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The US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) has finalized two rules aimed at delivering US patients better access to their own health data. One rule was issued by the HHS Office of National Coordinator for Health Information Technology (ONC). The other was issued by HHS Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS).
The coronavirus (COVID-19) outbreak continues to spread in the US and worldwide, with nearly 100,000 reported cases globally. Good information is extremely valuable during times like these and APIs can help make such information widely available.
Unbeknownst to you, there’s a good possibility that your Internet Service Provider (ISP) regularly sells your data to boost their profits.
Since the US Congress voted to roll back the FCC protections against the practice, American ISPs now have the opportunity to record, store, and sell the data that passes through their servers.
I've been following the latest efforts (in the US) of the GOP to unfairly redraw electoral boundaries and was considering how simple a law could be worded to ensure a more fair allocation of electoral districts. What I came up with is:
I chose the 1.5 number as a starting point. Do the above three restrictions effectively eliminate the tetris/dragon style maps?
Want to jump straight to the answer? The best video conferencing service for most people is Vonage.
Video conferencing software has to work perfectly, or it doesn’t really work at all. If there’s any lag in the video, it’s nearly impossible to have a conversation. If someone doesn’t get the invite, you may have to reschedule.
Below you’ll find my top picks for video conferencing services. These are affordable, reliable, secure options your business can depend on.
Best of 2023: Vonage, Ooma, ClickMeeting, Zoho Meeting, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, Webex, GoTo Meeting, and RingCentral.
All of the video conferencing solutions that I reviewed in this guide are quality options. But these are my three favorite that stand out above the rest:
These video conferencing services are not ranked— all have pros and cons. Use the in-depth reviews below to compare them, and find the one that works best for your needs.
Vonage offers a complete unified communications suite to businesses of all shapes and sizes. But one area where it really shines above the crowd is its dedicated healthcare solutions.
With so many healthcare practices offering virtual appointments and consultations, the ability to keep patient data safe is more important than ever before.
Vonage’s video conferencing is HIPAA-compliant and PCI-compliant. The software also has a HITRUST CSF certification, which is one of the most widely adopted security frameworks for healthcare companies in the US.
In addition to basic video conferencing, Vonage has advanced communication APIs. This lets you fully personalize the patient experience in a way that works best for your practice. So whether you’re running a small therapist’s office, a large hospital, or something in between, Vonage can be customized to fit your needs.
Beyond the ability to meet with patients through a video call, healthcare organizations can use Vonage to collaborate internally as well. So if a primary care physician wants to consult with a surgeon about a patient, they can do so without having to be in the same building.
Basic Vonage plans start at $17.99 per month per line. To access video conferencing, you’ll need a Premium plan, which starts at $27.99 per month per line.
Consult with a Vonage expert if you’re interested in a dedicated healthcare solution and video API. They’ll guide you in the right direction for your unique needs.
Ooma is a popular phone solution for small businesses. It’s a great way for smaller offices to get all communications needs under one roof—including voice, video, text messaging, virtual fax, and video conferencing.
All Ooma business phone plans come with over 50 standard features.
In terms of video conferencing, Ooma has one of the most unique features on the market. You can simultaneously share screens with another person on a video call.
I love this feature, and it’s something I wish was available on other business phone systems. It’s a great way to compare notes and share information in a way that’s more collaborative than a single screen share. This can also be used for collaborative presentations.
Meeting hosts have the ability to mute participants and add password protection to calls. Ooma also supports unlimited meeting recordings and storage for three months.
I also love that Ooma is compatible with traditional office phones in addition to its mobile and desktop app. This is perfect if part of your team works in a traditional office setting.
Here’s a quick overview of Ooma’s plans and pricing:
Video conferencing is only available on the Pro and Pro Plus plans. It’s well worth the extra $5 per month, as this plan also gives you access to the Ooma desktop app, text messaging, and call recording. All plans come with a free local or toll-free number.
ClickMeeting is a bit different compared to some of the other video conferencing services. This platform has a unique feature: webinars.
It’s a great option for anyone who wants to hold large online events, market products with video demonstrations, and host online courses or training sessions with live video.
ClickMeeting also offers traditional video conferencing solutions for team meetings and business collaboration. However, if that’s all you need, I’d look at other options on this list.
Pricing is complicated too. There are two plans, and each offers different levels and costs depending on how many attendees you have.
Here’s an overview of those price points per month for each plan:
Live
Automated
For video conferences with more than 1,000 attendees, contact the ClickMeeting sales team for a custom enterprise solution.
You can try ClickMeeting free for 30 days and run webinars with up to 25 attendees to try it out. Save up to 20% with annual billing instead of a month-to-month contract.
The Automated plan is your best option for broadcasting professional video webinars. This plan comes with advanced features like auto-streaming to Facebook or YouTube, automated follow-up emails to attendees, Google Analytics integration, and certificates of attendance.
ClickMeeting is definitely pricey compared to the other options on our list, which is why I wouldn’t recommend it for just basic video conferencing use. But the price is worth it if you’re planning to use the webinar features.
Zoho Meeting is arguably the most straightforward video conferencing solution on the market today. There aren’t a bunch of bells and whistles.
Some of Zoho’s top features include:
You’ll also have the ability to switch a presenter, give someone control, and remove users from a video conference.
As expected, Zoho Meeting integrates seamlessly with Zoho CRM. So if you’re already using a Zoho product, this will be a top option for you to consider.
This isn’t the most feature-rich video conferencing software out there. But it’s a quality solution for small business owners who just need basic features and already utilize Zoho products.
Pricing is tiered based on the number of participants in a meeting, and charged per host per month. Here’s a breakdown of what that looks like:
There’s also a free forever plan with limited features that supports 100 meeting participants and 100 webinar attendees.
You can save up to 15% when you sign up for annual billing. Try Zoho Meeting for free with a 14-day trial.
Microsoft Teams is an instant messaging service with chat, audio, and video capability. The platform is designed specifically for internal comms in the workplace.
With the ability to support group sizes of 10 or 10,000, MS Teams is the ultimate in-house communication solution.
MS Teams shines over competitors like Slack with its superior technology and video conferencing features. But the setup, usage, and onboarding are a bit more complex compared to other options on the market.
MS Teams is best when it’s accessed from a desktop device or web app. Your team can also take advantage of the mobile app version of the software, but it’s not as easy to navigate as the web version.
Let’s take a quick look at the plans and pricing options:
All paid plans are only available with an annual contract.
You’ll still have access to quite a few features with the free version, including video calls. But you’ll need Office 365 Business Premium to get the most out of this software.
Paid plans have 140+ app integrations, 1 TB of storage, scheduled meetings, meeting recordings, and administrative support. Our in-depth Microsoft Teams review covers its features and capabilities in greater detail.
Aside from its complexity, MS Teams does have some limitations. It’s not really a true video conferencing service. Instead, it’s better for one-on-one video meetings or smaller groups.
If you want to host large-scale video conferences and make presentations to clients, you should look elsewhere for a more suitable solution.
Overall, this is a solid option for any business that’s committed to using a Microsoft ecosystem.
Since launching in 2011, Zoom has quickly become an industry leader in the video conferencing space. The software is trusted by large businesses like Ticketmaster, Uber, Pandora, and GoDaddy, just to name a few.
Zoom shines with its simplicity, which is highlighted in our full Zoom review. There’s a plan for businesses of any shape and size, including a free-forever option.
Zoom has video conferencing capabilities with up to 1,000 participants, and up to 49 videos on the screen simultaneously.
The platform is secure and has role-based user security options, password protection, and waiting rooms. Zoom makes it easy for your team to collaborate with screen sharing, filing sharing, and other interactive features.
Zoom is modern, so naturally, the service can also be accessed from a mobile app. This is perfect for participants who are on the go and unable to reach a computer for a meeting.
Here’s an overview of Zoom’s pricing model:
Basic — Free
Pro — $14.99 per month per host
Business — $19.99 per month per host
Enterprise — $19.99 per month per host
As you can see, there is a plan for everyone. The free option is an excellent choice for a small team or freelancer who only needs to video chat once in a while for brief meetings.
Beyond personal use, you’ll need to upgrade to the Pro or Business plans to get the most out of Zoom. Fortunately, Zoom makes it easy for you to scale to another plan as your company grows.
Just be aware that your plan will impact the level of customer support you receive. To get premium support, you’ll need to upgrade.
Cisco is a brand name that’s synonymous with superior business technology. So it should be no surprise that Cisco Webex ranks so highly on our list for video conferencing software.
With Webex, you can host massive virtual events with up to 100,000 participants and run an interactive webinar for 3,000-person audiences.
Webex is perfect if you need to run on-demand training lessons for large groups as well. This is a great tool for onboarding employees at scale throughout multiple locations.
The Webex mobile app is another standout feature of the platform. Hosting and joining meetings are both simple and accessible from anywhere.
Arguably the best part about this video conferencing software is the cloud collaboration features. It’s easy to share files and screens with other meeting participants to stay organized and make the conference more interactive. That’s what makes them great for teams.
Cisco offers four different plans for you to choose from, including a basic free option.
Free — $0 per month
Starter — $16.95 per month per host
Plus — $22.95 per month per host
Business — $32.95 per month per host
At first glance, the Webex prices appear to be higher than Zoom. However, you can save 20% per month with an annual contract.
It’s also worth noting that the Webex Plus plan doesn’t have any host minimums, and the business plan has just a five-license minimum. Zoom has a 10- and 50-host minimum for their plans at similar price points.
So Webex will be a better option if you want those business or enterprise-level features for a smaller team.
GoTo Meeting makes it easy for you to turn any video conference into a highly collaborative workspace.
It’s a fantastic choice for remote workers from sales managers to business owners to IT teams.
Why? GoTo Meeting easily integrates with the systems your business is currently using.
It also offers an all-in-one hardware and software kit for those of you who want to transform your physical conference room into a digital one. This hardware is more advanced than the built-in cameras, microphones, and speakers on your current devices.
Some other top features and benefits of using GoTo Meeting for video conferencing include:
GoTo Meeting offers three plans to choose from:
The Professional and Business plans are very similar. You get unlimited meetings and unlimited meeting durations with either plan. You’ll also benefit from Salesforce integration, Slack meeting launcher, and an admin center with both plans.
The significant difference is the Professional plan can host up to 150 participants while the Business plan supports up to 250 participants. In addition, the Business plan also offers extra video meeting features like transcripts, keyboard and mouse sharing, unlimited cloud storage, drawing tools, meeting lock, note taking, and mobile cloud recording.
I think signing up for the Business option instead of Professional is a no-brainer. The added benefits are worth the extra $4 per month.
GoTo Meeting also offers enterprise-grade plans for up to 3,000 participants. But those prices aren’t available online. You’ll need to speak to a sales rep for a custom quote.
Save 16% on your GoTo Meeting plan with an annual contract.
You can try GoTo Meeting for free with up to 250 participants for 14 days.
Just for starters, RingCentral is our top choice for video conferencing.
But they go well beyond video conferencing services. They also offer VoIP business phone services.
You can get rid of your traditional phone plan, too. RingCentral provides video conferencing features as an added bonus.
You can always purchase RingCentral Meetings as a standalone product. Those plans are below:
Free — $0 per month
Essentials — $14.99 per month per user
Advanced — $19.99 per month per user
The free plan is decent if you compare it to others on the list. The meetings cap at 40 minutes each, but you can still have up to 100 participants.
Paid plans are also limited to just 100 participants, which is low compared to the competition. However, you can add on larger meeting options to your plan for an upcharge.
RingCentral also has great enterprise solutions. You’ll need to contact their sales team to get a custom quote. But you can save some money by bundling RingCentral Meetings with a VoIP business phone.
Check out our complete RingCentral video review to learn more.
Now that you’ve had a chance to review the top solutions on the market, how can you find the best option for your unique situation? This is the methodology that I used to come up with this guide.
I’ve identified each feature set that matters the most and why you need to take it into consideration when you’re evaluating prospective platforms.
In the world of work-from-home and distributed teams, video conferencing sizes are a very important consideration.
Make sure you choose a service and plan that can accommodate the number of people you need for your video conferences. You don’t want to overpay for a plan that has participant limits that you’ll never reach. But more importantly, you don’t want to be in a situation where your participant list is too large for your platform and plan.
With the global pandemic putting a ton of people into remote work, businesses and schools need to be able to take as long as they need for certain calls.
That’s why we took a close look at how long each plan allows you to meet when determining this list. Often, they had to be counterbalanced with how many participants are allowed in a plan as well.
After all, a plan that offers unlimited time but with only a dozen participants might not be helpful for larger teams.
Good video conferencing tools allow you to schedule easily and across a wide breadth of calendar apps.
When looking at scheduling options, see if they integrate with common planning and calendar services such as Google Calendar, iCal, and Office 365.
You might be able to have a large number of participants in a conference, but that doesn’t necessarily mean that every user will be able to broadcast a video stream.
For example, RingCentral plans have up to 100 participants per meeting, but limit you to just ten simultaneous video streams.
So don’t be swayed by the participant limits alone. Always check to see how many users can actually stream a video at the same time.
Collaboration tools are crucial for groups and teams.
Features like screen sharing, built-in chat, file sharing, and cloud collaboration are very useful for presentations and group projects. It’s also helpful when a video conferencing service integrates with existing tools and platforms that you’re already using to run a business. You can look for features like Salesforce integration or Google Analytics integration.
Video conferencing software has become the new normal for business use, especially with remote work and dispersed teams trending upward. For daily standups, interviews with prospective hires, and quick calls to prevent long email chains, video conferencing improves efficiency in the workplace.
It’s worth noting that your internet connection will impact the quality of your video conferencing calls. So you should always test your connection or sign up for a free trial to see how the quality holds up.
Compare Quotes From The Best Video Conferencing Services
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Mark your calendars, folks. WordCamp US 2020 will start on a…Tuesday.
On November 11, the WordCamp US team announced that next year’s event will happen during the middle of the week, from October 27 through October 29. This is a change from the usual three-day weekend event. The time frame puts the event’s days on Tuesday, Wednesday, and Thursday. The yearly conference will remain in St. Louis, Missouri, in 2020.
Those planning ahead can sign up for updates via the new WordCamp US 2020 site.
Thus far, the switch away from a weekend has been met with generally positive responses via Twitter and Slack. However, some people fear the schedule will not allow them to attend.
The WordCamp US Twitter account cited date availability, Halloween, and giving the weekend back to attendees as the reason behind the change.
For professionals in the WordPress space, this move will likely be a welcome change. They are often able to get extra time off from work, sometimes paid leave, to attend the event. The company they work for may even be funding their travel. For them, attending a WordCamp is a part of their work.
The unfortunate side effect of attending a WordCamp over the weekend is that some attendees usually have to wake up for work on Monday morning after traveling back home on Sunday. Many are essentially working two weeks straight without any downtime. This helps pile on the problem of developer burnout. Rest days, time with friends and family, and getting away from code-related things is a part of a healthy work-life balance.
Moving the event to the middle of the week should allow professionals to better maintain that balance.
On the other hand, some attendees may find it harder to attend during the week. This is particularly true for WordCamp-goers who do not work with WordPress professionally. They may not be able to get the time off work.
As a general rule, Americans tend to have little paid leave they can take advantage of throughout the year. The average worker in the private sector only gets 10 paid vacation days per year after one year of employment. Those numbers rise the longer an employee sticks with a single company. The US does not guarantee paid leave for workers.
Without support from their employer, some people may have to choose between using their paid time off to attend and keeping those days in reserve for family vacation or holidays.
Unlike local WordCamps, the US conference is more of an industry event that sees professionals from across the US and the world. The move to a weekday schedule should be a nice change for many.
Why is it that when nine innocent Americans get shot and killed by gangs in Mexico, Tom Cotton says the US should basically invade Mexico and clean thisi mess up. But when 40,000+ (2018) get killed by guns in the US the GOP just shrugs its collective shoulders and say "there's nothing we can do"?
Never mind. I already know the answer to that.
Back in August, I spent a week at DevConf.US talking about microservices, specifically about the 3 pitfalls everyone ignores with microservices.
According to a household survey by the Bureau of Labor Statistics, the rapidly-growing economy in the US has benefitted different demographics.
This includes disabled individuals, a group whose unemployment rate fell to 6.3 percent in April 2019, the lowest since 2008. But unemployment among people with disabilities still remains almost twice as high as the rest of the population.
In one of my projects, I received a requirement that stated that while parsing a text file, Strings denoting a date or a timestamp are expected to be in many different formats that are not known in advance, yet all of them represent a valid date or timestamp needed to be parsed properly. So, the solution I came up with is this: To have a set of formats stored in the property file, and when a String needs to be parsed, the formats are read from a file and attempts to parse the String are made sequentially with each format until it is parsed successfully, or until we run out of formats. The advantages of this solution are that if you discover a valid String that was not parsed successfully, all you will need to do is to add a new format to your properties file and no re-compilation and re-deployment is needed. Also, this way, you can set your priorities: Say if the US date format is preferable to the European one, just place US formats first and only after the European ones. Also, in Java 8, the format Strings allow for the optional format sections denoted by '[]'. So, several formats actually may be combined into a single one with optional sections. For example, instead of:
MM/dd/yyyy
MM-dd-yyyy
MM.dd.yyyyWorking with datasets that contain sensitive information is risky, and as a data scientist, you should be extremely careful whenever this type of data is present in a dataset. People dealing with sensitive information are often under the misunderstanding that by removing names, ID’s, and credit card numbers that the privacy risk is eliminated. While removing direct identifiers can help, there are more information elements in a dataset that can be used to re-identify an individual. For example, Latanya Sweeney, Director of the Data Privacy Lab in the Institute of Quantitative Social Science (IQSS) at Harvard, proved that 87 percent of US population can be re-identified using zip code, gender, and date of birth.
In this post, I am going to show you how to effectively reduce the privacy risk of a dataset while maintaining its analytical value for machine learning.
My workaday laptop is now an Acer Predator which while being very nice and all started to boot up with Windows Sticky Keys enabled. Now being a long time Windows user I went to the usual control panel, turned it off but it turned back on if the machine was rebooted or you logged out and back in.
The usual Google research was done, registry changes made and still it persisted. As all you needed to do was tap the shift key a few times to turn it off I left it as it was until I had more free time to look into it.
A deeper dive into the machine was done with AUTORUNS which found an odd thing I tossed but still it enabled after login.
So what if it's something to do with this model laptop? A new google found the answer: https://www.google.com/search?q=acer+predator+sticky+keys&gl=US
Aha, Acer and others added a Sticky Keys on/off to their system so there was more than one place this can be controlled which reminds me of the more than one boss stories.
Fix: Press the Acer Predator Sense button till it turns red, then tap button 1. It's fixed and I share this here so others might not spend as much time hunting it down.
In a quiet move that likely reflects Microsoft's growing concern over the misuse of facial recognition technology, the company deleted its own MSCeleb database, a collection of 10 million images that has been used to train facial recognition systems across the globe since its release in 2016.
As the BBC points out, "the deletion comes after Microsoft called on US politicians to do a better job of regulating recognition systems" due to their "broad societal ramifications and potential for abuse."
In March this year, a US power company fell victim to a "cyber event" that interfered with operations. The unnamed company provides power and energy to customers across Los Angeles, California; Salt Lake County, Utah; and Converse County, Wyoming. Fortunately, according to the Department of Energy (DOE), the event "did not impact generation, the reliability of the grid or cause any customer outages." However, the denial-of-service attack was significant enough for the utility to file an electric disturbance report with DOE — the same forms reserved for major interruptions like storms, physical attacks or fuel shortages. It's unclear whether this constituted an actual attack, but it served as a reminder of the vulnerabilities of the grid.
While utility grid attacks rarely succeed their potential to cause widespread chaos across homes, businesses and services are significant. The United States and Israel employed the first grid attack, Stuxnet, to destroy centrifuges in an Iranian nuclear enrichment facility in 2009.
The challenge of what we do with unused IoT devices that we own is a challenging one. I'm sure I'm not the only person with more than one smart device at home. Mine include fitness trackers and smart pet toys our cat dislikes, and they sit in a drawer unused. I asked a few friends who all shared they had smart programs they didn't use. All were reluctant to throw them out because of e-waste. Every year, over 50 million tons of electronic waste is created, but only 12.5 percent of this is recycled. Some thought they might gift them away as they had with earlier model mobile phones, while others sat on their purchases thinking they might be of some value in the future.
Online marketplace OnBuy.com recently conducted a survey to determine what US consumers thought to be the most valuable tech area to resell in years to come, amongst other insights. It revealed that over 49 percent of survey respondents believe they could make between 26 and 50 percent profit at resale.
In the earlier days of wearable tech, I remember there were great amounts of media interest around the idea that people wearing a Fitbit or Pebblewatch at work could be subject to undue surveillance by their employers. Today, there are many employee health programs that their employer-funded health insurance tracks fitness metrics such as blood pressure and the number of daily steps in exchange for bonus points, Pebblewatch is no more, and the apps we willingly upload onto our phones are offering more data on our daily lives than ever before. But if you own a smartphone and happen to work in a smart building where everything from lighting, utility usage, meeting room occupation, and people movement is tracked, things get a bit more interesting.
Enter WeWork/We Company (aka We for the purposes of this article.) As of early-January 2019, WeWork had a valuation of roughly US$47 billion and managed 10,000,000 square feet of office space. They have over 425 coworking spaces in over 100 countries. They also own a series of children's schools called wegrow and welive for digital nomads and traveling executives. Last year, they acquired Meetup and Teem. Then, in February of this year, they acquired spatial analytics company Euclid. In announcing the acquisition, WeWork asserted:
For the first time, it seems the United States has executed an open, offensive cyber campaign against a foreign target. Multiple sources have reported over the past few days, and are reporting today, that the US Cyber Command attacked the Internet Research Agency during the mid-term elections to prevent Russian manipulation of social media.
Overall, this aligns with the Trump administration's hawkish position on offensive cyber capabilities. In August of 2018, president Trump signed an order reversing Presidential Rule 20. Presidential Rule 20, enacted by the Obama administration, assembled a large, complex network of approvals needed for cyber operation approval, essentially making offensive cyber operations bureaucratically impossible. The Trump administration, guided by John Bolton, removed many of these restrictions and vastly simplified the process, leading us to where we are today.