, Interesting) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @12:01PM (6 children)
You could put some colour in the glass (or put transparent coloured stickers on them afterwards, if you don't want to replace them)... doesn't need to be the whole glass. You could put a transparent blueish or greenish "wave" on the bottom part... or something... be creative.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @12:57PM (2 children)
More like, need someone with a clue.
Walking into glass doors happens a lot, and sometimes it's not because makers are missing (if there are non at all, that's negligence), but they might have been at the wrong level. So you add more, problem solved.
And you f*cking leave the post-its on until then. Unless you compete for biggest asshole in the universe, your sense of aethetics are simple not relevant if it impacts the health of your employees.
Maybe someone should remind them that if an employee gets hurt their health insurance might decide to get any costs back from Apple, which if it's permanent damage VERY quickly goes into the 10s of millions.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:02PM
Naah. Apple has the perfect defense: they were walking wrong.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday February 17 2018, @08:01PM
The problem is looking down (at the phone).
Just more proof that walking while dicking around on your phone is pretty dumb even in a supposedly benign environment.
Maybe they need those Yellow Warning surfaces [bing.com] on the FLOOR near doors (both sides of door). That ought to send Jon Ivy screaming from the room.
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 4, Interesting) by VLM on Saturday February 17 2018, @02:55PM (2 children)
Other senses work too, for example visually a very strong updraft or strong downdraft would be invisible, but WTF why is air blowing in my face six inches before I impact the window would work.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday February 17 2018, @08:06PM (1 child)
You trying to bring back 1957 [tumblr.com] all over again?
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 19 2018, @01:11PM
LOL, in retrospect up or down is dumb, a very strong side side flow in the direction its safest to turn toward would be the most natural solution, strong wind in your face from the right, naturally turn left. At least you'd stop direct nose first impacts.
(Score: 5, Funny) by The Mighty Buzzard on Saturday February 17 2018, @12:13PM (7 children)
Bloodstains would be useless. They'd just assume it was some sort of feminist statement and walk into the wall in solidarity.
My rights don't end where your fear begins.
(Score: 5, Funny) by Aiwendil on Saturday February 17 2018, @01:35PM (6 children)
Well, at least they don't complain about glass ceilings ;)
*ducks for cover*
(Score: 2) by c0lo on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:15AM
Complaining cockroaches [soylentnews.org]? Not yet.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aoFiw2jMy-0 https://soylentnews.org/~MichaelDavidCrawford
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Sunday February 18 2018, @11:55AM (4 children)
Woho! Finally.. I got my first downmod :)
(-1 Flamebait, have gotten a few "0 disagree" (all on the subject on nuclear btw)).
Fun thing that it happened on a post that also ended up as a +5 funny.
(Also, without gripe to bear, I am curious how they reasoned to get it to a flamebait. I'm honestly perplexed)
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Sunday February 18 2018, @01:20PM (2 children)
Congrats. I too get bored of my karma sitting perpetually at 50 and over the last few months or so I took to writing increasingly flamey posts. The funny thing is, I suspect because I'm a registered user, more often than not they end up modded Interesting or even Funny as you note. I know a few things that could get me a Troll mod but I refuse to resort to unwarranted personal attacks or also anything that might put me on the wrong side of the law. With those constraints it's actually surprisingly difficult to get down-modded on 'ere!
Consumerism is poison.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 19 2018, @01:18PM (1 child)
I assure you its possible to get downvoted merely for not being left wing enough. Given that the left has vastly exceeded "cultural escape velocity" now moving away from planet Earth faster than a Tesla on top of a Falcon Heavy booster, its possible in 2018 to be a filthy right wing hate Nazi merely by directly quoting President Obama. No personal attacks required for downvotes. Personal attacks usually aren't funny or interesting anyway so its naturally self limiting.
(Score: 2) by acid andy on Monday February 19 2018, @01:48PM
Oh yeah probably but most politics bores me unless the discussion of it is on a more philosophical or scientific level. As far as I'm concerned it's not even about left versus right anymore. They're distractions. It's about power for the big guy versus the little guy.
As for those down-mods, I hold my hands up and confess to actually down-modding some politically charged posts myself but the important thing is that I don't do it for them being right wing. I do it where I feel they directly exhibit a lack of empathy and actively express strong resentment or disdain for various subsets of the population without justifying their position rationally. Just to put this in context, I would consider my own political beliefs on many issues to be what used to be called slightly right of center. The compass has moved so far in recent years that that description is likely to now be misinterpreted which shows just how insane and distorted the debate has become.
Consumerism is poison.
(Score: 3, Informative) by Freeman on Monday February 19 2018, @04:02PM
Talk about "glass ceilings" is a fairly hot topic or at least it used to be. Personally, I agree much more with the +1 Funny crowd. The idea of a "glass ceiling" with regards to gender or any other thing is still a concern. Though, hopefully not quite as bad as it used to be. Discrimination isn't something we should want to instill in our offspring.
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 2, Informative) by Provocateur on Saturday February 17 2018, @12:15PM (3 children)
Without necessarily being open -- they could have an etched design on the glass (like at the King arthur's pizzeria) but if those staffers were staring at their iphones, ican't help any of them
(Score: 3, Informative) by VLM on Saturday February 17 2018, @02:52PM (2 children)
https://www.osha.gov/pls/oshaweb/owadisp.show_document?p_table=STANDARDS&p_id=9824 [osha.gov]
Its right there in OSHA 29CFR 1910.176(a)
"Permanent aisles and passageways shall be appropriately marked."
You can't violate OSHA if you're a midwestern factory run by middle or right wing people, you have to paint the floor with safe and unsafe zones. Luckily, its really not a big deal. Could be as simple as a subtle change in carpet color. I suppose the bloodstains will take care of that naturally after awhile.
On the other hand, if you're a leftist company with a gay CEO, then OSHA is totally optional.
(Score: 2) by frojack on Saturday February 17 2018, @08:07PM (1 child)
https://www.bing.com/images/search?q=yellow+sidewalk+bumps [bing.com]
No, you are mistaken. I've always had this sig.
(Score: 2) by VLM on Monday February 19 2018, @01:23PM
LOL the local teen boys call those "sidewalk nipples" or "sidewalk pokies" one of those solutions that would technically work but are going to be far more trouble than they're worth when the sex harassment lawsuits start flowing. "Your honor, I'd like some of Apples billions of dollars for creating a workplace where womens secondary sexual characteristics are objectified." etc. Also rain and gutters clean them, but in a building, I donno, so they're going to be dirty or slippery, the sidewalk bumps, I mean, not the women, probably, mostly.
(Score: 5, Funny) by anubi on Saturday February 17 2018, @12:20PM (1 child)
Wait for the YouTube videos to show up. Might be as funny as the cat videos.
"Prove all things; hold fast that which is good." [KJV: I Thessalonians 5:21]
(Score: 2) by srobert on Sunday February 18 2018, @01:37AM
And if they speed up the video and play Yakety Sax over it, it'll be hilarious.
(Score: 5, Funny) by turgid on Saturday February 17 2018, @01:17PM (2 children)
Apple must employ pigeons.
I refuse to engage in a battle of wits with an unarmed opponent [wikipedia.org].
(Score: 2, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @07:18PM
The situation obviously calls for https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/RFC_1149 [wikipedia.org] (IPoAC)
(Score: 2, Funny) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday February 18 2018, @03:46AM
People don't know this, but the queen of the UK, Queen Elizabeth II, is a pigeon fancier. And Nikola Tesla, famous Silicon Alley guy, was a HUGE one. He swore off women, he was with a pigeon instead. There was a pigeon that was VERY SPECIAL to him. To be perfectly honest with you, I think he settled. My motto is NEVER SETTLE.
(Score: 3, Funny) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @03:34PM (2 children)
re de sign is the word of the day
Read da sign dat sez Do Not Break Glass -or - STOP the wall With your face
The Apple engineers called a meeting for a rethinking of the Open Floor plan design
Meanwhile, somewhere at 3M, the makers of the now ubiquitous Post-It notes, there is a new hire that just came up with an idea. This intern has dreamt of making transparent Post-It notes. Instead of yellow stickies, this latest incarnation of scotch tape is a reasonably-sized pad of see-through adhesive Post-Its, that can be used on glass, plastic tumblers, and face helmets.
Their focus group of temp staff of iphone equipped subjects in a transparent terrarium of gargantuan proportions located in Cupertino
(Score: 3, Funny) by Aiwendil on Saturday February 17 2018, @04:03PM
This post gave me an idea..
Just social engineer the desired behaviour into the employees. Use permanent markers and write date and name of the person walking into the wall*, and name it something fancy like "iSore" :)
(Extra bonus, after a while this will make the walls highly visible where needed)
* = if someone witness it also grade it for style :)
(Score: 2) by krishnoid on Saturday February 17 2018, @11:02PM
"Great idea, intern! Too bad we had to pull them off the market for mysterious reasons [unclutterer.com]."
(Score: 2, Funny) by Sulla on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:10PM
All you sheeple cant even recognize a genuine 100% steve jobs tier feature and positive addition to your every day life. I give it a year before samsung is doing the same because they see how much feature it provides. Think of the function! Now nobody can write sexist manifestos from their desks, you can fire fred the nosepicker, and can judy who spends 0.0003% of her time watching cat videos.
Get with the times people!
Ceterum censeo Sinae esse delendam
(Score: 3, Funny) by Geezer on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:39PM (1 child)
If the had been wearing Google Glass, they would have been alerted to the hazard.
(Score: 2) by takyon on Saturday February 17 2018, @05:51PM
Unfortunately, Intel's Vaunt [soylentnews.org] does nothing!
[SIG] 10/28/2017: Soylent Upgrade v14 [soylentnews.org]
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:17PM (1 child)
watch the floor, easier to see where the glass wall start because there is more refraction/reflection down there.
I learned that the hard way in the glass labyrinth at the luna park.
BTW how come apple employees have no luna park experience? Should be part of the curriculum.
(Score: 2) by realDonaldTrump on Sunday February 18 2018, @07:02PM
My father used to own Luna Park. And Steeplechase Park and the Velodrome, all on Coney Island. He bought them so he could BUILD. He looked at the housing situation in New York City, so many people looking for a place to live. And he looked at Coney Island, nobody living there. So he was going to demolish it and put up high-rises, right? But he couldn't do it, the Federal Housing Administration came down on him like a ton of bricks. But we had fun, my father threw a party. With Bikini models, it was tremendous. And we threw bricks through the windows, we demolished that place. We had A LOT of fun. I love to build. But the demolition part is the most fun.
(Score: 2) by bzipitidoo on Saturday February 17 2018, @06:58PM (4 children)
Last time I walked into a glass wall was in a mirror maze. I was expecting all mirrors, and the designers, funny folks that they are, mixed it up with a few glass walls
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Saturday February 17 2018, @09:55PM
Sounds like that maze was designed by assholes, just like anything involving apple.
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Saturday February 17 2018, @10:43PM (2 children)
Ok, I have no idea how I should mod this one. I really like it but we don't have a "+1 Evil Bastards" mod, nor a "+1 I'm stealing that idea"
+1 Funny might work but that implies a bit more schadenfreude than I'd like
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @04:16AM (1 child)
> +1 Funny might work but that implies a bit more schadenfreude than I'd like
And "+1 I'm stealing that idea" doesn't?
(Score: 2) by Aiwendil on Sunday February 18 2018, @12:11PM
Nope, that just indicates my Evil Overlord List is alive an gets updated :)
(Also, I actually might end up using that idea for non-practical-jokes. It solves an problem of humanity that I see with a design I'm pondering)
(Score: 4, Insightful) by Gaaark on Saturday February 17 2018, @07:40PM
Shows even smart people can be stupid.
--- Please remind me if I haven't been civil to you: I'm channeling MDC. ---Gaaark 2.0 ---
(Score: 3, Funny) by MichaelDavidCrawford on Saturday February 17 2018, @10:59PM (1 child)
Twice now my phone led me to board the wrong train.
There is a simple solution though:
Throw my iPhone in the Willamette River
Yes I Have No Bananas. [gofundme.com]
(Score: 3, Insightful) by Freeman on Monday February 19 2018, @04:05PM
Come to the Dark Side . . . We have Androids that serve you Oreos!
Joshua 1:9 "Be strong and of a good courage; be not afraid, neither be thou dismayed: for the Lord thy God is with thee"
(Score: 3, Informative) by vali.magni on Sunday February 18 2018, @02:42AM (1 child)
Where I come from, there are regulatory standards mandating visual indicators at one or sometimes two levels for glass walls and doors. This is common in most developed countries. For example, Australia has the AS1428 standards suite also talks about specific requirements for people with disability, and AS1428.1 here (PDF): https://threedimensionallandscapejournal.files.wordpress.com/2014/03/1428-1-2009a1.pdf [wordpress.com] sec 6.6 specifically describes visual indicators (dimensions, marking, height, etc.).
In the UK this has been a law for many years, and there are specifications for visual indicators for tall and short people, children and pets. I think it's called the glass manifestation regulation, http://www.arcwindowfilms.com/glass-manifestation-regulations [arcwindowfilms.com]
I could not find such a standard or regulation for the US - do any exist?
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Sunday February 18 2018, @02:03PM
The only regulations existing in the US are usually those created by one business to damage another business.
(Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Monday February 19 2018, @11:44AM
When you're face down in your phone, it doesn't matter what the wall you're walking into is made of.