The River Lea is the muse of anal hygiene. This east London river flows past the sites of two important innovations in the manufacture of toilet roll. There must be something in the water.
Bronco: the 'first' perforated toilet tissue
Numbers 1 and 2, eh?
This plaque could be found, until recently, on White Post Lane, Hackney Wick. It celebrates one of the many local industries that made a mark on the nation — or, rather, removed marks from the nation. For hereabouts stood the factory of The British Patent Perforated Company, pioneers of perforated toilet tissue on a roll.
Their innovative product was sold from 1935 under the established brand name of Bronco. Before these rolls, toilet-goers would withdraw sheets from a pack, much as we still deploy nose tissues. The perforated, continuous roll was more convenient and hygienic, removing the need for a box or container that could harbour germs.
Older readers might recall Bronco (or similar rival, Izal). The brand's other hallmark was its severity — harsh, shiny paper with the absorptive powers of a brick. I just about remember the sensation from my school days. It was like shoving baking parchment between the bum cheeks. The crinkly bottom experience was marketed as a virtue. "Medical opinion says that to avoid infection, toilet-tissue should be non-absorbent," reckons a Bronco advert of the 1950s. That's why "sensible, hygiene-minded mothers" chose it.
Although the rolls found their adherents, flat packs could still be purchased into the 1960s. This housewife simply can't choose. From the British Newspaper Archive, Aberdeen Evening Express, 25 April 1961. Image (c) DC Thompson & Co, created courtesy of the British Library Board.
It all started in Hackney Wick, where the perforated rolls were developed. But the plaque is a tad deceptive. It appears to credit Bronco for the innovation. Its parent company was the first to successfully market such stuff in this country, but the idea goes back much further. American inventor Seth Wheeler is recognised as the first to patent perforated paper supported by a roll, half a century before Bronco in 1883. He also foresaw the need for toilet roll dispensers, and was presumably the first to get into an argument about whether the paper should be installed in an overhand or underhand configuration. Whatever, perforated paper was on sale in the USA by 1890, courtesy of The Scott Paper Company.
Bronco continued to be sold until the 1980s, its appeal dwindling in favour of the softer tissues we use today. The last roll was ceremonially flushed away in a vintage toilet at the Science Museum in 1989. The bottom had dropped out of the hard-tissue market.
The Andrex story
The north-western part of Walthamstow has also played a significant role in our turd-wiping history. It all started on the apostrophe-dodging St Andrews Road, a part-residential, part-commercial street off Blackhorse Road.
One of the world's most celebrated brands of toilet tissue was first manufactured along this street. Indeed, the brand is indirectly named after it. 'Androll' (And[rew] + roll) was developed here at Andrew Mills Ltd in 1942. It soon changed its name to the one still familiar today: Andrex.
Image by the author, and not based on actual events.
This was no bog-standard product. The two-ply sheets were much softer than other tissues on the market, and were first marketed as disposable handkerchiefs. Harrods had the exclusive licence. Business boomed, and the factory was soon employing over 400 people. The Walthamstow company remained flush with success for half a century but, by 1995, and after several mergers, the brand had left London for Barrow.
We took a virtual tour of St Andrews Road on Street View (quarantine not allowing real-world exploration). We couldn't find any plaques or memorials to the street's momentous history, but we did find a brush manufacturer (handy if you don't have paper), a suggestively brown pub, and a council sign that would seem to forbid acts of al-fresco excretion.
Another clue to the area's past can be found in a side-street name. Papermill Place leads off to the south, lined on either side by new-build flats. The development was built directly over the site of the old Andrex factory. We wonder if the developers made mention of this in their sales material.
You are subscribed to email updates from Londonist. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.
Email delivery powered by Google
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States
* The global health crisis has killed tens of thousands of people, battered economies and put a severe dent in Beijing's relations with other countries * In the face of a possible global backlash, Chinese President Xi Jinping said the country must be prepared for unprecedented external adversity and challenges
This is the second in a series of five stories exploring the global backlash that China may face as a result of its actions and rhetoric during the coronavirus pandemic. This story examines the outlook for China-US relations, including the risk that the pandemic's impact and the responses of China and the US to it will push the two largest economies in the world into a new Cold War.
The new coronavirus has caused a global disease epidemic and all but turned the lights out on much of the world's economy. The next ripple effect could be a new Cold War, this time between China and the United States.
The world's two biggest economies are still trying to grasp the unprecedented scale of the pandemic's consequences.
Global growth forecasts have been ripped up and job losses are running into the millions and counting, while governments are pulling together rescue packages worth hundreds of billions of dollars that dwarf those of the financial crisis 12 years ago.
BEIJING (Reuters) - Global confirmed coronavirus cases surpassed 3 million on Monday, as the United States neared 1 million cases, according to a Reuters tally.
It comes as many countries are taking steps to ease lockdown measures that have brought the world to a standstill over the past eight weeks. [nL3N2CF2RN]
The first 41 cases were confirmed in Wuhan, China, on Jan. 10. The 3 million confirmed infections in less than four months are comparable in number with the roughly 3-5 million cases of severe illness caused by seasonal influenza around the world each year, according to the World Health Organisation.
An average of 82,000 cases have been reported per day in the past week. Over a quarter of all cases are in the United States, and over 43% have been recorded in Europe.
Hospital Corpsman 2nd Class Emilie A. Evans pre-screens Marines for the coronavirus disease after the Marines return from deployment overseas at Marine Corps Air Station Cherry Point, N.C., on March 24, 2020. (Cpl. Rachel K. Young-Porter/Marine Corps)
With the services reporting 3,919 cases of COVID-19 among troops, Defense Department data released Friday shows a third consecutive week where cases grew by roughly 1,000.
The figure represents a bump of 5 percent in the previous 24 hours, or 194 new diagnoses, as well as a 31-percent bump over the week, or 933 new cases.
There were 955 cases in the week ending April 17, as well as 1,053 in the week ending April 10.
Currently, the infection rate among service members is 1,866-per-million, or 0.2 percent, versus 2,553-per-million in the general U.S. population, about 0.25 percent.
The week of April 20 brought with it new plans to start testing asymptomatic service members for COVID-19, according to where their units fall on a tiered-system of essential national security functions.
Despite air superiority for nearly a year, Khalifa Haftar's forces have been halted in Tripoli and are now in retreat.
Misrata, Libya - It has been more than a year since renegade general Khalifa Haftar launched his military campaign to capture the capital Tripoli. Now the commander is scrambling to maintain control of his eastern stronghold.
The dramatic turn of events can be attributed to one major development: support from Turkey's military, particularly its drone force that has successfully pushed back Haftar's self-styled Libyan National Army (LNA) from Libya's skies.
China has 'nationalized' the big N95 mask manufacturers, making it harder for buyers here to get their hands on a product that, once again, China dominates, says a big U.S. importer.
"All of our orders, for millions of N95 masks, were canceled last week," says Leo Friedman, CEO of iPromo in Chicago, who has been importing tens of millions of masks all month. "They were for hospitals and state governments. We told them last week that we can't get them."
iPromo is known for making branded giveaway goods seen at trade shows, or other corporate 'swag'. The company shifted to servicing those clients with medical-related goods, from surgical masks to face shields and anti-bacterial gel in order to stay in business as the trade show market collapsed in the pandemic.
WNU Editor: When I first learned about the possibility of a pandemic in January, I immediately bought ten 3M N95 masks, 50 surgical masks, and 50 surgical gloves for myself. I tried again at the beginning of February, but there was no longer any left to buy in Montreal. The only thing that I was able to score were 50 (one-use) masks, but they only provide minimal protection. By then I knew this was going to be a global problem, so I helped my family in Russia to arrange shipments of PPE equipment from China to go to the hospital in my mother's home town 100 km west of Moscow. The hospital received it only a few weeks ago, and are now using it to not only provide care in their place, but to two other hospitals in neighbouring towns. I tried to arrange the same thing with my family in Ukraine in early March, but I was told by my own contacts in China that it was no longer possible. The manufacturers were hopelessly behind in their contracts, and they warned me that there was a very good chance that the Chinese government was going to seize these supplies because they want to control it. Two weeks ago they called and told me that this is what had happened. Everything has been taken over by the Central Government. No one should not be surprised. PPE equipment has become the world's most valuable product, and Beijing knows too well that the value of PPEs are only going to increase with time. This pandemic is nowhere near over, and as countries look for ways to lift restrictions to get the economy going again, this is Beijing's way of having leverage. Leverage that is clearly working .... EU Report On China's Covid-19 Disinformation Campaign Is Dropped After Beijing Threatened 'Repercussions' (April 26, 2020).
Update: A personal story. A couple of weeks ago I asked a contact in Taiwan and a contact in South Korea if they could ship me some masks. My contact in Taiwan sent me ten 95N masks and 50 surgical masks, and if my tracking information is correct, I should be receiving it at the end of this week. My contact in South Korea sent me fifty N95 masks, 200 surgical masks, and 200 gloves. I was very happy to hear that he was able to scrounge that for me. My intent is to not to profit from this. I have more than enough for my own protection, I just want to give this equipment to my neighbours and friends who have none. In my part of Canada these items are like gold, and IMHO this is a great way to help your neighbours and friends. Sighhhh .... I learned on Friday that my shipment is at Canada customs in Vancouver, and I will need a license to bring this stuff in. The license application is almost 20 pages long, and it will take some time to process it. If the virus will not kill you, the bureaucracy definitely will.
The guided-missile destroyer USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000) arrives at its new homeport in San Diego on Dec. 8, 2016. (U.S. Navy photo by Petty Officer 3rd Class Emiline L. M. Senn)
The US Navy has accepted delivery of the first Zumwalt-class destroyer, USS Zumwalt (DDG 1000), at its new homeport in San Diego.
The vessel will now transition from Combat Systems Activation to the next phase of developmental and integrated at-sea testing.
DDG 1000 is the lead ship of the US Navy's next-generation of multi-mission surface combatants.
Following delivery, USS Zumwalt joined the US Pacific Fleet battle force and is assigned to Surface Development Squadron One.
The 610ft DDG 1000 will contribute to accelerate new warfighting capabilities and provide rapid development and validation of operational tactics, techniques, and procedures.
Designed to provide a wide array of advancements, the vessel will employ a highly survivable Integrated Power System (IPS).
It provides an enhanced power capability according to different operational requirements.
Netanyahu described Trump's Middle East deal as a promise to recognise Israel's authority over settlements in the occupied West Bank [Oded Balilty/Pool via Reuters]
JERUSALEM (Reuters) - Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu voiced confidence on Sunday that Washington would give Israel the nod within two months to move ahead with de facto annexation of parts of the occupied West Bank.
Palestinians have expressed outrage at Israel's plans to cement its hold further on land it seized in the 1967 Middle East war, territory they are seeking for a state.
Netanyahu, in announcing a deal with his centrist rival Benny Gantz last week to form a unity government, set July 1 for the start of cabinet discussions on extending Israeli sovereignty to Jewish settlements in the West Bank and annexing outright the area's Jordan Valley.
Such a move would need to be agreed with Washington, according to the Netanyahu-Gantz agreement.
WNU Editor: The West Bank is not the priority of the White House right now. The pandemic and the election slated for November is where their focus is on right now.,
In this Wednesday, April 15, 2020, photo made available by the US Navy, Iranian Revolutionary Guard vessels sail close to US ships in the Arabian Gulf near Kuwait. All Photos supplied by US Navy
The regime in Tehran is in the midst of a major crisis, one where provoking a fresh confrontation with the US is not going to help its chances of survival.
US President Donald Trump's warning to the Iranian government that he has ordered the US Navy to destroy any of its gunboats caught harassing American warships comes at a time when the regime in Tehran is facing arguably its greatest crisis since the 1979 revolution.
Mr Trump's threat intensifies the pressure on Iran when it is already struggling to contend with a number of major challenges, from the coronavirus pandemic to the collapse of the economy.
Now the regime finds itself facing the prospect of a fresh military confrontation with the US following Mr Trump's warning, which came after accusations that Iranian gunboats have been harassing American warships in the Gulf.
WNU Editor: This is not the time to provoke the United States. In the past Iran may have deflected domestic dissent by stirring up tensions abroad. But these are not normal times, and Iran is not in a position to confront anyone directly right now.
The U.S. Navy last week watched a single-seat Russian Sukhoi Su-35 Flanker-E come within 25 feet of a P-8A Poseidon reconnaissance aircraft while at high speed and inverted, causing wake turbulence and putting the U.S. "pilots and crew at risk" over the Mediterranean Sea.
Days later, another Flanker mimicked the move over the same waters, zooming in front of a P-8 and exposing the sub hunter aircraft to its jet exhaust.
Top U.S. officials in Europe and the Defense Department said the incidents involved Russian pilots behaving in an unsafe, unprofessional manner. Experts argue that, while the intercepts expose a pattern of behavior from the Russian military, they also show that Russia is willing to capitalize on the publicity the aerial maneuvers bring, even during a global pandemic.
The ancient Chinese military strategist Sun Tzu once said,
Appear weak when you are strong, and strong when you are weak.
Looking at the Chinese People's Liberation Army (PLA) today, it's hard to say which of these tactics is most germane.
Getting the answer right will have enormous consequences for the United States and the future of the Indo-Pacific region. Underestimating the PLA breeds complacency and risks costly overreach. Overestimating the Chinese military grants it unwarranted advantage.
Similarly, for the Chinese leadership, miscalculating its military capability could lead to disaster.
As such, any serious appraisal of Chinese military power has to take the PLA's progress – as well as its problems – into account. This was the focus of a recent study we undertook, along with retired US Army lieutenant colonel Dennis Blasko, for the Australian Department of Defence.
WNU Editor: China's concerns that its military lacks war-fighting experience are justified. My father who fought in the Second World War and who studied war told me repeatedly a military that had experience in fighting wars would always overcome and defeat a far bigger foe who did not. This experience is what make the U.S and European armies formidable foes today. In the case of China, their military leadership, NCOs, etc., have had no experience on what fighting a war would look like, with the exception of one, the Sino-Vietnam war in 1979. This inexperience will definitely be costly to China in any major conflict that it may find itself in, even with a "new way of war".
History does not repeat itself. With the exception of general platitudes about the permanence of international tension and the sporadic recurrence of violent conflict, statements about historical patterns and cycles of warfare can at best lead to historiographical confirmation bias and, at worst, can prejudice policymakers into taking counterproductive and unnecessary escalatory measures.[1] Diplomats, intelligence professionals, and politicians must tread with care when approaching history and any patterns that emerge from it, especially when trying to draw parallels with present-day events. History and policy are ultimately about particulars—particular interests, particular leaders, particular decisions, and particular crises. Specific policies matter and can go a long way towards avoiding war altogether or minimizing its impact should it occur.
WNU Editor: Of the two nightmare scenarios outlined in the above report (1) encirclement by hostile powers and (2) domestic chaos, the one that the Communist leadership in Beijing fears the most (by far) is domestic chaos. That is why the Chinese leadership are hostile to President Trump. They see his attempts to change the trading relationship between the two countries as a direct threat to their economic/political stability. But this is where Beijing's strategic vision has failed. But being uncompromising on these issues, they are only creating a backlash from the U.S., but also from every country that finds themselves (or perceive themselves) as having the short end of the stick when it comes to dealing with China.
XCOM Chimera Squad came out of nowhere didn’t it? The latest in the rebooted XCOM series opts for a more streamlined approach than its predecessors, focusing in on a fixed squad that must keep the peace in City 31. Things can quickly snowball out of control if you don’t know what you’re doing, but that’s where we come in.
Predator – the furious boy who simply cannot get enough of spines – is up to his old tricks again in this, Predator: Hunting Grounds, a gory and asymmetrical multiplayer shooter from the creators of the equally gory and asymmetrical hide and seek simulator Friday the 13th: The Game. Four human soldiers embark on a mission to do a thing in a jungle, notionally unaware that they are being stalked by an intergalactic game hunter intent on boning them. No, not that kind of boning, get your mind out of the gutter, I’m simply talking about people having their hot wet bones violently ripped from their insides through their face and skin.
After an unexpected journey away from Steam, both Lego Lord Of The Rings and Lego The Hobbit have arrived back, safe and sound. They were delisted in January 2019, presumably for annoying license reasons. Now they are back, presumably for slightly less annoying license reasons.
I’m vaguely irritated that licence Hokey Cokey is the reason I’m reminding you that Lego games make for some pretty good couch co-op, but here we are.
In this current age of social distancing, making sure you’ve got the best gaming headset for playing games online with your mates has never been more important. Not only does a headset give your PC a big boost in the audio department, but its built-in microphone means you can easily talk with your team mates without the need for setting up a separate microphone. So let us help you find the best gaming headset for you and your budget with all of the best gaming headsets I’ve tested right here at RPS.
Delightful detective RPG Disco Elysium now has a official Mac version, inviting more folks to bumble disgracefully through a murder mystery in a strange seaside city. No more fiddling about with Bootcamp and that. For all newcomers, Mac or Windows, it has a 25% discount on Steam for the next few days too.
“Remind yourself that overconfidence is a slow and insidious killer.”
All it takes is seeing one a single quote from the Ancestor in Darkest Dungeon, and I’ve instantly got his voice booming in the back of my mind. I suppose it’s quite fitting for a roguelike RPG based on lovecraftian horror to still hear voices after you turn it off.
I took my Chevy to the levee, but the levee wasn’t dry. That’s the problem all over Black River, actually: a recent flood has rendered the soil sodden enough to swallow a car whole. Days of rain have closed the north road out of an already-sleepy Michigan town with rockslides. Power lines are down, too – although that might have more to do with stubborn truck drivers like me attaching winches to them, using their deep roots to pull heavy-duty vehicles from the mud rather than call for recovery.
There’s something about this trade, captured in its most extreme form by SnowRunner, that encourages dogged persistence past the usual bounds of sense, beyond the normal stopping point of patience, toward a zen-like state of obstinance. It’s like a logic-defying twist on the classic children’s book, We’re Going On A Bear Hunt. Can’t go through it? We’ll have to go through it anyway. (more…)
Welcome back to Fallout 76, folks. Come on in, the water’s nuclear warm. If you’re coming back to Appalachia, you might need help gathering much-needed resources for your adventures. A handy Collectron bot can stomp around and collect junk for ya. If you choose to buy the new Communist Collectron though, you may find that your helpful worker is more concerned with spreading Communism than collecting scraps for you. (more…)
The open beta for GOG’s new game launcher has gotten another update that, among other things, will let you link and surf the libraries of your subscription game services. Update 5 for GOG Galaxy 2.0 has a few other features like custom executables and sorting titles as well.
Saddle up, Samurai. Total War: Shogun 2 is blowing the battle horn—or bashing the giveaway gong, rather. This week you can snag the war strategy sim set in feudal Japan for free because Creative Assembly (and everyone else) would like you to stay home and play video games if you’re able instead of frolicking about in public during the Covid-19 coronavirus pandemic. Alongside the giveaway, a handful of other Total War games are going on sale.
Alien Day was actually yesterday—chosen as April 26th because in our backwards American date system 4/26 lines up with the designation for the moon LV-426 where the xenomorphs were discovered in yon olde 70s horror movie. As a tasty treat with oh so many teeth, Alien: Isolation is still on big discount today. You can snag it for just £1.50/$2 until 6pm BST tomorrow, April 28th.
Watch out. Pirates about. Legends Of Runeterra‘s first expansion comes out this Thursday, packing a new faction, 120 new cards, 11 new champions, and a couple of cosmetic mascots I actually care about for once. Thursday is also when the game sails out of open beta, launching for realises with patch 1.0. It’s coming out for mobile phones on Thursday, too.
Developers Riot Games have already shipped out some info about how the new cards work, so let’s dig in.
DONALD TRUMP has revealed the US is now considering "substantial" financial action against China over the COVID-19 outbreak, as a worldwide campaign gains traction.
CHINA has been warned they must "play the game" to prevent Western actors from erecting economic barriers in the aftermath of the coronavirus pandemic.
POTUS Donald Trump has announced he will not be taking any responsibility for reports of people ingesting disinfectant following his comments last week.
DONALD TRUMP said the US is carrying out a "serious investigation" into China for the damage caused by the coronavirus crisis, as he pinned the blame squarely on Beijing for the pandemic that has swept the world.
FIVE weeks after New Zealand's Prime Minister imposed one of the most stringent lockdowns in the world, the country seems to have won the battle against coronavirus.
A NEW street unearthed in the ancient Roman city of Pompeii has been filmed in startling new detail showing two exquisitely decorated houses showing lavish wall paintings and mosaics.
KIM JONG-UN is still attracting worldwide speculation amid rumours he is dead - but the disappearance of the Supreme Leader will concern Donald Trump after years of North Korean threats.
New technologies allow you to print photos, documents, and web pages, as well as scan them, using the internet connection. It’s much more practical than transferring files to the printer via cables.
Apple’s AirPrint technology lets you print wirelessly without installing additional drivers or apps. Brother printers are compatible with most Apple devices, and you can use their iPrint&Scan app to print directly from your iOS device. But can you use AirPrint with a Brother printer? Find out here.
Does AirPrint Work with Brother Printers?
The short answer to this question is: yes. Apple’s AirPrint technology is compatible with most Brother printer models. However, before you buy a Brother printer, you should check if it carries the “Works with Apple AirPrint” badge. To check what Brother printers are compatible with AirPrint, you can visit the Brother official website.
AirPrint is available on the iPhone, iPod Touch, iPad, Mac, and other Apple devices. That means you can use any of them to print files on a Brother printer via AirPrint technology. The only condition is that both devices are on the same Wi-Fi network.
How to Use AirPrint with iPad, iPod Touch, and iPhone
To start printing, you need to connect your Brother printer to Wi-Fi. On your router, find the WPS or AOSS button and press it. Then, find the Wi-Fi button on the printer and hit it to connect the printer to the router.
Then connect your mobile device with the printer by doing the following:
Open the Settings app on your iOS device.
Go to Wi-Fi settings and turn on Wi-Fi.
Select your Brother printer from the list of available devices.
If you’re experiencing trouble connecting your devices, make sure both devices are within range. It would be best to move both your phone and the printer close to the router. Then you can proceed to print by following these steps:
Turn on the printer.
Find the page you’d like to print on your mobile device. You can print from almost any app.
Tap the share icon. It is often a small square and arrow icon.
Choose Print or tap the printer icon.
Tap on Select Printer.
Select your printer and adjust any necessary options, like the number of copies, or specific pages you’d like to print.
Select Print in the top right corner to complete the action.
If you make a mistake, you can cancel your print job. Here’s how.
Open App Switcher and tap on Print Center.
On this screen, you can check the details of your print job.
To stop the files from printing, select the red Cancel Printing option at the bottom.
How to Use AirPrint with a Mac Computer
You can use AirPrint with Mac computers as well. You don’t need any cables or software – simply add your Brother printer to the list of recognized devices, and you’re all set.
From the main menu, click on System Preferences.
Find the Print & Scan option (or Printers & Scanners, depending on the model).
Select the plus icon on the left to add your Brother printer.
Select Add Printer or Scanner and wait for the new screen to appear.
Click on your printer and choose AirPrint from the pop-up list.
Select Add to complete the process.
After you add the printer to your Mac computer, you can proceed with printing.
Turn on the printer and make sure the Wi-Fi button is on as well.
On your computer, open the file you’d like to print.
Select File and choose Print from the dropdown menu.
On the next screen, select the correct printer.
Adjust the number of pages you want to print and other options.
Select Print.
If You’re Experiencing Issues
Sometimes everything will go smoothly. The other times, however, you might not be able to pair the printer with your device. Or you may have trouble connecting it to Wi-Fi, or experience some other issue.
In that case, you can restart one or both of your devices, as well as your router. Another solution is to make sure your devices are running the latest firmware by updating it. Also, updating the OS on your iOS device or Mac might work. Finally, you might want to check the printer drivers on your computer.
Making Printing Quick and Easy
With AirPrint, you’ll be able to print whatever you want whenever you want with zero complications. The first time may require a bit more work because you’ll need to pair your mobile device and your printer, but after that, it’s plain sailing. Many Brother printers work perfectly well with AirPrint, so it’s up to you to choose a suitable model and get started.
What Brother printer will you pick? Let us know in the comments section below.
VSCO is short for “Visual Supply Company” and was created as a niche app for photographers to display their work.
While VSCO is a great app with a very strong community, it’s definitely not for everyone. Its skew towards artistry and contemporary photography makes it ill-suited for more casual users. And although the membership fee is reasonable at just $19.99 a year, it does cost money to have a professional membership on the site.
If you have been using VSCO and have decided that it’s no longer the site for you, then this article will show you how to delete your account.
How to Deactivate Your VSCO Account
Deleting a VSCO account is, fortunately, very simple. However, before doing so, you may want to take a few extra steps to make sure your account information and content is removed.
Let’s take a look at how to clear your account content and deactivate your account once and for all.
Delete Your Images from VSCO
The first step in really removing yourself from VSCO is the deletion of your content. When you deactivate your membership, VSCO tends to hold on to your account information. So, to completely quit the platform, you have to get rid of your content manually.
Open the VSCO app on your device and ensure you are logged in.
Select the face icon in the bottom right to access your profile.
Select an image and tap the three-dot icon in the top right.
Select Delete to remove the image.
You may also need to remove images that other people have added to their collection.
Open the VSCO app on your device and make sure you are logged in.
Select the face icon in the bottom right to access your profile.
Select the bell icon and select the image you want to remove.
Select the “-” icon to remove it from the collection.
Confirm your choice to remove it.
Since you have to remove each picture manually, this process can be quite time-consuming. However, if you want to fully remove yourself from VSCO, it is a necessary step.
Delete Your VSCO Account
Once your photos have been cleared out, you have two options if you no longer want to use VSCO: you can deactivate your profile and leave it dormant, or you can deactivate it permanently.
Select Deactivate VSCO profile and follow the wizard.
Confirm the deactivation of your VSCO profile.
Deactivating your VSCO profile will remove your Grid, Collection, and Journal from public view but will leave your account intact. It will essentially be dormant but still live.
Select Deactivate VSCO Profile & Account and follow the wizard.
Confirm the deactivation of your VSCO account.
If you would prefer to delete your VSCO account via email, you can:
Email support@vsco.co and add the subject “Delete my VSCO account.” This may take longer than doing it via the website.
Note that deactivating your account doesn’t actually delete the account. You will no longer be able to access any resources you had or any purchases you made. (You may want to download whatever resources you’re going to need before doing it so you don’t lose them.)
You can reactivate your account simply by logging in again. This means that all you are doing by deactivating your account is stopping yourself from being able to use it. If you can reactivate an account, it must still be present in order to be reactivated. This isn’t ideal, from a privacy perspective, which is why if you really want to wipe your account, you need to delete all your images first.
Final Thoughts
Deleting social media profiles is often unnecessarily complex. Fortunately, doing so on VSCO is very straightforward, and by following the steps listed above, you can deactivate your account temporarily or permanently.
We all know how important it’s to regularly backup our data. However, every iPhone user was at least once surprised by the size of their backup. You did your previous backup just a couple of weeks ago, so why would this one take that much space?
In this article, we’ll explain the most common reasons why the backup sometimes takes so much space on the iPhone. We’ll also show you how to make it smaller, as well as some tips and tricks that can save your storage space.
Find Out What Gets Backed Up
If you’re not tech-savvy, you may not know that you can control what kind of data gets backed up. There’s a setting that shows you what is getting a backup, and you can always change the settings. If you’ve never checked that before, the chances are that your iPhone is backing up way too many unnecessary things.
Here’s how you can see what’s being backed up on your iPhone. We warn you that you might be surprised!
Go to the Settings.
Open the Apple ID Settings.
Tap on iCloud.
Tap on Manage Storage.
Tap on Backups.
Select the device you want to check, in this case, your iPhone.
You’ll now see a long list of all things that your iPhone attempts to backup. You’ll also see the size of backup for each item of the list. It will help you better understand why your backup seems so big.
iPhone Backs Up Plenty of Non-Essential Data
With this information in mind, you can manage your backup more effectively. You’ll probably want to back up your contact data as well as data from some apps. But do you need to back up all your conversations? You may need to make some choices and organize your data better.
For each item on the list, you can choose whether you want to enable or disable backup. When done, your backup will be much smaller, and you’ll still get to keep all the vital data.
There are two particularly tricky things we’d like to talk about here. The first thing regards your messages (iMessage, WhatsApp, or any other app), while the second is about your photos. Those two things typically make your backup so big, although many people don’t know it.
Messages Can Take Up Too Much Space
Many people are genuinely shocked when they see how much storage space their messages take. It doesn’t matter whether you’re using iMessage or any popular messaging app.
But is it just messages? Let us remind you of all the photos and videos you’ve received from your friends. From cute pet photos to funny memes and music videos, they can add up and take a lot of space.
If you don’t want to delete all your conversations, at least go through them and remove some long videos or irrelevant photos. Of course, there are some photos that you’d like to keep, but we’re sure you’ve already forgotten a lot of photos you’ve sent or received.
For example, what about that sandwich your friend had for lunch last week and sent you a photo? You probably don’t have to keep things like that forever.
The Issue with Photos
If you’re like most people, your gallery takes the most of your storage space. As you know, iPhone photos are high-quality, which means they take a lot of space. Here’s a trick: if you’re using the free version of iCloud, there might be a better way to store your photos.
If you don’t have a lot of space on your iCloud, maybe you should reserve it for important information such as your contact details or data regarding your job. If you have thousands of photos, think about saving them to your computer, external memory drive, or using My Photo Stream.
My Photo Stream allows you to display your photos on any device. That is, as long as you’re connected to the Wi-Fi. It doesn’t take as much space as iCloud, as it saves photos in a smaller format. However, when you stream them to your device, they’ll be in their original quality.
My Photo Stream is a good thing, but you can use it only for 30 days. After that, you risk losing your photos if you haven’t saved them elsewhere. Anyway, it can be a quick solution if you don’t have enough space on your iCloud and have to move your photos somewhere temporarily.
Wrap Up
We hope that you find this article useful and that you’ve managed to make your backup smaller. In case you don’t want to give up anything from your iPhone, you may need to purchase a bigger iCloud plan. However, we recommend going through your files and picking only relevant stuff.
Do you know any other tips or tricks that could help other users save some storage space? Feel free to share them in the comments section below.
Telegram is an encrypted messaging platform with millions of active users. Using Telegram, users can send messages, video streams, audio files, and other content anonymously around the world.
There is one rather glaring security hole in Telegram – when you register for an account with the service, you have to provide your phone number in order to verify your account. You can’t just give it a fake number, either, as you have to receive a message on that number in order to verify your account and start using the service.
It is true that Telegram doesn’t use that number for anything after you register, but for privacy-minded users seeking to preserve their anonymity, having to provide a phone number at all is a bad start.
Fortunately, it is simple to bypass this requirement. In this article, we’ll walk you through the process of getting a Telegram account without having to give the service your actual phone number.
Can You Use Telegram Without a Phone Number?
Unfortunately, you cannot circumvent account verification in Telegram. The phone number requirement is designed to prevent bots and automated account creation.
When you register for a Telegram account, you have to give a number and either receive a voice call at that number or receive an SMS text message at that number. The call or the text will contain a verification code, which you will then use to validate your Telegram account.
Once that call or text has been received, however, you do not need further access to the number you provided. So in reality, you don’t need your phone number to use Telegram, you just need a phone number for a minute or two.
Fortunately, there are a lot of ways to get a phone number for a minute or two, or for even longer. I’ll review several options to get a temporary number, quickly and for free.
Google Voice
Google Voice is the web-based calling app from Google that provides users with an entirely new phone number that can be used for voice calls as well as SMS messaging.
The only downside to using a Google Voice number is that it is associated with your Google account; if your main concern is just preventing Telegram from knowing who you are, then that won’t matter, but if you’re after ultimate privacy, this may not be the option for you.
Assuming Google Voice works for your security needs, here’s how to use Google Voice to get a Telegram account set up.
Navigate to Google Voice and register or select a phone number.
Register that number with Telegram and wait for the confirmation code to be delivered.
Retrieve the code from your Google Voice window and type it into Telegram.
Confirm your account and begin using it.
Burner
Burner is a very useful app that works as a call forwarder. You rent a temporary phone number and give it out to whoever you want. The call is received by the Burner server and forwarded from them to your real number. The caller has no idea of your real number and Burner doesn’t share it with anyone.
There are two types of accounts: a short-term burner number ideal for listing items on Craigslist or for verifying Telegram, and a long-term subscription number that you keep for however long you like. The short-term numbers are free, while the long-term numbers have a modest cost.
FreePhoneNum.com
FreePhoneNum.com is a completely free platform that offers burner phone numbers. The service offers a very temporary number for verification or any other purpose.
I have used this service to verify membership to a website and it works. Some of the numbers provided fail but if you persevere and keep trying, one should work.
Receive SMS
Receive SMS is another free service I have used to verify membership without giving out my own number. It can work with Telegram but has the same issue that FreePhoneNum.com has in that not all numbers work all the time.
It may take a little trial and error to find one that works. Then it’s just a case of watching incoming messages for the verification and adding that to your Telegram account on your phone.
Avoiding Other Identification Risks
The reality is that avoiding your phone number isn’t the only potential way to associate you with your Telegram account.
Another potential weakness in your anonymity is the fact that your device’s unique MAC address is also stored in at least a couple of places along the network backbone. In theory, a sufficiently motivated government or law enforcement agency will have the resources to defeat your attempt at ultimate anonymity. As it happens, there are programs to change your MAC address, as well as the ever-popular VNC offerings.
Two-Factor Authentication
Lastly, you should be sure to enable two-factor authentication on your Telegram account after creating your account with a burner number.
Without this extra security measure, someone can log into your Telegram account with the phony number and access your conversations or even delete your account.
Wrapping Up
For the most part, Telegram is a great choice for users who want a private, encrypted messaging platform. However, in order to achieve total anonymity, you may want to avoid attaching your real phone number to your Telegram account.
Fortunately, by using one of the services listed above, you can easily create a Telegram account with a fake phone number.
Have any other suggestions for free numbers to use for registering at Telegram? Share them with us in the comments below!
We’ve got additional resources for the privacy-minded user:
With a Brother printer, you can ditch all the unnecessary cables and print photos, documents and web pages via a Wi-Fi network. If you have an iOS device, you can even choose whether to print directly from a mobile phone or tablet, or opt for the iPrint&Scan app. Either way, printing is finally made simple.
To get started, you need to find the network key to connect your printer to your Wi-Fi network. This article will guide you through all the steps to set it up.
What’s the Network Key and Where to Find It
The network key is actually your password. Therefore, you’ll need to enter this password to connect your printer to the network. You can find this information on your router. Check the label on the router and find the network key under Security or Encryption Key, or only Password. It may also say Wireless Key (WPA). The label is usually on the side or the base of the router.
You should also remember the network name, which is also written down on the router. This is essential. As you need to connect your mobile device and your printer to the same network if you want to pair them successfully. The network name is usually listed under SSID or ESSID.
If you can’t find this label on your router, check the box it came in, or the documentation you got with it. Note that the network key doesn’t depend on your Brother printer but your internet provider. If you don’t have the router documentation and can’t see the password on the router label, try contacting your internet provider’s customer support to get the info.
Find the Network Key via Your Computer
You can download special software designed to help you find the network information. It’s available on Brother printers official website, and it’s supported by Windows Vista and Windows 7, 8, and 10 operating systems.
Mac users also have a way to discover their network key by accessing the computer settings. Make sure your Mac isn’t using an Ethernet cable because these steps won’t work in that case. The process is similar on all the operating systems.
From the Menu Bar, select the Wi-Fi icon.
Scroll down to the Open Network Preferences option and click to open.
Choose Wi-Fi from the menu on the left.
On the next screen, you’ll see your network name. If it’s the right one, select the Advanced option at the bottom.
Click on the Wi-Fi tab at the top, and you’ll see the network name and the security key under Preferred networks.
Another way is to access the Keychain Access option from Utilities and then do the following:
Depending on your OS, click on All Items/Passwords or login/System to find your network.
Under Name, double-click the network, which will open a new screen.
Select the Attributes tab and check the box next to Show password.
Enter your Mac Admin password or the “login” keychain password to gain access to confidential info.
After you click on Allow, you will be able to see the network key – your Wi-Fi password.
How to Connect a Brother Printer to a Wi-Fi Network
Once you have your network key, you’re ready to connect the printer to your Wi-Fi and print your files. Here’s how to set up the connection.
Find the Menu button on your printer. It’s next to the display, but the side may depend on the model. Press it to access the main menu.
Use the arrow down button to find Network and press OK to confirm.
Use the same arrow button to find WLAN.
From the WLAN menu, select the Setup Wizard.
When Enable WLAN shows on display, press the OK button to confirm.
When you see a list of networks within range, select the one your mobile device is connected to.
Enter your Wi-Fi password and confirm by pressing OK.
Applying the settings might require you to confirm by pressing Yes, or 1 on your machine.
The display will show Connected if you’ve entered the correct password.
In case you see the Connection Fail message on display, repeat the process or restart your machine and router and then try again. When you’ve successfully connected the printer, you can proceed to connect it to your mobile device and start printing.
Setting Up the Wireless Printing
If you’re not sure what a network key is, you have all the answers here. It’s your Wi-Fi password. If you can’t find it on your WLAN access point, don’t despair. There are multiple ways to get it and connect your Brother printer to your network.
Where did you find your network key? Did you have any issues connecting the printer to the Wi-Fi? Share your experiences in the comments section below.
Pluto TV is a streaming service that works over the Internet. Unlike many digital content services like Prime Video, Sling TV, DirecTV Now, Hulu, and Netflix, Pluto TV is completely free. If you’ve ever used one of the media streaming apps like Plex or Kodi, Pluto TV feels a bit like that, but without the guilty suspicion that half the content you’re looking at is probably violating someone’s copyright. Everything on Pluto TV, whether live or on-demand, is obtained through third-party providers and major networks. There is ZERO torrent scraping or illegal streams. All content has been licensed to Pluto TV.
Pluto TV’s service curates content into channels by collecting media from various sources and then organizing everything into categories, such as news, sports, comedy, romance, gaming, chill out, entertainment, music, radio, and a whole lot more. The service makes money by showing ads between programs.
Pluto TV seems to work amazingly well! Since March 2020, the advertiser-supported video on demand (AVOD) provider has established deals with over 170 content partners. Their content connections allow them to deliver over 250 channels of on-demand and live TV entertainment, and they’ve reached over 230 million users every month! Their concept was to create a cable-like experience (guide and functionality) without the cost of a subscription. So far, it appears that the idea proves successful.
Pluto TV Live TV Example:
Pluto TV On-Demand Example:
How to access Pluto TV
Pluto TV is available on just about every platform in existence. There are Pluto TV apps for Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and just about every streaming video player, including Roku, Android TV, Amazon Fire TV Stick, Apple TV, PlayStation 4, and Chromecast. The apps are lightweight, have attractive and efficient interfaces based on the tried and true cable TV grid. Pluto TV is accessible via an app or directly in the browser. Apps are available for Windows, Mac, iOS, and Android.
Pluto TV content
Most of the content on Pluto TV comes from public sources. Pluto TV is owned by ViacomCBS Inc. (spelled correctly), and as a result, the service has been able to get deals with content providers like BBC, CNBC, NBC, CBSN, IGN, CNET, MTV, Nick, BET, Comedy Central, Spike, and many other networks.
The service regularly adds new content to its channels. There is content available in the channels section, which works just like standard TV. Then there’s also an extensive On-Demand section, where you can pick and choose and watch what you want.
The content is sometimes a curious mix of new and old. The news channels have what you would typically expect: a few big names like CBS, CNN and Sky News, and then some lesser-known channels like Cheddar News. The movie channels are an eclectic mix of TV oldies, classics, second-string new releases, a fair sampling of older but first-rate movies, and even some genuine recent hits. It’s not what you’re going to find on HBO or Showtime, but it’s not far off the mark, and it doesn’t cost anything. Pluto TV’s contracts deliver great movies like The Rainmaker, Grease 2, Shaft, The Ninth Gate, Out of Time, First Knight, Addams Family Values, Total Recall, Maximum Conviction, Lemony Snickets, Kiss The Girls, Friday The 13th, Death Warrant, The Golden Child, and much more!
Comedy content is pretty good and tends to feature lots of YouTube videos and content from The Onion and Cracked. It too changes often and has broad appeal. There is also a lot of good material from Comedy Central on specialized channels.
Music is abundant on Pluto TV. Most cable television providers don’t offer much of a selection or variety. The on-demand section includes specific on-demand categories like music concerts, music docs, classic rock, and pop music.
The Live TV section includes a Music Category full of videos and audio music.
Sports is a weak spot for Pluto TV, presumably because of licensing. You won’t see live games, but you can see great replays, documentaries, shows, and more. They also feature live poker, American Gladiators, and other sports-related events.
As for the Cats 24/7 live TV channel that’s found in the comedy category, no more needs be said about that one!
Pluto TV price and quality
Pluto TV is free, so the price is not an issue. There are ads in between shows and movies, but they’re considerably less and quick to pass, unlike cable television. We used Pluto TV for a while and only saw between two or three very quick commercials, often with one or two of them being a 10 to 20-second Pluto TV advertisement. Video quality tends to be excellent. Audio is excellent too! Of course, the quality will depend on the broadcast, Internet speeds, and your router, or your smartphone’s signal. Watching an older sitcom isn’t going to look or sound spectacular, of course; Newer shows and movies will. The user interface is very straightforward, except when using a browser, where it can be a little crowded.
The Pluto TV experience
The user experience is much the same no matter what device you use. Navigation and stream selection is the same as on any media center app. Find something to watch on any device or browser, select the stream, and enjoy. That’s really is all there is to it.
Is Pluto TV a Good On-Demand and Live TV Option?
Let’s start with some questions.
Is Pluto TV worth watching? The answer is yes. As a budget alternative to cable TV, is it worth it? The answer is yes, for sure. Is it a complete replacement for cable service? The answer is no.
While free and of excellent quality at the price of zero dollars, the content is somewhat mixed up. Unlike cable, there is no VH1, MTV, Spike, Discovery, TV Land, Comedy Central, or similar channels. Sure, Pluto TV gets content from those sources, but they mesh them into unique channels, such as COPS Spike, MTV The Hills, Unsolved Mysteries, DOG The Bounty Hunter, TV Land Sitcoms, STAND UP TV, and more.
Some channels are close to what you get from cable, but they are limited, such as MTV Pluto, Spike Pluto, CMT Pluto, CNN, Comedy Central Pluto, Nick Pluto, and more. Furthermore, Pluto TV is a service in itself, creating the channels and the advertisements. Pluto TV has a good variety of live TV and on-demand content, but it does not provide the assortment that cable TV offers, at least not yet.
The guide is cool, but you cannot forward the time to see what is coming up in the near future. There is currently not a search function either, which comes in handy when you want to see your options. You basically have to scan through the lists of on-demand content 0r the live TV channels to see what is currently available.
The media DOES HAVE content ratings, though, for both on-demand and live TV. When you click or tap an on-demand item from the list, it brings up information, along with its TV rating. When you click on a live channel, it displays the TV rating near the progress bar area. You could click on the video stream again at any time to bring up the info if you missed it.
Sample of Pluto TV’s Live TV Rating Information:
Sample of TV Rating and Programming Information After Clicking the “i” in Live TV:
Overall, Pluto TV is breaking waves in the on-demand and digital programming industry. The interface is really cool, and they have an excellent variety of content to enjoy, from popular TV shows to great 80’s and 90’s movies, plus newer movies from major motion picture companies.
ViacomCBS Inc. is currently improving services with more content, more control, and more functionality. We’ll just have to wait and see what comes next! By the way, some of the older functions like customizing your preferences and channels were removed. So, if you read about that somewhere, it’s not valid anymore.
Isn’t life more convenient now you can pay your bills using a mobile app? No endless queues, no complications – you can do everything from the comfort of your own home.
Apps such as Cash App have taken mobile banking to a new level. Not only can you pay your bills, but you can also buy and sell Bitcoin, invest your money, and send it to friends or family members. Do you want to know how? This article has got you covered.
How to Add People on Cash App
The Cash app is a fast way to send money to people. It’s free and also safe as you can protect all your payments with a password. In addition, you can freeze your CashCard if you have it stolen or lose it. Plus, you can add an extra layer of security by approving payments with your fingerprint ID.
Adding friends and family to the app isn’t complicated at all. The only condition is that they have an active Cash App account – because only the app users can exchange money. And, of course, you need to be at least 18 years old to create accounts and send and receive money using this app.
Luckily, you don’t need more than a few minutes to create an account. If you have an account at a smaller bank, you may have to wait for a while to be approved. But most major banks typically get immediate approval. As soon as you’re approved, you can start sending money to your friends and family.
The following steps explain how to add people to the app. The process is the same, whether you have an iOS device or an Android smartphone.
Tap the Cash App icon to open the app on your phone.
In the upper-right corner of the home screen, select the person-like icon to open the account menu.
From the account page, choose the Invite Friends, Get $5 option.
You have two ways of adding people to the app. You can either select contacts from your phone’s contact list, or type in the details yourself, including the phone number and the name of the person you want to invite to the app. Note that if some of your contacts are already using the app, you’ll be able to see a green sign “Uses Cash App”. Also, if you haven’t already done it, the app will prompt you to allow it to access your contacts.
After you select all the people, you’d like to invite to the Cash App, tap on Invite.
From your default messaging app, you’ll send a generic text to the selected contacts, inviting them to use the Cash App. The text also includes your code. If they use this code while signing up, you’ll each get a $5 bonus. Be aware that you can edit the text before sending it.
Note: You can only claim the $5 reward if:
Your contact uses your code to join the app.
They link a debit card to their account.
They send at least $5 to a contact within two weeks.
How to Send Money to Your Contacts
Now that you’ve added people on the Cash App, you’re probably wondering how you can send them money. Follow the instructions below:
Launch the Cash App on your phone.
Tap on the New button at the bottom of the screen.
Type in the amount of money you’d like to send. Remember that you can’t send more than $250 within a week or more than $1,000 within a month.
Select Pay.
Add the contact info (email address and phone number) of the recipient. You can also add your contact’s $Cashtag, which is their Cash App username.
Enter the purpose of the payment.
After tapping on Pay, you’re done.
The money is usually transferred instantly, which can be a great thing, but there’s one downside to this. You should always make sure you’ve entered all the information correctly because it’s not possible to cancel a payment. If you send money to the wrong person, you probably won’t be able to get your money back. This is why it’s crucial to double-check everything before you tap the final Pay button.
All your transactions are saved within the app. You can always check your sent and received payments by doing the following:
Open the app on your smartphone.
From the home screen, select the Activity tab.
Select any payment to see the details.
A Safe Way to Send Money
If your friends or family members are still skeptical about sending money via mobile apps, they should know the Cash App is one of the safest on the market. As long as you don’t use public networks while making a payment and add the available precaution measures such as passwords, you’re good to go.
Adding people on this app doesn’t take more than a minute and can bring you some extra cash. Are your friends already using the Cash App? Have you added more people and claimed your bonuses? Share your Cash App experiences in the comments section below.
Google Sheets is an incredibly versatile tool that anyone can master. If you use it regularly, you’ll probably need to insert bullet points when making lists. Only there isn’t a direct way to do this.
However, there are several different workaround solutions. In this article, we’ll show you how to insert bullet points and cover a few other useful tips for Google Sheets.
Bullet Points and Google Sheets
Bullets points might only look like little black circles, but in fact, they’re much more than that. Think of them as mini headlines or little helpers when you’re trying to make an important list.
You might not need them in Google Sheets very often, but when you do, it’s important to know how to insert them. Here are all of the ways you can do so.
Keyboard Shortcut
Creating a bullet point shortcut sounds like a great idea. But there’s a catch. You must have a numerical keypad. It’s usually separated on the right side of your laptop or desktop keyboard. If you don’t have it on your keyboard, skip this section. In case you do, follow these steps:
Choose the Google Sheet cell where you want to insert a bullet point.
Either double click on the cell or press F2 on the keyboard. This will prompt the edit mode.
Press the ALT key on your keyboard and then press number 7 on the numerical keypad.
And just like that, the bullet point will appear in the Google Sheets cell. If you like, you can try out other keys on the numerical keypad. Among others, you’ll get the graphic symbols found in a deck of cards, clubs, diamonds, spades, and hearts.
Copy and Paste
You might have done this already, especially if you’ve failed to find another way to insert bullet points. You can simply copy the bullet point from another location and paste it into a Google Sheets cell.
It doesn’t matter where you copy it from. You can even open Google Docs because it’s the closest program to Google Sheets and do it from there. It’s a solution that might take a little more time at first, but it does the job.
The CHAR Function
CHAR is a worksheet function that you can use in both Excel and Google Sheets. It’s a built-in feature that can be used in a cell formula for many different purposes.
A bullet point has a specific Unicode number which you can use with the CHAR function. There are just two steps:
Type in this exact CHAR function in the cell you want to create the bullet point =CHAR(8226)
Press Enter.
You’ll see the bullet point instantly appear in your Google Sheet cell. Plus, you can use a formula to add bullet points to the list you already have automatically. For example, if your list starts in cell A1, to make a bullet point list in cell B1, you have to enter:
=CHAR(8226)&” “&A1
After you do so, you can also just copy the cell values and then paste it anytime you want.
More Google Sheets Tips
It would be impossible to list all of the great tips and tricks you can apply in Google Sheets. And you probably know many of them anyway. But just in case, here’s more insight into the complex and exciting world of this great tool.
Protect Cell Data
If you’re working with sensitive information or just a massive amount of data, it’s crucial not to make mistakes. To ensure that doesn’t happen, you can lock some of your data. You can choose to lock down individual cells or whole sheets, depending on the situation.
If you feel like you don’t need to lock the data, you can still add a layer of protection. There’s an option to display a warning before the information is edited.
Change the Capitalization of Words
Have you ever opened a Google Sheets document with the first and last names all in lowercase? If you have to correct that mistake, you can use a function in Google Sheets that will turn all the first letters of words from lowercase to uppercase.
In the function bar, just enter =PROPER and write the cell number. You can do it the other way around by replacing “PROPER” with “LOWER”.
Text Translation
When you encounter a foreign language in your sheet, there’s an easy way to figure out what it means. Just use the GOOGLETRANSLATE function. It will identify the source language automatically and produce the translation in the language you want.
Winning in Productivity with Google Sheets
What did people do before Google Sheets? It’s hard to quantify just how much time and energy this tool saves when it comes to everything spreadsheet-related.
If you’re a fan of making lists, shopping, or otherwise, you’ll appreciate knowing how to insert bullet points in Google Sheets.
All three solutions are quite simple and straightforward. You can pick the one that works best for you and start making lists.
Which method will you use to insert bullet points in Google Sheets? Let us know in the comments section below.
Since its launch in 2005, Reddit has grown massively popular with over 430 million active monthly users. Reddit was founded by two 22-year-old graduates from the University of Virginia, Alexis Ohanian and Steve Huffman, the latter of whom has served as CEO of the site since 2015.
To those who are not so familiar with Reddit, it is a network of communities with their own front pages. Users can follow and submit posts to each community as they wish. Reddit is a way to view news, connect with people of similar backgrounds, views, and interests. It works like a newspaper, but with users who are entitled to their own opinions.
Reddit is similar to any number of bulletin board systems that came before it, from niche sites to once-massive social services. While similar sites like Digg and Delicious eventually failed to keep user interest, Reddit is the sixth most-popular site in the world, behind Google and YouTube, Facebook, Chinese search engine Baidu, and Wikipedia. This places it ahead in popularity of sites like Amazon, Twitter, Instagram, and Netflix in terms of monthly visitors. Reddit is a site that is seemingly always bubbling under the surface of becoming mainstream, yet you don’t hear about it the way you hear about several of the sites that are less popular than Reddit.
This makes many people wonder, “So who exactly is using Reddit?”
What are the demographics of the site that bills itself as the front page of the internet? When you’re browsing Reddit, what types of people are you sharing the site with? Who’s using the site, and for what purpose? These are tough questions to answer, especially for a site as big as Reddit. Luckily, we’ve done our best to pull together several different sources of information to build a profile detailing exactly what kind of visitors Reddit is receiving.
Basic Details
To start off, we wanted to look at the core information surrounding Reddit users – more specifically, four basic points of a person’s characteristics: age, gender, geographic location (or nationality), and ethnicity. Despite being basic information, these can be pretty difficult to track. When you sign up for a Reddit account, you will only be asked to give a username, a password, and an email address. After you’ve signed up for an account, you can modify your profile to add additional information, including a display name that is different from your own username. You will also have the option to add a short biography about yourself, and the ability to add a header.
You will not be required to add your age, gender, location, or ethnicity to your Reddit profile; unless a user willingly adds that information to the About box. In a way, that’s a good thing—it helps to keep Reddit separate from the rest of your social life online, and that anonymity is necessary for online safety. It does mean, however, that tracking basic details about Reddit’s users and their characteristics has to be done through outside research. The sources we used for this information is posted at the bottom of this article, but basically, we’ve pulled information and statistics from a number of polls and outside research.
Age and Gender
This might not surprise many readers, but the basic takeaway for both age and gender is simple: the biggest part of Reddit’s audience skews young and male. In a recent 2019 survey by Statista, it was found that 22 percent of internet users aged 18 to 29 years and 14 percent of users aged 30 to 49 years use Reddit. Pew Research’s 2016 poll found that, though the United States is split 49 percent male to 51 percent female, over two-thirds of Reddit users in the United States skewed male. Reports in September of 2017 citing Statistica found that percentage difference may be as high as 69 percent male, as opposed to the 67 percent Pew Research found. Regardless, it’s safe to assume that the majority of users on Reddit are male, and though both of those statistics use the United States as their polling place, it’s likely similar throughout the rest of the world. Pew also found that people who use Reddit for their news skew even more male, reaching as high as 71 percent.
In the United States, age groups of adults are split up somewhat fairly, with 22 percent of the adult population made up of 18-29 year old, 34 percent in the 30-49 age range, 25 percent in the 50-64 range, and only 19 percent of adults above the age of 65. These numbers have likely shifted a bit since they were gathered in 2016; regardless, they hold true for our point today. Compared to these numbers, the Reddit user base doesn’t match these numbers at all. In 2016, the Reddit user base was 64 percent between the ages of 18 and 29, and another 29 percent were between the ages of 30 and 49. Only 6 percent of Reddit users were found to be between the ages of 50 and 64, and just a single percent were 65 or older.
So, while the population of the United States may be split in terms of both age and gender, Reddit’s users are anything but.
Location
Recent 2020 statistics from Statista.com shows that the largest percentage of Reddit users according to location comes from United States with 49.91%. This is followed by United Kingdom with 7.91%, Canada with 7.49%, Australia with 3.94%, and Germany with 3.2%.
In 2016, four percent of United States-based adults reported using Reddit to Pew Research, who themselves found that six percent of adults used the website in 2013. Reddit themselves have stated that 54 percent of their audience comes from the United States as of January 2017.
Keep in mind these numbers likely come from IP addresses, which means the actual percentages may be skewed through the use of VPNs. This could mean that users in countries with heavy amounts of censorship, like Russia (which, to be fair, recently passed law blocking the use of VPNs, but are likely still being used) and China (where Reddit has been previously blocked), could be using the platform under different IP addresses through countries like the United States. Ultimately, it doesn’t matter too much—the takeaway here should be that at least half of Reddit’s users are based in the United States.
Ethnicity
The table below shows a 2019 survey of Reddit users according to ethnicity; as surveyed by Statista.com.
The Pew Research poll from 2016 determines that, unlike age and gender, Reddit’s audience actually follows the trends of the US population fairly closely. In the United States, white non-Hispanic adults made up 65 percent of the population, with black non-Hispanic making up 12 percent, Hispanic making up 15 percent, and other non-Hispanic making up 8 percent. From the Pew Research poll, we can see Reddit’s user base is primarily white non-Hispanic, coming in at 70 percent of Reddit’s users in the United States. Black non-Hispanic users are at 7 percent of Reddit’s base in the US, Hispanic users at 12 percent, and other non-Hispanic at 11 percent total.
Overall, these numbers follow the United States general population fairly closely, with an increase in white non-Hispanic users and other non-Hispanic users, and a decrease in Hispanic and black non-Hispanic users. Obviously, this only goes to show the ethnic background of the US audience for Reddit, which does subtract a good percentage of Reddit’s own users. Still, there’s no widely available information on the ethnicity of Reddit’s non-US based users, so for now, this is the best we have to go off. If that changes in the future, we’ll update the post accordingly.
Advanced Details
With those four statistics out of the way, we can focus a little more closely on some of the less concrete details of users. In addition to looking at the time spent on the site and what devices were used to access Reddit, we also wanted to look at the politics, religious beliefs, education, and the general income level of Reddit’s users. Finally, we took a look at what Redditors use the site for, and what type of content is most popular on the site.
Time Spent on the Site
This is a pretty simple one, actually. Nearly every source we checked gave us the same basic answer: around fifteen minutes total. Alexa’s website ranking had Reddit listed at the daily time on the site for 15:50 total. Reddit’s own site for advertisement information had their time per session listed as 14+ minutes, which is a bit different from daily time, but seems to line up with most users visiting Reddit once a day and browsing their favorite subreddits for new content.
It’s also worth noting that the majority of users on Reddit either never post or rarely post, instead choosing to browse or “lurk” on their favorite networks. This is similar to any website with a commenting system, though it’s likely that Reddit has a higher ratio of active users to lurking users. Finally, it’s also safe to assume that small-but-dedicated communities that are geared towards passionate fan bases likely see even higher ratios than more popular subreddits, thanks to the feeling of close-knit communities these smaller groups can inspire.
Operating System Choice
Reddit’s own users ran a poll of their site at the end of 2016 which has an entry field for listing which operating system people use to view Reddit on a regular basis. For a website largely made up of younger nerds, the results weren’t too surprising: Windows led with nearly 36 percent. Android was right behind, coming in second with 31 percent of users, followed by iOS, MacOS, and Linux in that order. For the most part, that makes sense; Windows and Android are the two most popular operating systems in use currently, with iOS and MacOS typically seen in third place (the numbers for those two platforms are counted together, but iOS devices massively outweigh MacOS devices in terms of popularity) and Linux distros behind Apple’s software.
It’s worth noting, however, that though this poll lists Windows as the most popular operating system, roughly 40 percent of Reddit’s visitors access the website through their mobile app. It’s likely that this doesn’t include third-party apps, of which there are a number on iOS and Android, which means the actual percentage of mobile users may be even higher than this implies.
Education
Several of the sources used for this information all pointed in the same general direction of an answer: the majority of Reddit users have either some college education or a degree, with the smallest group of users having only a high school degree. The young age of Reddit’s audience means that they’re more likely to go to college for advanced learning than previous generations, but it also means that plenty of Reddit’s users are actually still in high school or college. Reddit itself does not have an age check when you sign up for an account, as we detailed above, but it does require users to be at least 13 when using the site, due to the Children’s Online Privacy Protection Act.
Basically, Reddit’s audience is fairly well-educated, typically either in possession of a college degree, working towards a college degree, or still in high school. The high level of college education on the site may have some influence on the next several categories listed below.
Income
Pulling from the same Pew Research poll we’ve been using throughout this guide, we can see that US-based Redditors tend to be of all different income levels, spread out on all three levels measured by Pew almost evenly. At the lowest end of the poll, we have Reddit users making less than $30,000 per year. 30 percent of Reddit users fell under this bracket in 2016, compared to 21 percent of American adults. In the next bracket, $30,000-$74,999, we find 34 percent of Redditors, nearly even with the findings in American adults, 35 percent. Finally, at the top of this chart, we have $75,000 or above. Obviously, this includes the most amount of possibilities, which may account for it being the highest percentage at 35 percent. This is actually quite a bit lower than the percentage of all American adults in this bracket, which sits at 44 percent.
There are a few takeaways here. First, the higher percentage of Reddit users making less than $30k in income every year makes sense when you combine that knowledge with what we know about the age of Reddit’s community. If Reddit’s user base skews younger, and includes a lot of users still in high school or college (often lacking full-time annual employment), it could explain why the percentage of lower-income users is higher than the average percentage in the United States. That said, the higher percentage of college-educated users on Reddit as opposed to the national average also explains why the percentage of users making $75k or more remains fairly high. If a fair portion of Reddit’s audience hold college degrees, that increases the likelihood of better paying jobs.
Overall, the average income on Reddit is roughly what you would expect from a young, male-majority audience: split between all three brackets fairly evenly.
Politics
One of the most surprising aspects of Reddit’s demographics is its readers’ political leanings. Reddit has garnered a lot of attention from the press since the heyday of the 2016 election for several notable subreddits related to politics, but none of them are more contentious than “r/the_donald,” a subreddit centered around the politics of then-candidate Donald Trump. It’s grown tougher to use that as a benchmark for politics on Reddit, however, because the community was quarantined by Reddit in 2019, erasing the sub from Google and Reddit’s searches and putting a warning message up when you click on the subreddit’s page.
For most of its existence, Reddit has made it clear that they support free speech and allow their platform to be used to discuss any kind of topic, even if its board and founders may disagree. In recent years, under the leadership of Huffman, Reddit has strengthened its terms of service, specifically around harassment, which has caused certain specific subreddits to be shutdown. One of the most controversial of these subreddits was r/Pizzagate, a spinoff subreddit from r/the_donald that surrounded a conspiracy theory following the 2016 election. While r/pizzagate was removed from Reddit’s service, the subreddit it originated from—r/the_donald—is still active and creating news today, despite being quarantined.
The controversy around that conspiracy theory, and the followers of r/the_donald, might have you believe that Reddit as a service leans to the right—or, at the very least, offers breeding grounds for Republican and conservative views to flourish. In the case of the latter, it’s true. There’s no shortage of Republican and right-leaning subreddits on the platform, including r/Republican and r/Republicans, r/Conservative, r/CollegeRepublicans, and r/ModerateRepublicans. But as this list shows, Reddit’s political ideology is really what you bring to it. There are subreddits for all sorts of political leanings, including communities for libertarianism, socialism, democratic socialism, the Democratic party, communism, and even some outliers, like anarchy and the American Pirate Party, which pushes for copyright law reform. And of course, there’s r/politics, which has a whopping 5.3 million members and skews to the left of center, though not by as much as most right-wing community members would lead you to think.
Basically, this is a long-winded way to say that Reddit is a community that reflects what you bring to it. It’s a platform designed to be tweaked and twisted into what you want, whether that be something that directly challenges or opposes views you hold close and dear, or to serve as an echo chamber and a way to expand your knowledge on views you might already hold.
Statistically, it’s difficult to prove what leanings readers on Reddit might hold when signing up for the platform. Pew Research’s poll in 2016 showed that Reddit’s user base skewed to the left, with 43 percent of their poll takers defining themselves as liberal, 38 percent describing themselves as moderate, and only 19 percent of Reddit users calling themselves conservative. That said, February 2016 was relatively early in the life-cycle of the popular r/the_donald subreddit, which is now considered one of the most active communities on the platform and has more than half a million subscribers. In our research, we could find no other subreddit that managed to be as popular as r/the_donald on either side of the aisle, with the Democrats subreddit holding at 54,000 subscribers and the Republican subreddit at 40,000. Of course, not everyone who has a specific right or left political leaning will subscribe to a political subreddit—plenty of people use the platform as a way to have a fun time online, to gather news, or just to follow media they enjoy.
Ultimately, the numbers from Pew Research two years ago have probably slimmed a bit, but we wouldn’t be surprised if Reddit’s entire user base leans left overall. When the entire audience of a website is young and mostly college-educated, overall statistics show that it’s likely that the audience on Reddit will skew Democrat.
Religion
To be straightforward, it’s difficult to determine the religious affiliation of Reddit’s user base. Unlike political leanings, the religious beliefs of Reddit’s users hasn’t been polled in any substantial way, which means all we have to go on here is the subscriber count of various religious subreddits. Reddit is somewhat well-known around the internet for attracting a large percentage of atheists to its community, and indeed, comparing the Christianity subreddit (Christianity, of course, being the dominant religion in the United States, where more than half of Reddit’s users are based) to the atheism subreddit shows a noticeable margin between the two communities. The atheism subreddit is the 56th most popular subreddit on the platform, with more than 2.1 million subscribers, while the most popular Christianity subreddit, r/Christianity, sits around 144,000 subscribers.
Of course, subscriber count doesn’t necessarily mean there aren’t plenty of Christian users on Reddit—it just means that the atheism community is incredibly active on Reddit. And indeed, comparing the two communities, there’s a noticeable difference in what is posted on each board. The majority of posts on r/Christianity seem to relate directly to either talking about faith, debating aspects and meanings of the Bible, or sharing news stories on Christianity (for example, “Bible Downloads Banned in China”).
Not to disparage the r/atheism community, but their posts aren’t quite as deep. While there are certainly some discussions that dive deep into the ideas behind atheism and the lack of belief in any sort of higher power, a lot of the content on r/atheism is based on posts around religion, including ultra-religious people doing questionable acts and popular posts like “the response to the suggestion of superior design should be to pick your nose.” Again, if that’s the content you’re into, more power to you. It just goes to show that the two communities are doing very different things with their time.
Other subreddits based on major world religions have even fewer members. r/Islam has around 50,000 subscribers, despite being the second most-popular religion in the world. Hinduism, the fourth largest religion, only has 18,000 subscribers on its subreddit. Buddhism is actually fairly popular on the site, clocking in at 135,000 subscribers. Judaism, meanwhile, has 21,000 subscribers on its respective subreddit.
Again, it’s difficult to really draw a line between subscriber count and their actual beliefs, since no one requires you to subscribe to the religious subreddit of your choice just because it matches your own personal views. What we can do, however, is look at the age of most Reddit users—they’re mostly younger men—and the political leanings we discussed above to match those factors with the overall religious beliefs of millennials. Pew Research has found that younger millennials are still overwhelmingly Christian at 56 percent, but the percentage of agnostic, atheist, or otherwise non-particular beliefs has ballooned to 36 percent. It’s fair to say these statistics probably align fairly closely with Reddit, but again, it’s difficult to put an exact number on any of the religious beliefs of Reddit’s user base.
Subreddit Use
Finally, we can discuss some of the most popular subreddits on Reddit, not just to show off the top subreddits on the list, but to show what Redditors are looking to use the site for. The most-subscribed subreddit, for example, is r/announcements, which mostly serves as a way for Reddit to announce upcoming changes to the service, including policy changes, new rules, and information on site redesigns. Of course, that doesn’t show a good example of what people actually use the site for, so instead, it’s important to note what most users actually follow in a day to day fashion.
The most popular subreddit after r/announcements is r/funny, with over 21 million subscribers. r/Funny is based entirely around jokes and other content designed to make people laugh and smile. There’s plenty of unfunny posts in the subreddit, but all content is at least an attempt at humor (and if you browse the main page, you’ll likely have no issue finding the majority of the content to be at least a bit humorous). The third-most popular subreddit, r/askreddit, is basically a modern Yahoo Answers but with an actual discussion.
Other popular content includes r/todayilearned, which features posts surrounding the facts that people may have unexpectedly come to understand; r/science; r/worldnews, which focuses on a global news perspective instead of just a US-based news perspective; r/pics; and r/IAmA, one of Reddit’s most famous (for good) subreddits in which prominent people from all sorts of fields and backgrounds come to Reddit to answer user-submitted questions.
Some notable subreddits from the top fifty subreddits include:
r/gaming
r/movies
r/music
r/news
r/books
r/television
r/space
r/DIY
r/food
r/history
Every subreddit mentioned above has between 12 and 20 million subscribers, with gaming the most successful of that list and history still managing to slowly creep up on hitting 13 million. But what should the takeaway here be?
First, for all the controversy that surrounds a subreddit like r/the_donald, anyone interested in understanding the audience of Reddit should understand that even the most popular controversial subreddits are relatively meaningless in the grand scheme of things. For every one person who is subscribed to r/the_donald, 36 people subscribe to something like r/gaming or r/funny.
Second, the most popular, most successful subreddits are generally inoffensive. Looking over the top 100 subreddits on the platform, it’s nearly impossible to find something truly offensive to the general public. Even subreddits like r/nsfw, which features pictures that are, let’s just say, not meant for work, or r/sex are clearly marked as content not safe for minors (in fact, if you don’t have a Reddit account, you need to accept a prompt before viewing any of the content on those communities). Truly horrendous content simply doesn’t tend to blow up on the site, staying mostly quiet in the background and, if it does blow up into a controversy, often getting banned by Reddit themselves (see: r/deepfakes, r/jailbait).
Finally, the main takeaway is this: Reddit is what users make of it, and Redditors tend to flock toward the content they’re either already interested in, or content they want to learn more about. If someone is really into gaming, they’ll likely follow r/gaming, plus the subreddits of their favorite consoles (like r/ps4, r/nintendoswitch, or r/pcgaming), and maybe some deals subreddits (r/ps4deals or r/nintendoswitchdeals). Someone interested in movies or music or books will follow similar patterns, and obviously everyone will mix and match their favorite communities as they build a portfolio of what they find interesting. If anything, the top subreddit list proves that, no matter what the background of an individual person, people use Reddit to follow what they like, be it media, news, history, the opportunity to learn, or anything else.
Sources
It’s important to remember that these statistics are only as good as the data behind them, and unfortunately, Reddit themselves have not released a massive amount of information on who their audience is to the general public (we’d assume, of course, that advertisers do have additional data here). Most of the information above was pulled from a Pew Research poll conducted in 2016 on Redditors and, more specifically, people who gather their news on Reddit. We also gathered information from Reddit’s own Audience and Demographics page on their Reddit help site, and used a Redditor-made poll to gather information on what devices and operating systems people are using. Alexa’s site ranking was used to determine the popularity of Reddit itself.
Mediakix’s own gatherings on Reddit demographics helped us to check the statistics provided by some of the above charts for a second source. An older Pew Research data survey from 2013 was briefly used to cite how many people used Reddit in 2013. We used Redditmetrics’ top list to gather information on the most popular subreddits on the platform, and gained information on the controversial and banned subreddits from Wikipedia’s own article outlining them (and the sources provided through Wikipedia). Information on the religious leanings of younger millennials was pulled from Pew Research as well. This SurveyMonkey source on Reddit app data was consulted. Finally, Statistica was used briefly as a second source for the male vs. female percentages of Reddit’s users.
***
Ultimately, we think these findings paint a solid picture of what the demographics of Reddit are, painting a picture of a younger, majority white and male audience with access to higher education. That said, it’s also obvious that Reddit has plenty of diversity within its subreddit communities. People use Reddit for a multitude of reasons, from news to entertainment to saving cash. There’s no one reason to sign up for Reddit, and though the numbers point in the direction of a younger, male-focused audience, there are plenty of communities within Reddit created specifically to target women and people of color, giving them a voice on “the front page of the internet.”
Even those who’ve never used House Party will recognize its famous logo – the yellow waving hand on the red background. It looks as if it’s inviting you to join in the fun and start chatting with your friends.
When you enter the app, you’ll see a similar hand sign next to the names of all your contacts. In this article, we’ll explain what the hand means and how you can use it to enhance your House Party experience.
What Does the Hand Sign Mean?
If you open your contacts list, you’ll see usernames and photos of all your friends. You’ll also be able to see whether they’re currently online or offline.
In addition, you’ll see a small yellow hand sign next to every name, as well as a little green phone sign. If you tap on the hand sign, it means you’re inviting your friend to chat. In turn, they’ll receive a notification that you waved to them. And if they’re free, they can send you a message or call you.
Alternatively, if you click on a small phone sign, the app will call your friend. That’s great if your friend is expecting your call. However, if you’re not sure they can talk right now, it would be better to wave first, just to see how they’re going to react.
Moreover, if your friend’s currently in a call with someone else, you’ll be able to join them. All you have to do is tap on the Join sign next to their name, unless the call is locked.
Difference Between a Wave and a Message
Some people believe that waving and sending a message is the same. Or they might be wondering why they should wave to someone when they can send them a message right away.
Waving can mean many things. Young people prefer it because it’s very informal. You can wave to a friend to show them that you’re there and ready to chat. That way, they can call you whenever they get a chance. No pressure.
Also, if you want to let someone know you’re thinking about them, waving may be the best way to do so. It shows them it’s not urgent. They can answer when they have some free time.
It can also be a good way to show that you miss someone. A simple wave saves you from the awkwardness of trying to put your feelings into words.
Can I Wave to More People?
If you want to let all your friends know that you’re ready to chat, you can wave to all of them. Although there’s no option to wave in private chats automatically, there’s another option you can use.
You can always create a new chat, and add up to eight participants (including yourself). You can do so by tapping on the Plus sign at the top right corner of the screen. Then type the names of friends who you’d like to invite.
You’ve now created a room where you can chat, host video calls, or play games. Again, you’ll see the yellow hand sign among the icons at the bottom of the screen. When you click on it, all participants will get a notification that you’d like to chat.
Difference Between a House Party Hand and a Facebook Wave
The waving hand isn’t a new concept by any means. We’ve seen it on many messaging apps, such as Facebook Messenger. However, it can have a very different meaning. On Facebook, you can wave to someone who’s not on your contact list. Maybe you’ve just sent them a request, but don’t intend to add them as a friend.
Whereas the House Party hand serves to wave to people you’ve already chatted with, or with whom you plan to start a call. It’s a bit more personal. In contrast, waving on other apps can mean just about anything.
Simple and Fast Way to Chat
We all tend to simplify our daily tasks, and this applies to our conversations as well. The House Party app is perfect for people who want to contact their friends with only one click. Young people prefer this way of communication, but there’s no age limit on those who use the app.
After all, we all want to stay in touch with our friends even though we may not live in the same town. Have you already tried the House Party app? What do you think about it? Let us know in the comments section below.
You are subscribed to email updates from Tech Junkie. To stop receiving these emails, you may unsubscribe now.
Email delivery powered by Google
Google, 1600 Amphitheatre Parkway, Mountain View, CA 94043, United States
Automobile liability insurance is financial protection for a driver who, while operating a vehicle, harms someone else or their property. It only covers injuries or damages to third parties and their property, not to the driver.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Cherry picking refers to the act of choosing top securities for investment from research that generally overlooks large amounts of data or disregards broad market metrics.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Market risk premium is the difference between the expected return on a market portfolio and the risk-free rate. it is an important element of modern portfolio theory and discounted cash flow valuation.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Follow these steps to set up a general ledger accounting system in Excel. A small business can use Excel as a substitute for expensive accounting software.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Discover the history of Ipsy, how much packages cost, options available for membership, major competition, and what the future looks like for the company.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Gold's appeal dates back thousands of years and investors now have several different options when it comes to investing in the royal metal. Find out whether gold can live up to the hype.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
You will get the best exchange rate in New York, but it's good to arrive in the United States with some dollars in your pocket. Here are tips for tourists.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Enterprise value (EV) is a measure of a company's total value, often used as a comprehensive alternative to equity market capitalization. EV includes in its calculation the market capitalization of a company but also short-term and long-term debt as well as any cash on the company's balance sheet.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
A core liquidity provider acts as a middleman in the securities markets, buying securities from companies and distributing them for resale to investors.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
A sweep-to-fill order is a type of market order where a broker splits it into numerous parts to take advantage of all available liquidity for fast execution.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
A look at the factors that affect the price of oil, and how the price affects the economy from family budgets to corporate earnings to the nation's GDP.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Discover how OPEC, demand and supply, natural disasters, production costs and political instability are some of the major causes in oil price fluctuation.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Bank-owned life insurance is a type of life insurance bought by banks as a tax shelter, leveraging tax-free savings provisions to fund employee benefits.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Learn about some of the major risks with investing in the oil and gas sector including volatile commodity prices, dividend cut risk and an oil spill risk.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Crude oil options are widely traded energy derivatives, but with a twist. They're options on futures, offering the investor certain advantages over oil futures.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Whether you are a novice or an energy sector investing veteran, these five steps will give you consistent opportunities to profit in crude oil trading.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Investors have many options for getting involved with oil. These methods come with varying degrees of risk and range from direct investment in oil as a commodity, to indirect exposure in oil through the ownership of energy-related equities.One direct method of owning oil is through the purchase of oil futures or oil futures options.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
The major difference between the crude oils Brent Crude and West Texas Intermediate is that Brent Crude originates from oil fields in the North Sea, while West Texas Intermediate is sourced from U.S. oil fields.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Margin of safety is an investing principle that involves only procuring a security when its market price is substantially less than its intrinsic value.
This posting includes an audio/video/photo media file: Download Now
Manipur TET Previous Papers with Answers Pdf available here. So, candidates can download the old Manipur TET Question Papers for free of cost. Aspirants can also get Manipur Teacher Eligibility Test Old Papers @ www.tet.bosem.in for the better exam preparation.
Manipur Teacher Eligibility Test Question Papers
You will find the entire details of the Manipur Teacher Eligibility Test and exam pattern here. On this page, we have enclosed the links for Manipur TET Model Papers with Solutions for free download. Hence, applied candidates can freely download those papers to boost up their preparation. All the Manipur Teacher Eligibility Test Exam Papers are given in pdf format. Therefore, you can download the Last Year Papers in just single click.
Interested candidates who have applied for the Manipur Teachers Eligibility Test can find all the model question papers provided here. Check them and download them for free for Manipur TET exam 2020. This will help you to prepare well for the exam and score good marks. We have provided a list of previous year question papers for you to start practising. It will also help you to understand the structure of the exam, all the important topics, types of questions asked and other details that are important from the Manipur TET exam point of view. For more details, read the sections in this article. You can also visit the official portal of the Manipur TET Limited for more details.
The Board of Secondary Education Manipur will select the applicants for the Teacher Posts on the basis of their performance in the written test. A huge number of candidates have applied for this recruitment, therefore the competition is very high. So, applicants must perform well in the examination. For thorough preparation, candidates must solve the Manipur TET Solved Question Papers. These papers are very helpful for getting more marks in the exam. For the perfect preparation, candidates must prepare each and every topic in the prescribed syllabus. By referring to the syllabus and exam pattern, the applicants will know which topics to study for the examination. Here, we have updated the Manipur TET Syllabus pdf link. Hence, download the syllabus and prepare for all the topics. After overall preparation, solve Manipur TET Sample Papers for analyzing your performance.
Manipur TET Old Question Papers & Exam Pattern 2020
The candidates who applied for the Manipur TET Notification can download the Manipur TET Previous Question Papers from the attached links. These exam papers play a vital role in exam preparation and help to improve your problem-solving skills. By solving various numbers of Manipur Teacher Eligibility Test Old Papers, you will understand which questions to answer first and last. So that you can manage time and can answer all the questions in the time limit. The Manipur TET will be conducted in 2 parts. Paper-I will be conducted for 150 marks. There will be 150 questions for the same. The subjects that the candidates will have to prepare for the paper I are Child Development & Pedagogy, Language I, Language II, Mathematics and Environmental Studies. Paper-II will be conducted for 150 marks. There will be 150 questions for the same. The subjects that the candidates will have to prepare for the paper I are Child Development & Pedagogy, Language I, Language II, Mathematics & Science for Mathematics and Science Teachers, Social & Science for Social Studies and Science Teachers or any other teacher. Get the entire details below.
Manipur TET Paper I:
Subject Name
Questions
Marks
Child Development & Pedagogy
30
30
Language I
30
30
Language II
30
30
Mathematics
30
30
Environmental Studies
30
30
Total
150 Questions
150 Marks
Manipur TET Paper 2:
Subject Name
Questions
Marks
Child Development & Pedagogy
30
30
Language I
30
30
Language II
30
30
Mathematics & Science for Mathematics and Science Teachers Social & Science for Social Studies and Science Teachers
60
60
Total
150 Questions
150 Marks
Free Download Manipur TET Exam Solved Question Papers PDF
The applicants can get the Manipur TET Exam Papers from the enclosed free downloading links. These old question papers are given only for the purpose of reference. Hence, aspirants who downloaded the Manipur TET Previous Papers must utilize those papers for practising and to test their capability. For any information regarding the Teacher Eligibility Test, check the official site tet.bosem.in or megeducation.gov.in. Get all the previous papers below. You can also get the Manipur TET Syllabus on our website.
Get Subject Wise Manipur TET Previous Papers Here
Name of the Subject
Previous Papers
Manipur TET Child Development & Pedagogy Model Paper
Meghalaya TET Previous Papers with Answers Pdf available here. So, candidates can download the old Meghalaya TET Question Papers for free of cost. Aspirants can also get Meghalaya Teacher Eligibility Test Old Papers @ www.mbose.in or www.megeducation.gov.in for the better exam preparation.
Meghalaya TET Question Papers
You will find the entire details of the Meghalaya Teacher Eligibility Test and exam pattern here. On this page, we have enclosed the links for Meghalaya TET Model Papers with Solutions for free download. Hence, applied candidates can freely download those papers to boost up their preparation. All the Meghalaya Teacher Eligibility Test Exam Papers are given in pdf format. Therefore, you can download the Last Year Papers in just single click.
Interested candidates who have applied for the Meghalaya Teachers Eligibility Test can find all the model question papers provided here. Check them and download them for free for Meghalaya TET exam 2020. This will help you to prepare well for the exam and score good marks. We have provided a list of previous year question papers for you to start practising. It will also help you to understand the structure of the exam, all the important topics, types of questions asked and other details that are important from the Meghalaya TET exam point of view. For more details, read the sections in this article. You can also visit the official portal of the Meghalaya TET Limited for more details.
Meghalaya TET Previous Papers | www.mbose.in
Name of the Board
Meghalaya Board of School Education, Directorate of Educational Research and Training (DERT)
Meghalaya TET Model Papers | Meghalaya TET Syllabus
The Meghalaya Board of School Education, Directorate of Educational Research and Training will select the applicants for the Teacher Posts on the basis of their performance in the written test. A huge number of candidates have applied for this recruitment, therefore the competition is very high. So, applicants must perform well in the examination. For thorough preparation, candidates must solve the Meghalaya TET Solved Question Papers. These papers are very helpful for getting more marks in the exam. For the perfect preparation, candidates must prepare each and every topic in the prescribed syllabus. By referring to the syllabus and exam pattern, the applicants will know which topics to study for the examination. Here, we have updated the Meghalaya TET Syllabus pdf link. Hence, download the syllabus and prepare for all the topics. After overall preparation, solve Meghalaya TET Sample Papers for analyzing your performance.
Meghalaya TET Old Question Papers & Exam Pattern 2020
The candidates who applied for the Meghalaya TET Notification can download the Meghalaya TET Previous Question Papers from the attached links. These exam papers play a vital role in exam preparation and help to improve your problem-solving skills. By solving various numbers of Meghalaya Teacher Eligibility Test Old Papers, you will understand which questions to answer first and last. So that you can manage time and can answer all the questions in the time limit. The Meghalaya TET will be conducted in 2 parts. Paper-I will be conducted for 150 marks. There will be 150 questions for the same. The subjects that the candidates will have to prepare for the paper I are Child Development & Pedagogy, Language I, Language II, Mathematics and Environmental Studies. Paper-II will be conducted for 150 marks. There will be 150 questions for the same. The subjects that the candidates will have to prepare for the paper I are Child Development & Pedagogy, Language I, Language II, Mathematics & Science for Mathematics and Science Teachers, Social & Science for Social Studies and Science Teachers or any other teacher. Get the entire details below.
Meghalaya TET Paper I:
Subject Name
Questions
Marks
Child Development & Pedagogy
30
30
Language I (Khasi/ Garo/ Assamese/ Bengali/ Hindi/ Nepali)
30
30
Language II (English)
30
30
Mathematics
30
30
Environmental Studies
30
30
Total
150 Questions
150 Marks
Meghalaya TET Paper 2:
Subject Name
Questions
Marks
Child Development & Pedagogy (Compulsory)
30
30
Language I (Khasi/ Garo/ Assamese/ Bengali/ Hindi/ Nepali) (Compulsory)
30
30
Language II (English) (Compulsory)
30
30
Mathematics & Science for Mathematics and Science Teachers Social & Science for Social Studies and Science Teachers
30
30
Total
150 Questions
150 Marks
Free Download Meghalaya TET Exam Solved Question Papers PDF
The applicants can get the Meghalaya TET Exam Papers from the enclosed free downloading links. These old question papers are given only for the purpose of reference. Hence, aspirants who downloaded the Meghalaya TET Previous Papers must utilize those papers for practising and to test their capability. For any information regarding the Teacher Eligibility Test, check the official site www.mbose.in or megeducation.gov.in. Get all the previous papers below. You can also get the Meghalaya TET Syllabus on our website.
Get Subject Wise Meghalaya TET Previous Papers Here
Name of the Subject
Previous Papers
Meghalaya TET Child Development & Pedagogy Model Paper
NRHM Punjab Recruitment 2020: Online Applications for 57 Assistant Hospital Administrator and Hospital Administrator Jobs in Punjab @ www.nhmpunjab.in!! The National Health Mission, Punjab has released the NHM Punjab Notification. This was done to announce vacancies for the posts of Assistant Hospital Administrator and Hospital Administrator. There is 57 NRHM Punjab Vacancy. The officials are inviting online applications from eligible candidates to fill up these posts. Interested candidates can start to apply from today. The last date to apply for NRHM Punjab Recruitment is 04th May 2020. Get all related details below.
National Health Mission Punjab Recruitment 2020-21
Interested candidates can get all the details regarding the NRHM Punjab Jobs below. Here you will be able to get clear details about the vacancy, age limit, application process, salary, selection process, the application process, etc. You can also refer to the NRHM Punjab Notification for more details. Once you go through all the details, you will be able to confirm your eligibility for the posts. Eligible candidates can proceed to apply online. The NRHM Punjab Apply Online link has been provided below. You can click on the link and follow the instruction given to apply. To know more about the National Health Mission Punjab, click on the official website link below or visit the website @ www.nhmpunjab.in.
Overview of NRHM Punjab Jobs 2020
Name of the Organization
National Health Mission, Punjab
Number of Vacancies
57 Posts
Name of Post
Assistant Hospital Administrator and Hospital Administrator
Starting date of application
Started
Closing date of application
04th May 2020
Job Category
Punjab Government Jobs
Job Location
Punjab
Application process
Online Application
Official Website
www.nhmpunjab.in
Details of NRHM Punjab Vacancy 2020-21:
The details of the vacancy as given in the NRHM Punjab Recruitment 2020 is as below
Name of the Post
Number of Posts
Hospital Administrator
01
Assistant Hospital Administrator
56
Total
57
Eligibility Criteria for NRHM Punjab Recruitment 2020
Candidates interested in NRHM Punjab Jobs can check their eligibility with the details below to apply.
Age Limit:
Name of the Post
Minimum Age
Maximum Age
Hospital Administrator
NA
45 Years
Assistant Hospital Administrator
18 Years
37 Years
For age limit as given in the NRHM Punjab Recruitment 2020, refer to the official notification
Academic Qualification:
Name of the Post
Education Qualification
Hospital Administrator
MBA
Assistant Hospital Administrator
Post Graduate Degree
Read the official notification for more details on NRHM Punjab Careers.
Selection Process:
Written Test
Interview
Document Verification
Pay Scale for NRHM Punjab Recruitment 2020:
Name of the Post
Salary Offered Per Month
Hospital Administrator
Rs. 80,000/-
Assistant Hospital Administrator
Rs. 30,000/-
Refer to the official website for details on the pay scale for NRHM Punjab Jobs
NRHM Punjab Online Application Fee:
Candidates may read the official notification to get more details on NRHM Punjab online application fees
How to apply for NRHM Punjab Recruitment 2020?
Download the Official Notification pdf provided below
Read all the details to check eligibility
Click on the NHM Punjab Online Application Form link below
Candidates are requested to fill the online application form with correct and complete details
Attach all the documents which have been mentioned
Finally submit the application form on or before 12th March 2020
Address:
Department of Health & Family Welfare, Punjab, 5th Floor Paryaas Building, Sector 38B, Chandigarh
Contact Details:
Telephone Number – 0172 4012019
Important Dates for NRHM Punjab Recruitment 2020-21:
Starting Date to Apply
Started
Last Date to Apply
04th May 2020
Important Links for NRHM Punjab Recruitment 2020-21:
National Rural Health Mission was launched in April 2005 by the Honourable Prime Minister of India for addressing the health needs in the Rural Areas in the country specifically focusing on 18 States having weak public health indicators. In the year 2012 (12th Five Year Plan), the NRHM was strengthened as National Health Mission by expanding health coverage to Urban areas and including the Non-Communicable Diseases Programme. In the year 2013, the Government of India Launched the National Urban Health Mission as a Sub Mission of National Health Mission.
BCCL Recruitment 2020:Apply for 59 Medical Consultant Posts in Jharkhand @ www.bcclweb.in!! Bharat Coking Coal Limited has released the BCCL Notification. This was done to announce 59 vacancies. These vacancies are for the post of Medical Consultant. The officials are inviting qualified candidates to fill up this BCCL Vacancy. Aspirants can check all the details below and apply for the jobs from today. The last date to apply for BCCL Recruitment is 06th May 2020.
Bharat Coking Coal Limited Recruitment 2020-21
Interested candidates can get all the details regarding the BCCL Jobs below. Here you will be able to get clear details about the vacancy, age limit, application process, salary, selection process, the application process, etc. You can also refer to the BCCL Notification for more details. Once you go through all the details, you will be able to confirm your eligibility for the posts. Eligible candidates can proceed to apply online. The BCCL Apply Online link has been provided below. You can click on the link and follow the instruction given to apply. To know more about the National Rural Health Mission Madhya Pradesh, click on the official website link below or visit the website @ www.bcclweb.in.
Overview of BCCL Jobs 2020 | www.bcclweb.in
Name of the Organization
Bharat Coking Coal Limited (BCCL)
Number of Vacancies
59
Name of Post
Medical Consultant
Starting date of application
Started
Closing date of application
06th May 2020
Job Category
Jharkhand Government Jobs
Job Location
Jharkhand
Application process
Offline Application
Official Website
www.bcclweb.in
Details of BCCL Vacancy 2020-21:
The details of the vacancy as given in the BCCL Recruitment 2020 is as below
Name of the Post
Number of Posts
Medical Specialist Consultants
40
General Medical Consultants
19
Total
50
Eligibility Criteria for BCCL Recruitment 2020
Candidates interested in BCCL Jobs can check their eligibility with the details below to apply.
Academic Qualification:
Read the official notification for more details on BCCL Careers.
Age Limit:
For age limit as given in the BCCL Recruitment 2020, refer to the official notification
Selection Process:
Written Test
Interview
Document Verification
Pay Scale for BCCL Recruitment 2020:
Refer to the official website for details on the pay scale for BCCL Jobs
BCCL Online Application Fee:
Candidates may read the official notification to get more details on BCCL online application fees
How to apply for BCCL Recruitment 2020?
Read the BCCL notification Carefully before applying
Check if you are eligible for the post
Open the BCCL Online Application Link which is available below
Fill the Form in Detail
Attach copies of photograph & signature
Send the duly filled application along with relevant documents to the below address on or before the last date through Post
New Delhi: India's 6% equalisation levy on foreign online advertising platforms may impede its overseas trade and increase the risk of retaliation from countries where Indian companies are doing business, the US has cautioned. This is because its provisions do not provide credit for tax paid in other countries for the service provided in India, it said.In its latest report on trade barriers, the US also marked a slew of issues in India's digital trade including those proposed in the draft ecommerce policy, such as data localisation requirements, restrictions on cross-border data flows, expanded grounds for forced transfer of intellectual property and proprietary source code, and preferential treatment for domestic digital products. Washington said it "strongly encourages India to reconsider this draft policy".On the equalisation levy, or the so-called 'Google tax', it said the current structure of the tax represented a shift from internationally accepted principles, which provided that digital taxation mechanisms should be developed on a multilateral basis to prevent double taxation.Tariff Too High'The equalisation levy was first imposed in 2016 to tax companies such as Google, Facebook and Netflix on their online advertising. This year, India expanded its scope to all overseas ecommerce transactions originating from India.On the issue of India's foreign direct investment (FDI) rules in ecommerce, the US said the only exceptions for FDI in inventory based ecommerce were for food product retailing and singlebrand retailers that met certain conditions. This "narrow exception limits the ability of many electronic commerce service suppliers to serve the Indian market", it said.India permits 100% FDI in business-to-business or market place based ecommerce, but prohibits foreign investment in business-to consumer or inventory-based online trade.New Delhi and Washington have been negotiating a trade deal for more than a year with ministers and officials of both countries discussing the issues at various domestic and global fora.In the April-January period of 2019-20, India's exports to the US were $44.7 billion, while imports were $30.5 billion. In the previous fiscal year ended March 2019, India's trade surplus with the US had reduced to $16.8 billion from $21.2 billion in 2017-18.MAKE IN INDIA, GOODS TRADEThe US said it had actively sought bilateral and multilateral opportunities to increase access to India's market, but American exporters continued to encounter significant tariff and non-tariff barriers that impeded imports of US products into India, especially dairy, poultry and highly specialised equipment.It said India imposed "onerous requirements" on dairy imports and insisted that they be derived from animals that had never consumed any feeds containing internal organs, blood meal, or tissues of ruminant origin, based on religious and cultural grounds.To address these concerns, Washington, in 2015 and 2018, proposed labelling the products with details of their origin so that the consumer could make a choice, but India rejected it, as per the report.The US said it continued to press India to provide access to the dairy market and is also monitoring market access issues related to poultry, such as "unnecessary" testing requirements.
Mumbai: Reliance Industries (RIL), India's most valued company, is planning a rights issue — its first fund-raise from the public in 29 years. The company has not disclosed the amount of money it plans to raise through the rights offer, or any other details about it.Through a stock exchange notice on Monday, RIL said its board will meet on April 30 to "consider a proposal to issue equity shares to existing shareholders on rights basis". Early this month, RIL had said that the board had approved a proposal to raise Rs 25,000 crore through non-convertible debentures (NCDs).RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani will lead a board meeting on Thursday to consider the proposal of issuing new shares to existing shareholders, currently numbering over 23 lakh, according to data from the BSE. Ambani and his family owns 50% in RIL, which currently has a market capitalisation of nearly Rs 9.1 lakh crore.During rights offers, the promoters can avoid diluting their stake in the company by subscribing to their share of quota in the offer. In case other shareholders do not subscribe to their individual quota, even those shares could be bought by existing shareholders, including the promoters.The RIL's rights issue proposal comes days after it inked India's largest FDI deal, in the technology sector, with social media giant Facebook to raise Rs 43,574 crore by selling 9.9% in Jio, its digital platform business. Analysts see the rights issue proposal as RIL's move to reduce its debt of $43 billion further. RIL had also planned to use the proceeds from the sale of its stake in Jio Platforms to deleverage its balance sheet.The last time RIL tapped the public for funds was in 1991 when it had issued convertible debentures. The debentures were subsequently converted into equity shares at Rs 55 apiece.Apart from the rights issue proposal, the board of RIL will also consider the financial statements of the $90-billion explorations-to-telecom company. Fiscal 2020's fourth quarter results of RIL's core business could be impacted as demand for transportation fuels have slumped due to the Covid-19 outbreak.Retail (specifically grocery) and telecom could see limited impact because of the increased consumption during the lockdown.
New Delhi | Mumbai: An appointment with the doctor may soon become mandatory for you or your family members to board a flight after the lifting of the lockdown and resumption of normal life, which is expected sometime in June. You may also have to buy gloves, face masks and disposable caps for your next flight. Sounds surreal? Not really!A technical committee comprising doctors, bureaucrats and airport and airline officials will soon discuss these and other measures to ensure passenger safety midair after normal life resumes. It is formulating standard operating procedures (SOP) for passengers and flight staff and will soon come out with its recommendations. Airlines in India and abroad are reassessing pricing and passenger safety issues as they try to recover from the worst slump in aviation history. The ongoing lockdown is unlikely to be fully lifted across the country before June, but airlines have started evaluating measures that they may have to take once normal flight operations resume.Some global airlines like budget carrier EasyJet are planning to keep the middle seats empty, at least initially, to reassure passengers, while flight crew at Korean Air Lines are wearing full protective gear including goggles, face masks and gowns etc. 75419239Middle Seat Booking may be AllowedSome airlines are also evaluating higher fares amid fears that short-haul routes would disappear. Health checkups, temperature checkups are likely to become common, according to a Bloomberg report dated April 24.The technical committee in India, however, may allow airlines to book passengers on middle seats. "Keeping the middle seat vacant will not help achieve the 6 feet social distancing norm between two people as it allows only two feet space between two passengers. Hence the focus now is on mandating protective gear and certificates to ensure safe and coronavirus-free flights," said a senior official, who did not want to be identified. A spokesperson at GoAir declined to comment while spokespersons of IndiGo and Vistara said plans were being discussed. Airlines in India had objected to the government demand to keep middle seats vacant before the lockdown. "The safe flight occupancy in keeping with the new normal of social distancing is no more than 33%. Leaving the middle seats empty is an absolutely non-starter. The economics just do not work," a airline executive said.
Bengaluru: About 100 to 120 million blue-collar workers, accounting for over 70-80% of the industry, have gone without income in the past month due to the nationwide lockdown imposed in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic, staffing agencies and businesses told ET.Jobs are also expected to nosedive in the remaining quarters of the year unless demand picks up by the festive season later this year, experts tracking the sector said."The slowdown started around mid-March and only around 2-3 crore (20-30 million) people now have their employment intact," said Pravin Agarwala, cofounder of Betterplace, which connects blue-collar workers with companies.75418971Travel, hospitality, tourism, aviation, retail, outdoor entertainment, food and beverages and real estate sectors have been hit the most, staffing agency TeamLease said.In addition, automotive, non-essential fast-moving consumer goods, poultry, dairy, shipping and construction will also feel the impact in the short to medium term, TeamLease said. "These sectors are bound to see the repercussions…we haven't yet witnessed the peak, given most formal sector employees saw their wages by and large being paid in full and on time during the lockdown," said Rituparna Chakraborty, cofounder of TeamLease. "More challenges will come up after the lockdown is lifted. For informal sector workers who were left without livelihood since the beginning of the lockdown, it has been a daily battle," Chakraborty added.Contract employees are mostly paid by the hour, but during the lockdown they have earned next to nothing. As businesses shut down, drivers, delivery staff, sales and business development employees have been handed pink slips overnight, with between one and three-month severance packages. Apart from new-age startups like business-to-business ecommerce platform Udaan, food-delivery app Swiggy, social commerce venture Meesho and logistics firm BlackBuck, have terminated contractual employees over the last few weeks, even traditional sectors have been laying off staff, staffing agencies say. The gig economy workforce, part of the blue-collar segment, including shared mobility and ecommerce staff have seen incomes decline by 60-70%.Employees from companies such as services marketplace UrbanClap and Swiggy said businesses were restarting slowly but demand is down by 40-50%. In the absence of a pick-up in demand by Dussehra, the number of staff will either stay stagnant or go down further by year end, experts said.
NEW DELHI: The Gurugram Metropolitan Development Authority (GMDA) has approved 25 projects for immediately restarting construction activity, with strict instructions to the builders to maintain social distancing norms during work. Developers are free to start construction at 45 sites after approval and sites with less than 10 workers need not take any approval to restart work, GMDA CEO VS Kundu told ET. The approved projects include real estate projects of developers including DLF and M3M, along with some infrastructure projects. "Small sites can start work without taking approval while we are giving instant approval to those outside the containment zones. About 1,700 applications have been received, of which 300 have been granted approval, which include 45 construction sites. The rest are manufacturing units," said Kundu. The Union home ministry had allowed construction to resume after April 20 but most of the towns in the National Capital Region, except Gurugram, decided to continue with the ban. According to a report by PropEquity, Gurugram saw a 51% month-on-month fall in new launches in the first quarter of 2020, while Noida witnessed a 9% increase in new launches. Sales fell 26% month-on-month to 1,177 units during the January-March period in Gurugram.75419439
NEW DELHI: Bharti Airtel has awarded a multi-crore-rupee contract to Nokia to expand and modernise its 4G network in nine circles, including rural areas, where the Finnish company has already provided equipment to the telecom operator.Airtel is expediting its network expansion and ramping up capacities, especially in rural areas. The telco's chief technology officer Randeep Sekhon confirmed signing the new contract with Nokia to ET.Nokia didn't respond to ET's queries."Renegotiations were on for some time where Airtel was seeking reduced prices under the newly constructed agreement. Such talks are already on with other vendors like Ericsson, Huawei and ZTE in their respective circles where Airtel is seeking new prices," a person familiar with the matter said.Airtel had awarded the original 4G contract to Nokia for Gujarat, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar, West Bengal excluding Kolkata, Odisha, Mumbai, Maharashtra, Kerala and UP East circles in 2016. The deal size was pegged at $500 million, ET Telecom had reported. The newly agreed deal size couldn't be ascertained. 75419353Sekhon, in a recent interview to ET, said rural and suburban areas are seeing more traffic on Airtel's network than urban areas after the nationwide lockdown came into effect a month ago.Under the contract, Nokia will provide professional services including network integration and network planning and optimisation.Airtel recently invited bids for Tamil Nadu, which is currently served by Chinese equipment maker Huawei. The process is still on, another person said.
By Subhadip SircarThe Reserve Bank of India bought chunks of debt just after the government sold it, the latest data showed, further fueling talk that the central bank is supporting the nation's fund-raising efforts.The central bank reported 149.89 billion rupees ($2 billion) worth of sovereign debt purchases for April 16, just one day after bills with the same value were mopped up by a few bids at an auction, according to data released on Friday.Traders have been speculating over the central bank's role in bill auctions this month as a handful of bids lapped up sales and drove yields to the lowest in more than a decade. While the RBI hasn't taken part in any government auctions, the latest data suggest that it could be buying short-term debt in the secondary market within hours of a sale."Friday's data suggest RBI is buying treasury bills, which will anchor the short-end" of the yield curve, said Naveen Singh, head of fixed income at ICICI Securities Primary Dealership Ltd. Longer-maturity bonds though will suffer without a series of purchases by the central bank, he said.The RBI has so far refrained from large-scale bond purchases, and a law forbids it from directly buying government debt at auctions unless there are exceptional circumstances. A spokesman for the central bank didn't respond to queries seeking comments on Monday.What happened on April 15:The government sold 250 billion rupees worth of bills. When details of the auction came through, traders noticed that a single buyer bought all the 182-day notes, while two bids purchased about 70 billion rupees of the 364-day bills at higher prices than market estimates.The bidder or bidders for those bills, worth a combined 149.89 billion rupees, probably didn't hold onto the debt for long.Settlement data reported by the Clearing Corp. of India later showed bills with the same tenor and matching amount were sold on the day in the secondary market. The transactions mirrored the auction, with a single buyer acquiring all the 182-day notes, and two trades taking out the 364-day bills, the data showed, without revealing the identity of the purchasers.Data from the clearing house also showed that state-owned banks had net sold 126 billion rupees of bills that day. Meanwhile, institutions in a category known as 'Others', which includes the central bank, bought some 156 billion rupees of notes on April 15.The central bank reports debt purchases on settlement date, which tends to be a day after the transactions. The data published on Friday didn't give a breakdown of what was bought.Traders say a similar transaction pattern was seen at last week's sale of treasury bills, raising speculation that state lenders have been buying the notes at government auctions to resell to the RBI.The central bank hasn't participated in primary debt auctions, according to a Cogencis news agency report on Monday citing Governor Shaktikanta Das. It hasn't taken a view on debt monetization, Das said. The central bank sporadically buys debt in the secondary market and discloses those transactions every week.With the country in lockdown due to the coronavirus pandemic, Prime Minister Narendra Modi's government is trying to manage a liquidity crunch with a lot more short-term borrowings. India's central bank probably took a roundabout route to finance the budget deficit given that the law bars the RBI from directly buying sovereign debt, according to IDFC Asset Management Ltd."The RBI will continue to support the market as uncertainty continues over the nature of the fiscal stimulus, and how long the pandemic will continue," said Debendra Dash, head of fixed income at AU Small Finance Bank in Mumbai.
Mumbai: Even as the Franklin Templeton investors wait till the fund house liquidates its maturities and coupons for six of its credit funds, several high networth individuals (HNIs), brokers and financial companies that dabble in stocks could have a tax impact in the next few months.The companies and individuals have reached out to their tax advisers as they will have to take the Franklin announcement of closing the funds into consideration and as a corollary that will change the tax outgo in March and June quarters.Tax experts say the tax impact for brokers and companies would be different from that of individual investors or HNIs.The brokers will have to value the mutual funds as stock in trade and take an asset write-off."Brokers, financial companies who have exposure to the six Franklin funds will have a tax impact even in the March-end quarter. They will have to value the mutual funds as stock in trade at lower value and will get a tax deduction of the write-off," said Girish Vanvari, founder of tax advisory firm Transaction Square.Tax experts say in some cases, brokers will have to take impairment charges on the mutual funds they hold, even if they are unable to exit at this point in time.However, the issue, say tax experts is the quantum of impairment charges.Many of these impairments will have to take the current valuation of the fund and the realistic analysis of how much money they may actually see when the redemption happens, say industry trackers.The individual investors, or HNIs, on the other hand who treat investment in mutual funds as capital investments, are preparing themselves for redemption from the funds as that's the only time they can account the loss."For many HNIs, the tax on the investment in the six Franklin funds would only be applicable when they redeem it or receive payment from fund. However, this is set to have long-term impact on the fund as well as the mutual fund industry, and that could impact several investors this year," said Hinesh Doshi, managing partner, Hinesh R Doshi & Co LLP.Insiders say the tax impact for several investors could come within the next few months, and they are planning taxes keeping in mind the future scenario. Many HNIs whose funds are stuck are hoping that the redemption event may happen as early as July.
New Delhi: India's 6% equalisation levy on foreign online advertising platforms may impede its overseas trade and increase the risk of retaliation from countries where Indian companies are doing business, the US has cautioned. This is because its provisions do not provide credit for tax paid in other countries for the service provided in India, it said.In its latest report on trade barriers, the US also marked a slew of issues in India's digital trade including those proposed in the draft ecommerce policy, such as data localisation requirements, restrictions on cross-border data flows, expanded grounds for forced transfer of intellectual property and proprietary source code, and preferential treatment for domestic digital products. Washington said it "strongly encourages India to reconsider this draft policy".On the equalisation levy, or the so-called 'Google tax', it said the current structure of the tax represented a shift from internationally accepted principles, which provided that digital taxation mechanisms should be developed on a multilateral basis to prevent double taxation.Tariff Too High'The equalisation levy was first imposed in 2016 to tax companies such as Google, Facebook and Netflix on their online advertising. This year, India expanded its scope to all overseas ecommerce transactions originating from India.On the issue of India's foreign direct investment (FDI) rules in ecommerce, the US said the only exceptions for FDI in inventory based ecommerce were for food product retailing and singlebrand retailers that met certain conditions. This "narrow exception limits the ability of many electronic commerce service suppliers to serve the Indian market", it said.India permits 100% FDI in business-to-business or market place based ecommerce, but prohibits foreign investment in business-to consumer or inventory-based online trade.New Delhi and Washington have been negotiating a trade deal for more than a year with ministers and officials of both countries discussing the issues at various domestic and global fora.In the April-January period of 2019-20, India's exports to the US were $44.7 billion, while imports were $30.5 billion. In the previous fiscal year ended March 2019, India's trade surplus with the US had reduced to $16.8 billion from $21.2 billion in 2017-18.MAKE IN INDIA, GOODS TRADEThe US said it had actively sought bilateral and multilateral opportunities to increase access to India's market, but American exporters continued to encounter significant tariff and non-tariff barriers that impeded imports of US products into India, especially dairy, poultry and highly specialised equipment.It said India imposed "onerous requirements" on dairy imports and insisted that they be derived from animals that had never consumed any feeds containing internal organs, blood meal, or tissues of ruminant origin, based on religious and cultural grounds.To address these concerns, Washington, in 2015 and 2018, proposed labelling the products with details of their origin so that the consumer could make a choice, but India rejected it, as per the report.The US said it continued to press India to provide access to the dairy market and is also monitoring market access issues related to poultry, such as "unnecessary" testing requirements.
New Delhi: Bharti Airtel has kept its commitment to summer interns from top business schools and has digitally onboarded them, even as some companies are beginning to rescind their internship and job offers with the Covid-19 outbreak bringing the economic activity to a standstill.In a statement emailed to ET, the telecom services provider said it last week digitally onboarded more than 50 students from India's top B-schools to Airtel's Young Leader Summer Internship Program 2020."As part of its commitment to keep 'lights on' to ensure India stays connected during the Covid-19 lockdown, Airtel has honoured its B- school summer placement offers for this year," chief HR officer Samit Deb said. "In these unprecedented times, we have transformed every process to make it virtual and made sure nothing within the company has to stop or be postponed. We believe this unique experience will add immense value to the learning of these leaders of tomorrow," Deb said.Airtel has redesigned its internship programme to make it completely virtual, he said. "Right from induction to mentorship to final reviews, the entire programme will run virtually," he said.
Want to crack your IELTS exam without hustle? Then you have come to the right place!
Our website ieltsmaterials.com provides you with all the nuances and knacks needed to crack the IELTS exam. The website is divided into pages categorically under the four main skills in which you would be tested in the IELTS exam – Writing, Reading, Speaking and Listening. Under each of these pages, you would be able to find tips on how to score a good band in that section, an overview of what that section contains, a detailed description of the types of questions and sample exercises related to the question.
Practice makes a man perfect! Our Telegram channel provides you with several FREE mock tests that you can take up to practice and score a high band in the IELTS exam.
It also provides information on the IELTS e-books consisting of actual tests paper of the year 2020, exclusively found on our websites and e-books.
Not only will you be able to find posts consisting of Tasks along with their sample model answers by IELTS certified trainers, but you will also be exposed to strategies to crack your IELTS exams.
Do follow (or anything appropriate here) for updates on our new video tutorials and webinars pertaining to specific topics of IELTS.
Grab our recent e-books which contain questions from actual tests and answers provided by certified IELTS trainers as soon as there is a sale!
Yes, almost everyday. If I'm just bumming (relaxing) around the house, I don't bother putting make-up on. However, I have a very professional job, so I always put on my best attire (clothes) and make-up when I go to work. If I go without make-up, I feel sloppy (messy) and unprofessional. I also like to wear make up when I go out, just so I feel more confident with my appearance.
IELTS Speaking Actual tests Jan - May 2020 with suggested answers- Ebook
$80 $18
IELTS Speaking Actual Tests & Suggested Answers written by IELTS teachers aims to help IELTS candidates perform at their best on the big day.
What does wearing makeup mean to you?
To me, it's a way of taking pride in(be proud of) my appearance. It makes me feel like the best version of myself. Furthermore, I'm artistic, so I see my face like a canvas (a picture painted with oil paints on canvas or other cloth)
Do you give makeup as a gift?
Sometimes, but I'm always hesitant, as I don't always know the right shade of make-up to buy for another person. If someone requests make-up, I would certainly buy it for them. However, I would feel too nervous to pick it out myself, so I would opt for buying a gift card instead.
What do you think when you see a man wearing makeup?
Nothing in particular. Everyone has the right to express themselves, so who am I to judge? I wouldn't even blink an eye if a guy walked by me wearing make-up. Actually, I often see it in my city, so I'm quite used to it.
The charts below show the percentage of water used by different sectors in Sydney, Australia, in 1997 and 2007.
Summarize the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
ELTS Writing Task 1 Test On 24th May With Band 8.0-9.0 Sample
Report Plan:
• Paraphrase: show>compare; water used>water usage; different>various
• Summary/overview paragraph: (1) highest percentage – food industry (2) service industry – percentage of total water use almost doubled
• Paragraph 3: decline of water use in 3 sectors – compare the food industry, manufacturing and building, give figures
• Paragraph 4: contrast the increase in water use in the other sectors -households and service industry, give figures.
Report:
The pie charts compare the water usage of various sectors of the economy in Sydney, in two years – 1997 and 2007.
Overall, it is clear that the sector which used the highest percentage of water was the food industry. The percentage of total water use by the service industry sector in 2007 was almost double the figure for 1997.
IELTS Writing Recent Actual Test (Task 2) 2020 with Sample Answers (Ebook)
$37 $18
IELTS Writing Task 2 Actual Tests & Sample Answers written by IELTS teachers aims to help IELTS candidates perform at their best on the big day.
The proportion of total water use fell in three sectors in 2007, compared with the year 1997. The food industry accounted for 48% of all water usage in 1997, but only 41% in 2007. Manufacturing and the building industry also witnessed a decrease in the percentage of water used, falling to 11% and 2%, respectively, of total water usage in 2007.
By contrast, there was an increase in the proportion of total water use in the other two sectors. The water used by the service sector rose from 13% in 1997 to 25% of the total in 2007. Household use increased slightly to reach 21% of the total in 2007.
Free Download IELTS Sure Success 7+ Band – a helpful material used recommended by British Council Exam Preparation Course
This is one of the most advanced test-taking manual for the IELTS. The writer exploited specific weaknesses in the IELTS assessment, and then shared those secrets with IELTS candidates.
You've worked hard enough in the past, and if you want to spend hours in a study guide to boost your score, that's a great thing to do.
This book is much more than a study guide- it is a tactical weapon designed to exploit weaknesses in the test itself, and help you avoid the most common errors students make when taking the IELTS.
Furnishes you with the IELTS Practice Tests, Study guide
Includes Appendix with common idioms and expressions
How to use:
First, read through the manual completely to get a feel for the content and read the general success strategies first, and then proceed to the individual test sections. Each tip has been carefully selected for its effectiveness.
Second, read through the manual again, and take notes in the margins and highlight those sections where you may have a particular weakness
Third, go through at least one official practice test with the manual at your side and apply the strategies. We believe three practice tests to be the maximum benefit, the first time with all strategies except time (take as much time as you need), the second time with all strategies and time constraints, and a third time without the benefit of the open manual to refer to during the test
Finally, bring the manual with you on test day and study it before the exam
“IELTS Advantage: Writing Skills” written by Richard Brown (Author), Lewis Richards (Author) is a fully comprehensive resource designed for IELTS learners who want to achieve a grade of 7.0 or higher in the Writing section of the Academic IELTS test.
Students are guided step-by-step through the different tasks in the writing module, using material developed in the classroom, by authors with many years’ experience in helping hundreds of IELTS candidates achieve a high IELTS score. “IELTS Advantage: Writing Skills”: shows students how to organise and structure an answer for all types of task 1 and 2 questions; contains a model essay in each unit, showing students exactly what is required; contains a general interest article in each unit, developing ideas and vocabulary for a common topic in the exam; quickly develops students’ fluency and confidence in producing pieces of writing through a focus on academic vocabulary and collocations; and, contains grammar exercises in each unit, showing students how to apply a wide range of grammar items in their IELTS writing.
IELTS Writing Recent Actual Test (Task 2) 2020 with Sample Answers (Ebook)
$37 $18
IELTS Writing Task 2 Actual Tests & Sample Answers written by IELTS teachers aims to help IELTS candidates perform at their best on the big day.
About the book
IELTS examiners are looking for four different things, and the book is designed to help you in each of these areas:
• Grammar: Accurate grammar and a rich variety of complex structures (for example conditionals, relative clauses, noun phrases). • Vocabulary: A good command of academic vocabulary (including academic words, collocations,etc). • Organization: Clear, easy-to-follow & well-organized paragraphs. • Ideas and arguments: Well-developed ideas which can answer the question fully and express a clear viewpoint.
Key features:
1. Organization of the book: This book includes 9 units in which Units 1-6 focus on academic essays in IELTS Writing Task 2 and Units 7 – 9 cover IELTS Writing Task 1 (Lines, Graph, Table, Diagram, etc). • Units 1 – 4 cover advantages and disadvantages essays. • Units 2 and 5 look at problem and solution essays. • Units 3 and 6 involve in opinion essays. • Unit 7 shows you how to write about graphs with a trend (changes over time). • Unit 8 looks at how to describe graphs and charts where you have to compare data. • Unit 9 describes how to write about processes and maps.
Each unit is built around two texts: an introductory text, which includes useful grammar, ideas and vocabulary, and a model essay, which guides you as you write. The units build on each other, so when you study opinion essays, for example, we advise you to study Unit 3 first, and then Unit 6.
2. Interesting texts: The book contains a range of texts in different styles such as articles, latest news, etc so that you can feel enjoyable when learn it.
3.IELTS grammar exercises: Each unit has grammar exercises with an aim to helping you practice grammar rules to your writing. The grammar items are selected thoroughly to be the most useful and relevant to the IELTS Writing test.
4. This book provides you with Academic vocabulary for writing which is distinctly different from general English in daily conservation and exercises so that you can apply in the IELTS Writing test.
5. One of the most key factors to get a 7.0 or higher in the IELTS writing is to know how to utilize Collocations (words which commonly go together) to help you quickly improve your written academic vocabulary.
6. Model essays/answers: For each topic and unit in this book, you can find Band 8.0+ model answers which acts as a guidance about how to write your essays.
7. Exam skills & tips: Each unit includes exercises and tips such as how to write an introduction, conclusion or good paragraph to help you develop your IELTS writing skills for the IELTS exam.
8. Check and challenge: At the end of each unit, you have the chance to revise the language you have studied, and to extend your language with extra challenges.
The IELTS scoring system
IELTS score ranges from Band 1 to Band 9. If somebody score a 9.0, they are at native- speaker level, but in fact many native speakers fail to achieve a 9.0, so be realistic!
How he/she has made impact on you/ your life/ your study…
BAND 8.0+ SAMPLE ANSWER
So far, I always consider myself lucky to meet lots of wonderful teachers throughout the academic years, one of them is my English teacher, Mr. Son. Indeed, meeting him is an essential turning point on my path of conquering English. I had the opportunity to work with him when I was a freshman at university. At first sight, I was truly impressed by his well-mannered eloquence and behavior. His unique way of teaching in fact provoked my passion for this language. To be more specific, Mr. Son altered my perspective of learning English. Before I met him, for me, English is just the matter of reading, grammars or writing and I barely paid any attention to the other factors. However, he showed me the vital role of sounds and intonation. Since then, under his guidance, I concentrated more on the way native speakers create their sounds and exerted myself to imitate that. Over a few months, my speaking and listening were upgraded a lot and I became addicted to English. It is my teacher that lighted up my study journey and inspired me to continuously practice for a better me.
IELTS Speaking Actual tests Jan - May 2020 with suggested answers- Ebook
$80 $18
IELTS Speaking Actual Tests & Suggested Answers written by IELTS teachers aims to help IELTS candidates perform at their best on the big day.
Vocabulary
Turning point (noun phrase): an important change
Conquer (v): achieve, take control
Freshman (n): first year student
Eloquence (n): way of talking, delivering messages
At first sight (expression): At first moment
To be more specific (expression): to be more detailed
Passion (n): strong love
Alter (v): change
Perspective (n): view
Vital (a): important
Concentrate on (v): focus on
Upgrade (v): improve
Addicted to ST (phrase): like something very much without control
Absolutely! They are an excellent way to unwind (relax; free your mind). Moreover, my friends are reallt into films, so it's a fun, relaxing way to spend time together. Afterwards, we discuss and debate the film that we have just watched. Apart from just relaxing and enjoying the film, I like to delve deeper(get to the deeper meaning) to discover the subliminal messages.
IELTS Speaking Actual tests Jan - May 2020 with suggested answers- Ebook
$80 $18
IELTS Speaking Actual Tests & Suggested Answers written by IELTS teachers aims to help IELTS candidates perform at their best on the big day.
2. What kinds of movies do you like best?
Well, I would say I'm still a kid at heart (a person who still feels like a child in their heart), so I really enjoy watching kids' movies. Although they seem simple and innocent, there are often many life lessons packed into these films. Moreover, I'm really into drama and historical movies. When I watch these, I feel that I can more deeply understand human emotions and re-live historical moments, like the Vietnam-America War or World War II.
3. Do you prefer foreign films or films made in your country?
Since my country doesn't have a huge film industry, I've always been really into American films. Not to knock (to insult; discredit) other film industries, but American ones are incredibly entertaining and well-made; the evolution of film continues to amaze me. Moreover, I only watch films in English so it helps me to learn new slang and expressions.
4. How often do you watch films?
Well, I am quite a busy bee (a busy person), but I manage to see about one or two films a week at home. After a long day of studying, I love snuggling up (getting comfortable with blankets) on the sofa and watching a film to unwind. I tend to do this on Friday and Sunday evenings with my friends.
5. How often do you go to a cinema to watch a movie?
Not too often actually. As the prices in my country are quite high, I usually opt to(choose) watch a movie at home instead to save on costs. Actually, I think it's kind of a waste of money to see a movie at a cinema when you can watch it from the comfort of your living room. I only go when a friend invites me, which is maybe 4 times a year.
6. Do people in your country like to go to a cinema to watch a film?
I would say so. Since people like to go out with their families on the weekends, this is often an activity that they would choose. Moreover, teenagers enjoy this activity as a way to get out of the house. Furthermore, it's often a popular date option for many people!
7. What was the first film that you watched?
Hmm it's hard to say the first, but I think it was the Lion King. I know it first came out in the early 90's when I was a child. It was my absolute favorite- I used to watch it repeatedly until my parents were really tired of it! I even built "pride rock" out of rocks that I found when we would go to visit my relatives who have a garden.
8. Do you like to watch movies alone or with your friends?
Both! On one hand, I find it extremely relaxing to chill out and fall asleep to a film by myself, but it's also enjoyable to have company. So, all in all, I prefer films with friends, since they are also into film. Afterwards, we can discuss the meaning and carry on inside jokes (jokes among friends) from quotes from the film later on!
9. Would you like to be in a movie?
Not one bit! As I have stage fright (fear of being on stage), I would never have the guts (never be brave enough to) to do it. Secondly, I feel awkward when I try to act and I have the memory of a goldfish (short memory) so I know I could never memorize my lines! All in all, acting is simply not my thing.
The pie charts below give information about the household expenditure of an average US family in different years.
Summarise the information by selecting and reporting the main features, and make comparisons where relevant.
Write at least 150 words.
WRITING TASK 2
You should spend about 40 minutes on this task.
Write about the following topic:
More and more prisons are being built to house the world’s criminals, and many people believe long-term imprisonment is the answer to solving the crime problem. However, others feel that psychological assistance is what is required. Discuss both views and give your own opinion.
Give reasons for your answer and include any relevant examples from your own knowledge or experience.
Write at least 250 words.
SAMPLE ANSWERS
Task 1 Model Answer
The pie charts compare the expenses of an average American household in 1970 and in 2004. The most significant change that can be seen was in the proportion that went towards paying the mortgage; and the other increase was in the outlay for childcare.
IELTS Writing Recent Actual Test (Task 2) 2020 with Sample Answers (Ebook)
$37 $18
IELTS Writing Task 2 Actual Tests & Sample Answers written by IELTS teachers aims to help IELTS candidates perform at their best on the big day.
In 1970, about a quarter of the household income was spent on mortgage payments, whereas by 2004, this doubled to account for half of all expenditure. The 1970 family spent only one per cent of income on childcarc, while the 2004 family allocated ten times more of the budget to this.
Expenditure on entertainment remained the same at 13%, but the percentage spent on food halved from 25% to 12%; and 8% less of the total income was taken up by transport costs in 2004 (only 5%). Clothing costs consumed more of the budget in 1970, at 22%, but this fell to only 10% in 2004.
(150 words)
Task 2 Model Answer
Imprisonment has long been the most popular form of punishment for criminals in society, but many also believe that rehabilitation should take the form of psychological treatment.
Those in favour of long-term imprisonment argue that criminals are not fit to live alongside normal members of society. The obvious reason for this is that they represent a danger to others' personal safety, and it is true that society would not tolerate violent criminals living in its midst. The thinking behind imprisonment is to take away prisoners' rights to individual freedom: this is their punishment. In addition, it is thought that prisoners use their time in prison to reflect on and consider their illegal behaviour, hopefully regretting and feeling remorseful about their crimes.
However, some people argue that prisons are not the best place for all criminals. Advocates for psychological rehabilitation believe that psychological therapy may be a better alternative to imprisonment for some offenders. Psychological therapy may address the root causes of the criminal behaviour and offer strategies and possibilities for change in the future. This approach may be more successful in preventing reoffending in the long run because it does not assume the same solution (that is, prison) works for all.
On the whole, I believe prison definitely has its place as a form of punishment, as no one would wish to live in fear of violent crime, and criminals need to be removed from society for this reason. However, I think a combined approach which has a strong focus on psychological treatment is essential in addressing the core causes of crime, as prison alone offers no hope for future change and eventually, almost all criminals are released back into society.
It is widely acknowledged that collocations play a vital part in second language learning, particularly at the intermediate and advanced levels. In the IELTS test, using collocations demonstrates the improvement of learners’ oral communication, writing skills.
This post will cover 20 collocations which enable IELTS learners to be improve their writing in IELTS Writing Task 2.
Describe a time when you waited for (or, had to wait for) something (or someone).
You should say: who or what you waited for where you waited why you waited (or, had to wait) and explain how you felt while you were waiting
IELTS Speaking Actual tests Jan - May 2020 with suggested answers- Ebook
$80 $18
IELTS Speaking Actual Tests & Suggested Answers written by IELTS teachers aims to help IELTS candidates perform at their best on the big day.
BAND 9.0 SAMPLE ANSWER:
Having to wait for somebody is a common situation in our daily lives. There was this one time I had to wait for my friends, which was so special I‟d like to share the story with you today.
It was my birthday and I had invited a group of friends to a coffee house to celebrate it. We were scheduled to meet there at 8 that evening. I was so eager that I came early. Certainly, none of them were there, but it was easy to understand because I was early. However, I waited for half an hour, but nobody showed up, and then I started to feel uncomfortable and worried. As I was losing my patience, I began to call each of them to ask why they had not come yet. To my surprise, none of them picked up the phone. I was really fed up, as you can imagine, because it was my birthday and my friends had treated me like that.
I waited for a couple more minutes until I couldn‟t stand it anymore, and decided to leave. As soon as I called the waiter for the bill, I heard the "Happy birthday" song start up in the coffee house. Out of nowhere, all of my friends suddenly appeared with a birthday cake. They hugged me and wished me happy birthday. It was such a surprise. My anger quickly gave way to laughter and we had an unforgettable night chatting until the early hours, drinking coffee and, of course, eating cake.
VOCABULARY
show up: [phrasal verb] to arrive where you had arranged to meet somebody Example: It was getting late when she finally showed up. lose my patience: [verb phrase] to become annoyed or angry as a result of a delay. Example: The train is now 1 hour late, and I am losing my patience. fed up: [adjective] bored and unhappy, especially with a situation that has continued for a long time. Example: The traffic congestion in our city never seems to get better, so people are really fed up with the time it takes to get to work. stand [something]: [verb] to dislike – used especially in negative sentences. Example: I like John, but I can‟t stand his sister, she is very rude. out of nowhere: [expression] appearing or happening suddenly and unexpectedly Example: The woman cried for help and, out of nowhere, a policeman arrived. hug: [verb] to put your arms around someone and hold them tightly, to show that you like or love them. Example: The child ran out of the school and he hugged his mother, who was waiting at the school gate. the early hours: [expression] early in the morning, for example about 2, 3 or 4 am.
As the COVID-19 pandemic spreads, Mittendorff is spending his weekdays with portfolio companies and weekends working with Kaiser Permanente in San Francisco. While he notes that his medical colleagues are "bearing the brunt" of the pandemic by working full time, we wanted to hear from someone who has a foot in both the investing and the healthcare world right now.
In this interview, he discusses what he's learned from both roles, how it has influenced his healthcare investments, and offers his predictions regarding which companies will fare the best in the future.
This interview has been edited for length and clarity.
TechCrunch: How did you get to where you are today?
Dr. Robert Mittendorff: So, my journey to being a venture capitalist at Norwest and investing in healthcare companies as well as an emergency physician was really a parallel set of paths that overlapped and that cross every once in a while and now usually on a daily basis.
I started off life as a biomedical engineer really focused on wanting to be on the side of innovation and on the development of technologies to help human health. I knew early on that I wanted to be on the business side [of that], but it was important for me to understand and really be deeply in touch with what it was like to be a provider.
The journey started out going to engineering school, medical school, and then business school in the middle of medical school. I trained at Stanford, which really exposed me to county hospitals, which are probably going to be the more challenging situations as the weeks go on here, and then to Kaiser Permanente. And then, of course, Stanford, I was exposed to San Francisco General and then the Santa Clara Valley Hospital. I always practice part-time following up so it’s been 12 years as an attending, practicing part-time as an emergency physician.
In the venture space I saw an opportunity to really help select entrepreneurs and markets to grow them to a higher impact state.
Netflix and Barack and Michelle Obama’s production company have announced their latest film: “Becoming,” a documentary that follows Michelle as she goes on tour to promote her bestselling memoir of the same name.
Although the documentary was directed by Nadia Hallgren, it sounds like the film had extensive access to and input from Michelle Obama . After all, it was produced by Higher Ground Productions, the company the Obamas formed to create content for Netflix, Spotify and others.
And the announcement comes with a letter from Obama, in which she says this wasn’t just a standard book tour: “In groups large and small, young and old, unique and united, we came together and shared stories, filling those spaces with our joys, worries, and dreams.”
While Netflix and Higher Ground only announced the film today, it won’t be a long wait for its release — Netflix plans to launch “Becoming” in just over a week, on May 6.
Ben Horowitz, the co-founder and general partner of venture capital firm Andreessen Horowitz, won’t seek re-election to Lyft’s board, according to a document filed with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission on Monday.
Horowitz has served as a board director at the ride-hailing company since June 2016. His venture firm, which he co-founded with Marc Andreessen, was an early investor in Lyft . He will stay on the board until Lyft’s annual shareholder meeting scheduled for June 19. Horowitz’s plan to leave the board was first spotted by Protocol reporter Biz Carson.
Lyft is not planning to fill Horowitz’s board seat.
Horowitz could not be reached for comment. TechCrunch will update this article if he responds.
“We thank Ben for his longtime partnership with Lyft, including his four years of service on our board,” a Lyft spokesperson said in a email to TechCrunch. “During his tenure, Ben has helped Lyft achieve some of its most significant milestones, including our initial public offering in 2019. We wish Ben all the best as he continues his work as a pioneering investor and leader in the venture capital community.”
Horowitz serves on boards of 13 other portfolio companies, including Okta, Foursquare, Genius, Medium and Databricks.
Horowitz was selected to serve on Lyft’s board because of his extensive operating and management experience, his knowledge of technology companies and his extensive experience as a venture capital investor, the company said in a filing announcing the agenda for its 2020 annual shareholders’ meeting.
The annual meeting will be held virtually at 1:30 p.m. PT June 19, 2020. Shareholders and others can attend the Annual Meeting by visiting www.virtualshareholdermeeting.com/LYFT2020. Shareholders will be able to submit questions and vote online.
During the meeting, Lyft plans to elect two directors to serve until 2023 and to ratify the appointment of PricewaterhouseCoopers LLP as its independent registered public accounting firm. Lyft co-founder and CEO Logan Green and Ann Miura-Ko, co-founder and partner at Floodgate Fund, are up for re-election as board members.
The company’s agenda also includes two measures to approve, on an advisory basis, the compensation of its named executive officers and the frequency of future stockholder advisory votes on the compensation of its named executive officers.
Oriente, a Hong Kong-based startup that develops tech infrastructure for digital credit and other online financial services, has raised $50 million for its ongoing Series B round. The funding was led by Peter Lee, co-chairman of Henderson Land, one of Hong Kong's largest property developers, with participation from investors including website development platform Wix.com.
Launched in 2017 by Geoff Prentice (one of Skype's co-founders), Hubert Tai and Lawrence Chu, Oriente focuses on markets that are underserved by traditional financial institutions. The new funding will be used for growth in Oriente's existing markets, the Philippines and Indonesia, and expansion into new countries, including Vietnam.
It will also be used to continue building Oriente's technology, which uses big data analytics to help merchants increase sales conversions and lower risk. Oriente has now raised more than $160 million in equity and debt, including a $105 million round in November 2018.
While many large tech companies, including Grab, Google, Facebook, Amazon, Uber, Apple and Samsung, are looking at digital payments and other online financial services, they need the tech infrastructure to do so, and partners that can also help them handle regulations in different markets.
Oriente doesn't compete with payment providers. Instead, it is “innovating credit as a service,” Prentice told TechCrunch, by building technology that allows offline and online merchants to launch digital credit solutions quickly.
Oriente “is the only company that is focusing on building an end-to-end digital financial services infrastructure,” he added, with services created for consumers, online and offline merchants, and enterprise clients.
For consumers, the startup currently offers two apps, Cashalo in the Philippines and Finmas in Indonesia, which it says has a combined 5 million users and more than 1,000 merchants. Services include cash loans, online credit and working capital for small to medium-sized enterprises.
Oriente says that in 2019, it saw a 700% year-over-year growth in transactions and served more than 4 million new users, while merchant partners had a more than 20% increase in sales volume.
Over the next few months, Oriente plans to expand its Pay Later digital credit feature and launch new growth capital solutions for small businesses that need financing. Oriente also has several partnerships in the works to expand its enterprise solutions for larger businesses and corporations.
In Vietnam, Oriente is currently beta testing a consumer platform similar to Cashalo and Finmas. It will offer online credit and financing, as well as other services in partnership with local companies.
Oriente has also started focusing on how to serve businesses during the COVID-19 pandemic, since many merchants are coping with revenue declines, loss of users and cash flow issues.
“Over the past few weeks, we've reprioritized our corporate strategy to focus on the top opportunities within each market. We have also taken various steps to rebuild our organizations for optimized operational and financial efficiency in line with current and forecasted market conditions and our more focused strategy,” Prentice said.
“Our aim is not only to mitigate anticipated headwinds on liquidity but to demonstrate that our business has the potential to overcome and outperform the market in a recession—unlocking value for all stakeholders for years to come.”
OMERS Ventures, the venture capital arm of the Ontario Municipal Employees Retirement System (OMERS), has put together a new, $750 million fund to invest in both Europe and North America.
The capital vehicle is larger than the group’s preceding European and North American funds combined. In 2019 OMERS Ventures announced a €300 million fund Europe-focused fund (TechCrunch covered its launch here), and the venture group’s last North American fund was worth $300 million back in 2017. The new $750 million is a hybrid, acting as both the firm’s Europe-focused capital pool and the source of funds from which it can invest in North American startups.
According to Damien Steel, a managing partner at OMERS Ventures, the firm invested about CAD$100 million from the original Europe fund, with the rest now reserved for follow-on investments; Steel told TechCrunch that he doesn’t anticipate that the full amount will be used for that purpose.
But the remaining differential is somewhat immaterial as the venture collective has a new, three-quarters-of-a-billion-dollars capital pool to put to work. According to Steel, OMERS Ventures has “consolidated [its] efforts and made a new transatlantic fund.” The firm’s hope is that the shared capital will lead to a more cohesive investing group than having two funds for different teams engendered.
OMERS Ventures expects to deploy around $200 million a year across Europe and North America, a pace that Steel says will be similar to preceding efforts.
The COVID era
I wanted to chase down what Steel and company are doing that’s different in the new era. Something new is a slightly different mindset concerning runway. Instead of the usual 18-month expectation between rounds, Steel told TechCrunch that expectations and planning are lengthening to 24 months or longer between capital events — enough cash to get through whatever the current downturn winds up becoming.
Happily for Steel and his firm, some OMERS portfolio companies are well capitalized, with the venture capitalist telling TechCrunch during a call that “that the companies [his firm has] invested in a have really benefited from the exceptional amount of liquidity that’s been available in the market over the last two years,” with some of their startups winding up “sitting on quite a lot of cash because arguably they raised too much in 2019 and 2018.”
The capital was cheap, Steel notes, so lots of companies took what was on offer. The result? Many startups heading into 2020’s recession have well-stocked bank accounts. Not all, of course, raised right before things got worse. The firms that didn’t may struggle.
Given that the new OMERS Ventures fund intends to invest both in North America and Europe, I wanted to know what’s different between the two regions today as the COVID-19 pandemic continues to drive economic havoc. Notable to me was the fact that Europe is doing as well as it is, with Steel noting that “the funding environment has remained more active in Europe than it has in the US.”
He’s seeing “healthy” activity in Europe around the Series A and B stages. It’s perhaps unsurprising, then, that Steel told TechCrunch that the startup valuation pressure it’s easy to find in the North America venture scene isn’t quite as tough in Europe. Steel noted that 20% and 30% drops in valuation multiples in American and Canada from prior levels are common, while in Europe “it’s definitely less than that.”
For founders that there’s new funds of scale coming together at all is likely welcome. OMERS Ventures expects to have closed eight deals from its new fund “within a month,” a quick pace given its age.
Disclosure: OMERS Ventures invested in Crunchbase, my former employer.
AI is frequently cited as a miracle worker in medicine, especially in screening processes, where machine learning models boast expert-level skills in detecting problems. But like so many technologies, it’s one thing to succeed in the lab, quite another to do so in real life — as Google researchers learned in a humbling test at clinics in rural Thailand.
Google Health created a deep learning system that looks at images of the eye and looks for evidence of diabetic retinopathy, a leading cause of vision loss around the world. But despite high theoretical accuracy, the tool proved impractical in real-world testing, frustrating both patients and nurses with inconsistent results and a general lack of harmony with on-the-ground practices.
It must be said at the outset that although the lessons learned here were hard, it’s a necessary and responsible step to perform this kind of testing, and it’s commendable that Google published these less than flattering results publicly. And it’s clear from their documentation that the team has already taken the results to heart (although the blog post presents a rather sunny interpretation of events). But it’s equally clear that the attempt to swoop in with this technology was done with a lack of understanding that would be humorous if it didn’t take place in such a serious setting.
The research paper documents the deployment of a tool meant to augment the existing process by which patients at several clinics in Thailand are screened for diabetic retinopathy, or DR. Essentially nurses take diabetic patients one at a time, take images of their eyes (a “fundus photo”), and send them in batches to ophthalmologists, who evaluate them and return results…. usually at least 4-5 weeks later due to high demand.
The Google system was intended to provide ophthalmologist-like expertise in seconds. In internal tests it identified degrees of DR with 90% accuracy; the nurses could then make a preliminary recommendation for referral or further testing in a minute instead of a month (automatic decisions were ground truth checked by an ophthalmologist within a week). Sounds great — in theory.
Ideally the system would quickly return a result like this, which could be shared with the patient.
But that theory fell apart as soon as the study authors hit the ground. As the study describes it:
We observed a high degree of variation in the eye-screening process across the 11 clinics in our study. The processes of capturing and grading images were consistent across clinics, but nurses had a large degree of autonomy on how they organized the screening workflow, and different resources were available at each clinic.
The setting and locations where eye screenings took place were also highly varied across clinics. Only two clinics had a dedicated screening room that could be darkened to ensure patients' pupils were large enough to take a high-quality fundus photo.
The variety of conditions and processes resulted in images being sent to the server not being up to the algorithm’s high standards:
The deep learning system has stringent guidelines regarding the images it will assess…If an image has a bit of blur or a dark area, for instance, the system will reject it, even if it could make a strong prediction. The system's high standards for image quality is at odds with the consistency and quality of images that the nurses were routinely capturing under the constraints of the clinic, and this mismatch caused frustration and added work.
Images with obvious DR but poor quality would be refused by the system, complicating and extending the process. And that’s when they could get them uploaded to the system in the first place:
On a strong internet connection, these results appear within a few seconds. However, the clinics in our study often experienced slower and less reliable connections. This causes some images to take 60-90 seconds to upload, slowing down the screening queue and limiting the number of patients that can be screened in a day. In one clinic, the internet went out for a period of two hours during eye screening, reducing the number of patients screened from 200 to only 100.
“First, do no harm” is arguably in play here: Fewer people in this case received treatment because of an attempt to leverage this technology. Nurses tried various workarounds but the inconsistency and other factors led some to advise patients against taking part in the study at all.
Even the best case scenario had unforeseen consequences. Patients were not prepared for an instant evaluation and setting up a follow-up appointment immediately after sending the image:
As a result of the prospective study protocol design, and potentially needing to make on-the-spot plans to visit the referral hospital, we observed nurses at clinics 4 and 5 dissuading patients from participating in the prospective study, for fear that it would cause unnecessary hardship.
As one of those nurses put it:
“[Patients] are not concerned with accuracy, but how the experience will be—will it waste my time if I have to go to the hospital? I assure them they don't have to go to the hospital. They ask, 'does it take more time?', 'Do I go somewhere else?' Some people aren't ready to go so won't join the research. 40-50% don't join because they think they have to go to the hospital.”
It’s not all bad news, of course. The problem is not that AI has nothing to offer a crowded Thai clinic, but that the solution needs to be tailored to the problem and the place. The instant, easily understood automatic evaluation was enjoyed by patients and nurses alike when it worked well, sometimes helping make the case that this was a serious problem that had to be addressed soon. And of course the primary benefit of reducing dependence on a severely limited resource (local ophthalmologists) is potentially transformative.
But the study authors seemed clear-eyed in their evaluation of this premature and partial application of their AI system. As they put it:
When introducing new technologies, planners, policy makers, and technology designers did not account for the dynamic and emergent nature of issues arising in complex healthcare programs. The authors argue that attending to people—their motivations, values, professional identities, and the current norms and routines that shape their work—is vital when planning deployments.
The paper is well worth reading both as a primer in how AI tools are meant to work in clinical environments and what obstacles are faced — both by the technology and those meant to adopt it.
U.S. pharmaceutical giant ExecuPharm has become the latest victim of data-stealing ransomware.
ExecuPharm said in a letter to the Vermont attorney general’s office that it was hit by a ransomware attack on March 13, and warned that Social Security numbers, financial information, driver licenses, passport numbers and other sensitive data may have been accessed.
But TechCrunch has now learned that the ransomware group behind the attack has published the data stolen from the company’s servers.
It’s an increasingly popular tactic used by ransomware groups, which not only encrypts a victim’s files but also exfiltrates the data and threatens to publish the data if a ransom isn’t paid. This new technique was first used by Maze, a ransomware group that first started hitting targets in December. Since then, a number of new and emerging groups, including DoppelPaymer and Sodinokibi have adopted the same approach.
The data was posted to a site on the dark web associated with the CLOP ransomware group. The site contains a vast cache of data, including thousands of emails, financial and accounting records, user documents and database backups, stolen from ExecuPharm’s systems.
When reached, a company executive confirmed to TechCrunch that CLOP was behind the attack.
“ExecuPharm immediately launched an investigation, alerted federal and local law enforcement authorities, retained leading cybersecurity firms to investigate the nature and scope of the incident, and notified all potentially impacted parties,” said ExecuPharm operations chief David Granese.
Since the outbreak of COVID-19, some of the ransomware groups have shown mercy on medical facilities that they have pledged not to attack during the pandemic. CLOP said it too would not attack hospitals, nursing homes or charities, but said ExecuPharm would not qualify, saying that commercial pharmaceutical companies “are the only ones who benefit from the current pandemic.”
Unlike some strains of ransomware, there is no known decryption tool for CLOP. Maastricht University found out the hard way after it was attacked last year. The Dutch university paid out close to $220,000 worth of cryptocurrency to decrypt its hundreds of servers.
The FBI has previously warned against paying the ransom.
Bluetooth-powered lost item finder Tile is expanding on its two-year-old partnership with strategic investor Comcast to help customers find misplaced items around their homes. The two companies first announced their intention to partner in early 2018, and later that year introduced a way for Comcast users to locate lost items using their Xfinity X1 Voice Remote. Now, Comcast is adding more set-top boxes and xFi Gateways into the mix as access points.
The companies announced today that select Comcast X1 and Flex set-top boxes as well as xFi Gateways will be able to work as extensions to the Tile network. Specifically, this includes the newer Xfinity devices like the xFi Advanced Gateway, and Xi5, Xi6 and XG1v4 devices, Tile tells us.
This means Comcast’s boxes can supplement or even take the place of the Tile mobile app in terms of being an access point used to look for a lost Tile device, when an item goes missing.
This could be useful for those who don’t have the Tile app installed on their phone, whose phone is not within easy reach or has run out of battery, as well as for those who just want the added convenience of having another way to search for their lost item.
Previously, Comcast Xfinity customers could use their X1 voice remote to see a Tile’s last-known location on the screen. Now, not only can Comcast users ring their Tile directly, the Flex set-top boxes and xFi Gateways can also work as finding extenders in the home.
Tile devices themselves come in a variety of form factors, including keychain or luggage dongles like Mate and the more powerful Pro, a Slim device ideal for wallets, and Tile Sticker for anything else — like laptops, bikes, tools, cameras and more. In the home, Tile devices are often used to find small items like car keys, purses or even a child’s favorite toy that’s always getting misplaced.
Alongside the support for Comcast boxes, the companies also updated the existing X1 remote functionality to include a new feature to directly ring missing items. Now, customers can say things like “Xfinity Home, find my keys” to have the Tile make its distinctive ringing sound so the lost item can be found.
“The average person spends about 15 minutes a day looking for lost items," said Tile CEO CJ Prober, in a statement about the expanded partnership with Comcast. “We've been working with Comcast to alleviate this daily disruption. By allowing Comcast Xfinity customers to use their xFI Gateways and X1 and Flex set-top boxes as finding extenders, the Tile network becomes stronger and ensures users will quickly and easily find lost or misplaced items, bringing convenience to their daily routine,” he said.
Tile claims to now locate some 6 million items daily across 195 countries worldwide, with a 90% success rate in finding lost items. To date, it has sold 26 million Tile devices.
However, the company is preparing to face steep competition. Apple has effectively confirmed its plans to release a Tile competitor called Air Tags that are more deeply integrated into its iOS operating system and have special privileges that aren’t offered to third-party apps. Tile has gone on the offensive about Apple’s plans, arguing to Congress that Apple’s behavior is anti-competitive and needs regulation.
This month, Tile told a congressional panel that Apple has failed to live up to promises aimed at resolving their dispute, noting Apple did not reinstate the “Always Allow” background permission. This permission would allow Tile to compete on a more even playing field with Apple’s own “Find My” app, which doesn’t have to continually remind users that it’s using their location data like third-party apps do. Tile also spoke about how Apple planned to allow its own Air Tags to use UWB (ultra-wideband) for better location finding, but not open that up to competitors like Tile.
The fight for regulation will be a long-term battle. In the more immediate future, Tile’s partnerships are how it will continue to grow its customer base and device usage.
In total, Tile now works with over 20 partners across audio, travel, smart home and PC categories.
A stay-at-home order for several San Francisco Bay Area counties will be extended through the end of May due to the COVID-19 pandemic, a decision that affects 7 million residents and thousands of businesses.
The Public Health Officers of the Counties of Alameda, Contra Costa, Marin, San Francisco, San Mateo and Santa Clara as well as the City of Berkeley said in a joint statement issued Monday that it will issue revised shelter-in-place orders later this week. The new order will ease some specific restrictions for what the health officers from the counties described as a “small number of number of lower-risk activities.”
The stay-at-home orders were set to expire May 3. Details regarding this next phase will be shared later in the week, along with the updated order.
The counties are home to thousands of startups and technology companies that includes Apple, Facebook, Google, Salesforce, Twitter, Tesla and Uber.
“Thanks to the collective effort and sacrifice of the 7 million residents across our jurisdictions, we have made substantial progress in slowing the spread of the novel coronavirus, ensuring our local hospitals are not overwhelmed with COVID-19 cases, and saving lives,” the health officers said in a joint statement. “At this stage of the pandemic, however, it is critical that our collective efforts continue so that we do not lose the progress we have achieved together.”
The public health officials said Monday that hospitalizations have leveled, but more work is needed to safely re-open communities and warned that “prematurely lifting restrictions could lead to a large surge in cases.”
The health officers plan to also release a set of broad indicators used to track progress in preparedness and response to COVID-19, in alignment with the framework being used by the rest of the state.
Despite all evidence to the contrary, there’s more to building a startup than raising venture capital.
Founders are finding success without overly relying on VC dollars; some are even sharing profits with their respective employees and customers without the help of traditional funding and Silicon Valley power dynamics.
As some investors slow down their funding pace, it has become clear that profitability trumps funding and venture capital can only take a startup so far when the economy tanks and outside cash streams dry up.
In the Indie.vc portfolio, profitability is its driving force. In fact, its main criterion for funding is that a startup must be on a clear path to profitability with durable fundamentals like high gross margins or the ability to start charging for a product right away, as opposed to companies that need a significant amount of upfront investment for research and development.
Profitability, Indie.vc founder Bryce Roberts tells TechCrunch, needs to be a habit, and founders need to recognize that it’s not a switch they can just turn on. Startups looking to prioritize profitability need to start out as revenue-driven businesses that replace funding milestones with profitability goals.
"Genuinely, it's not rocket science," he says. "Profitability isn't this crazy, elusive thing. It's literally more achievable than a Series A round. It's way more achievable than a Series B round. If you look at the kind of fall-off between those rounds, most entrepreneurs would be better off finding their path to profitability and scale."
Indie.vc, which recently announced its latest batch of investments, advises founders to make sure they have what they need to be stable and then to create and measure value, Roberts says. That value, which differs depending on the company, must be quantifiable as some metric or revenue.
To do that, Roberts says founders should adopt a mindset where they're focused on creating revenue opportunities, rather than cost savings. Indie.vc's model also does not prioritize hiring ahead of growth, a strategy that seems to be working for its portfolio during the pandemic.
Earlier this month, edtech unicorn Duolingo raised $10 million in new venture capital from General Atlantic, per an SEC filing. With the raise, the online language learning platform accepted its first outside investor in almost three years. General Atlantic will take a board observer seat at the company, per Duolingo.
The company, which was last valued at $1.5 billion, says the round has increased its valuation, but it declined to share by how much.
General Atlantic has invested in a number of edtech companies around the world, like OpenClassrooms, Ruangguru and Unacademy. Duolingo said that General Atlantic's global platform and experience with online education in Asia would help guide its own growth, specifically pointing to its plans to scale up the Duolingo English test.
The e-learning company last raised $30 million in December at that $1.5 billion valuation. To raise a smaller sum a few months later is uncommon. Historically, that type of raise could happen for a number of reasons: a company is accepting a later investment as part of the same funding round, it needs more cash and this is an easy way to raise it or the company tried to raise a new large round and failed to secure past $10 million.
So where does the language learning unicorn fit?
In Duolingo's case, it said the $10 million was raised because it wanted to bring a new investor on, but didn't need a massive amount of primary capital. Duolingo says it is cash-flow positive.
In the past few weeks, Duolingo launched a new app to help children read and write, passed one million paying subscribers for Duolingo Plus and disclosed that its annual bookings run rate is $140 million. The company also recently hired its first CFO and general counsel.
"Because our business has been growing very fast and we have more than enough capital, there was limited need for us to raise more primary capital. However, over the last year, we developed a relationship with General Atlantic," the company said in a statement to TechCrunch.
Tanzeen Syed, a managing director for General Atlantic, said that Duolingo is a "market leader in the language learning space. Syed also said Duolingo has a "profitable, efficient business model while maintaining hyper-growth characteristics."
Another key factoid here is that along with the $10 million, there was a larger secondary transaction, which occurs when an existing stockholder sells their stock for cash or to a third party, or to the company itself while the company is still private.
In this case, an existing investor in Duolingo sold a small portion of their existing stake to allow General Atlantic to have a bigger stake in the company.
The company declined to share the size of the secondary market transaction.
In light of this new information, Duolingo's expansion to Asia, which has a robust market of English learners, welcomed one investor and lessened the stake of another.
Based on what we know, the transaction signals that a preexisting investor in Duolingo was looking for liquidity at a time where the public markets are tightening and private markets are pausing. And at a time when companies are staying private longer than ever before, secondary transactions are hardly rare.
Sometimes, however, secondary transactions signal a lack of faith from a preexisting investor in the company's current trajectory.
Duolingo is full steam ahead on its goal to expand across the world — and now has new cash in the bank, and a new observer seat on the board, to prove it.
How do you leave the place that made you? You figure out what it made you for. TechCrunch made me a part of the startup ecosystem I love. Now it’s time to put that love into action to help a new generation of entrepreneurs build their dreams and tell their stories.
So it’s “TC to VC” for me. After 8.5 years at TechCrunch and 10 in tech journalism, I’m leaving today to join the venture team at VC fund SignalFire. I’m going to be a principal investor and their head of content.
I’ll be seeking out inspiring new companies, doing deals (when I’m eventually up to speed) and providing pitch workshops based on countless interviews for TechCrunch. Thankfully, I’ll also still get to write. We’re going to find out what founders really want to learn and produce that content to help them form, evolve and grow their companies. I’m doing my signature bounce & smile with excitement.
Where to follow my writing
You’ll still be able to follow my writing as well as my journey into VC on my newsletter Moving Product at constine.substack.com as well as on Twitter: @JoshConstine. No way I could just suddenly shut up about startups! If you’re building something, you can always reach me at joshsc [at] gmail.com
On the newsletter you can read a deeper explanation for why I picked SignalFire . I also just published the first real issue of Moving Product on how quarantine is “loaning” concurrent users to startups that will help the new wave of synchronous apps snowball to sustainability, plus commentary from top product thinkers on Facebook’s new Rooms.
Why I chose SignalFire?
I was drawn to SignalFire because it’s built like the startups I love writing about: to solve a need. Entrepreneurs need tactical advantages in areas like recruiting, where they spend most of their time, and expert advice on specific problems they’re facing.
SignalFire CEO and founder Chris Farmer
That’s why SignalFire spent six years in stealth building its recruitment prediction and market data analysis engine called Beacon. It can spot deal opportunities for SignalFire’s new $200 million seed and $300 million breakout funds while helping the portfolio hire smarter. Then SignalFire assembled more than 80 top experts, like Instagram’s founders, for its invested advisor network. Traditional funds need partners to exhaust their social capital asking for favors from friends to help their portfolio. SignalFire’s model sees its advisors share in the returns of the fund, so they’re sustainably motivated to assist.
SignalFire’s founder and CEO Chris Farmer was also willing to invest in me, figuratively. I’ve written about thousands of startups but I’ve never funded one. He and his team have offered to mentor me as I learn the art and science of investing. They also accept me for my opinionated, outspoken self. Instead of constricting my voice, the plan is to harness it to highlight new ideas and proven methods for building companies. I wrote this post on my newsletter with a deeper look at why I picked SignalFire and how its modernized approach to venture works.
What makes TechCrunch different
Of the 3,600 articles I’ve written for TechCrunch, this was the hardest.
TechCrunch gave me the platform to make an impact and the freedom to say what I believe. That’s a rare opportunity in journalism, but especially important for covering startups. TechCrunch writes about things that haven’t happened yet. There are often no objective facts by which to judge an early-stage company. Whether you decide to cover them or not, and the tone of your analysis, depends on having conviction about whether the world needs something or not, if the product is built right and if the team has what it takes.
If you rely on others’ signals about what matters, whether in the form of traction or investment, you’ll be late to the story. That means editors have to trust their writers’ intuition. At TechCrunch, that trust never wavered.
SAN FRANCISCO, CALIFORNIA – OCTOBER 04: (L-R) Snap Inc. Co-founder & CEO Evan Spiegel and TechCrunch editor-at-large Josh Constine speak onstage during TechCrunch Disrupt San Francisco 2019. (Photo by Steve Jennings/Getty Images for TechCrunch)
Eric Eldon, Alexia Tsotsis and Matthew Panzarino put their absolute faith in our team. That gave me a chance to write the first-ever coverage of startups like Robinhood before its seed round, and SnappyCam before it was acquired by Apple and turned into iPhone burst fire. My editors also never shied away from confrontations with the tech giants, like my investigation into Facebook paying teens for their data that caused it to shut down its Onavo tool, or my exposé on Bing suggesting child abuse imagery in search results that led it to overhaul its systems.
I met my wife Andee at a TechCrunch event. [Image Credit: Max Morse]
I’ll always be indebted to Eric Eldon, who gave a freshly graduated cybersociologist with no experience his first shot at blogging back at Inside Facebook. Editors like Alexia Tsotsis and Matthew Panzarino helped me develop a more critical voice without sterilizing my personality. And all my fellow writers over the years, including Zack Whittaker and Sarah Perez, pushed me to hustle, whether that meant pontificating on new product launches or exposing industry abuse. If my departure from journalism elicits a sigh of relief from the companies in my cross-hairs, I know I did my job. The TechCrunch business and events team have turned Disrupt into the tech industry’s reunion. I appreciate them giving me the chance to learn public speaking, from the most heartfelt moments to the cringiest. And really, I owe them the rest of my life, too, since I met my wife Andee at a Disrupt after-party.
Treating writing like a sport to be won kept me cranking all these years, and I’m grateful for Techmeme offeringa scoreboard for extra motivation. I’ll unhumbly admit it’s nice to hang up my jersey while ranked No. 1. My gratitude to Jane Manchun Wong for furnishing so many scoops over the years, and to all my other sources. It’s been fun competing and collaborating with my favorite other reporters, and I know Taylor Lorenz, Casey Newton and Mike Isaac will keep a close eye on tech’s trends and travesties.
But most of all, I want to extend an enormous thank you to…you. To everyone who has read or shared my articles over the years. I woke up each day with a sense of duty to you, and felt proud to say “I fight for the user” like Tron. What makes this industry special is how the community refuses to treat it as zero-sum. We grow the pie together, and everyone knows their competitor today could be their future co-founder. That makes us willing to share and learn together. I believe no recession, correction or bubble-burst will change that.
BERLIN, GERMANY – DECEMBER 12: Group Photo on stage at TechCrunch Disrupt Berlin 2019 at Arena Berlin on December 12, 2019 in Berlin, Germany. (Photo by Noam Galai/Getty Images for TechCrunch)
So I’ll leave you with a final thought that’s made my life so fulfilling: If you have the privilege or create the opportunity, turn your passion into your profession.
Specialize. Learn. Then make what you want. If you can find some niche you’re endlessly interested in, that’s growing in importance, and at least someone somewhere earns money from, you’ll become essential. Not necessarily today. But that’s the beauty of writing — it teaches you while proving to others what you’ve been taught. No matter what it is, blog about it once a week. In time you’ll become an expert, and be recognized as one. Then you’ll have the power to adapt to the future, however feels most graceful.
Personal news: It's TC to VC for me! I'm leaving TechCrunch to join SignalFire as a principal investor & head of content. I'm also launching my newsletter where I'm writing now: https://t.co/F7gvssC4Ky A "toast", to the future! pic.twitter.com/XRhDxdS5NF
Properly equipped Tesla vehicles can now recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs thanks to a software update the company started pushing out to owners over the weekend.
The software update had been available to a sliver of Tesla owners, some of whom had posted videos of the new capability. Now, the automaker is pushing the software update (2020.12.6) to the broader fleet.
The feature isn’t available in every Tesla vehicle on the road today. The vehicles must be equipped with the most recent Hardware 3 package and the fully optioned Autopilot package that the company has marketed as “full self-driving.”
The feature, called Traffic Light and Stop Sign Control, is designed to allow the vehicles to recognize and respond to traffic lights and stop signs.
To be clear, Tesla vehicles are not self-driving and this feature has its limits. The feature slows properly equipped Tesla vehicles to a stop when using “traffic-aware cruise control” or “Autosteer.” The vehicle will slow for all detected traffic lights, including green, blinking yellow and off lights, according to the software release notes.
As the vehicle approaches an intersection, a notification will indicate the intention to slow down. The vehicle will then begin to slow down and stop at the red line shown on the driving visualization, which is on the center display.
DragTimes tested and shared a video of a beta version of the feature (posted below).
Owners must pull the Autopilot stalk once or manually press the accelerator pedal to continue through the stop line. Tesla said the feature is designed to be conservative at first. Owners will notice that it will slow down often and will not attempt to turn through intersections. “Over time, as we learn from the fleet, the feature will control more naturally,” the company wrote in the release notes.
Tesla warns in the release notes that “as with all Autopilot features, you must continue to pay attention and be ready to take immediate action, including braking because this feature may not stop for all traffic controls.”
The software update also improved driving visualization, which is displayed in the vehicle. Additional objects such as stop lights, stop signs and select road markings now appear on the screen. The stop sign and stop light visualizations are not a substitute for an attentive driver and will not stop the car, Tesla said in the release notes.
We weren't alone in being impressed by Motiv. The startup helped flip the script on wearables by essentially cramming a fitness tracker's worth of technology into a ring. This week, San Francisco “digital identity” startup Proxy announced that it's acquiring the company.
The company's site is littered in buzzwords, but Proxy specializes in digital key cards — essentially providing a way to use digital devices like smartphones to access businesses and homes. An odd fit for a company that makes exercise rings, until you look at what Motiv's been up to in recent years.
Among the additions to the tiny hardware platform are NFC payments, lost phone tracking and two-factor device authentication through gait monitoring. Whether or not Proxy ultimately has interest in manufacturing and selling a fitness ring, there's plenty of underlying technology here that would be of interest to a digital identity company.
"The demand for our technology is only going to increase and we saw a clear path forward in the importance of validating one's identity in both the physical and digital worlds," Motiv said in a blog post. "Keys, access cards and passwords are rapidly being replaced with a biometric identity which provides greatly improved security and convenience."
While the app will continue to be available for download (no word on how long it will continue to offer support), the deal marks the end of Motiv's online sales, while partner retailers will burn through the rest of their stock.
Proxy, on the other hand, says it’s committed to the ring as the future of the wearables category. “With this acquisition, Proxy plans to bring digital identity signals to smart rings for the first time and revolutionize the way people use technology to interact with the world around them,” the company writes. “We believe it's possible to ignite a paradigm shift in how people use wearables to interface with the physical world, so they can do and experience things they never have before.”
While compelling, the fitness ring hasn't exactly taken the wearable category by storm in the past three years, as the space continues to be almost exclusively dominated by smartwatches and headphones. For those who still believe in the form factor, Motiv has had some competition recently from companies like Oura, a ring largely built around sleep tracking.
MIT’s Computer Science and Artificial Intelligence Lab (CSAIL) has released a video of their ongoing work using input from muscle signals to control devices. Their latest involves full and fine control of drones, using just hand and arm gestures to navigate through a series of rings. This work is impressive not just because they’re using biofeedback to control the devices, instead of optical or other kinds of gesture recognition, but also because of how specific the controls can be, setting up a range of different potential applications for this kind of remote tech.
This particular group of researchers has been looking at different applications for this tech, including its use in collaborative robotics for potential industrial applications. Drone piloting is another area that could have big benefits in terms of real-world use, especially once you start to imagine entire flocks of these taking flight with a pilot provided a view of what they can see via VR. That could be a great way to do site surveying for construction, for example, or remote equipment inspection of offshore platforms and other infrastructure that’s hard for people to reach.
Seamless robotic/human interaction is the ultimate goal of the team working on this tech, because just like how we intuit our own movements and ability to manipulate our environment most effectively, they believe the process should be as smooth when controlling and working with robots. Thinking and doing are essentially happening in parallel when we interact with our environment, but when we act through the extension of machines or remote tools, there’s often something lost in translation that results in a steep learning curve and the requirement of lots of training.
Cobotics, or the industry that focuses on building robots that can safely work alongside and in close collaboration with robots, would benefit greatly from advances that make the interaction between people and robotic equipment more natural, instinctive and, ultimately, safe. MIT’s research in this area could result in future industrial robotics products that require less training and programming to operate at scale.
Amazon is piloting a new system aimed at validating the identify of third-party sellers over video conferencing, the company announced on Sunday. The technology is a part of a series of seller-verification processes that Amazon uses to combat fraud on its platform, which the company claims stopped 2.5 million suspected bad actors from publishing their products to Amazon in 2019.
Earlier this year, Amazon began testing a process where seller verifications were handled in person. But due to the coronavirus outbreak and social distancing requirements, the company says it pivoted to live video conferencing in February.
The pilot program is now running in a number of markets, including the U.S., U.K., China and Japan. To date, more than 1,000 sellers have attempted to register an account through the pilot experience, Amazon says.
To vet the sellers, Amazon’s team sets up a video call, then checks that the individual’s ID matches the person and the documents they shared with their application. The Amazon associates also lean on third-party data sources for additional verification. In addition, the call may be used to provide the seller with information about problems with their registration and how to resolve them.
“Amazon is always innovating to improve the seller experience so honest entrepreneurs can seamlessly open a selling account and start a business, while also proactively blocking bad actors,” an Amazon spokesperson said about the new initiative. “As we practice social distancing, we are testing a process that allows us to validate prospective sellers' identification via video conferencing. This pilot allows us to connect one-on-one with prospective sellers while making it even more difficult for fraudsters to hide,” they said.
In addition to video conferencing, Amazon also uses a proprietary machine learning system to vet sellers before they’re allowed online, it says. This system analyzes hundreds of different data point to identify potential risk, including verifying whether the account is related to another account that was previously removed from the marketplace, for example. The sellers’ applications are also reviewed by trained investigators before being approved.
Seller verification is only one way Amazon has taken on fraud, however.
The issue continues to be a serious problem across online marketplaces, where sellers hawk counterfeit items and scam consumers. Some retailers, including Nike and Birkenstock, have found the hassles aren’t worth the risk of dealing with Amazon, as a result.
While the retailer has long been accused of avoiding issues around fraud, it’s more recently pledged to spend billions to address the problem and has inserted itself into legal battles with fraudulent sellers and counterfeiters in recent years.
Last year, Amazon announced an initiative called Project Zero, which introduced a range of tools for brands to use to help Amazon fight fraud. The brands can opt to provide Amazon with their logos, trademarks and other key data, allowing the retailer to scan its billions of product listings to find suspected counterfeits more proactively.
Another tool, serialization, allows brands to include a unique code on their products during manufacturing, which can later be scanned to verify that a purchase is authentic. This tool, now known as Transparency, expanded to other markets last summer, including Europe, Canada and India.
But unlike these earlier efforts, seller verification aims to cut down on products being listed in the first place –not just removed once listings go live or stopping fraudulent products from being shipped to customers.
Magic Leap may be on its last legs, the next iPhone could be delayed by a month and WhatsApp says its efforts to slow the spread of misinformation are working.
"Why are people still giving Magic Leap money?" our own Lucas Matney asked a year ago. The company’s device sales were terrible. Last month it sought an acquisition for a $10 billion price tag that Josh Constine called "crazy." Most recently, it laid off half the company and pivoted to enterprise.
Now columnist Jon Evans looks back at what went wrong. The issue, he concludes, is that Magic Leap never managed to miniaturize its breakthrough technology into anything actually releasable.
The Wall Street Journal is reporting that the iPhone 12 may be among the devices impacted by unexpected COVID-19 issues. Apple is supposedly "pushing back the production ramp-up" of the new devices owing to manufacturing issues in Asia and "weakened global consumer demand."
WhatsApp's bid earlier this month to cut the virality of messages circulating on its platform by introducing a forwarding limit has already started to pay off.
Facebook is co-opting some of the top video chat innovations like Zoom's gallery view for large groups and Houseparty's spontaneous hangouts for a new feature called Rooms.
LiveRamp TV’s Jay Prasad notes that prior to the onset of coronavirus, the influencer trend was diminishing while the streaming TV trend became more prominent. Today, influencers have actually seen increased levels of engagement — but they face credibility issues, which could lead to a reduction in perceived value to brands. (Extra Crunch membership required.)
Brave, maker of a pro-privacy browser, has lodged complaints with the European Commission against 27 EU Member States for under resourcing their national data protection watchdogs. The company has compiled a report to back up the complaints, in which it chronicles a drastic shortage of tech expertise and budget resource among Europe's privacy agencies to enforce the region's data protection framework.
Codota is an Israeli startup that provides an AI tool for developers to let them autocomplete strings of code that they are writing — intended both to speed up their work (it claims to "boost productivity by 25%") and to make sure that the code is using the right syntax and “spelled” correctly.
The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.
The original Pixel Buds weren't very good. No way around it. Here's a thing I wrote about them in a review titled “A disappointing debut for Google's Pixel Buds“: As recently as a couple of years ago, they would have been a contender for the most compelling Bluetooth headphones on the market. But given the strides much of the competition has made, they mostly land with a dull thud."
And we weren't alone. Google's first attempt at wireless earbuds were met with a pretty resounding "meh," when they arrived in 2017. It's probably an understatement to suggest that the company went back to the drawing board on this one. The line required a rethink from the ground up.
It took another two and a half years to deliver their successor. And Google seemingly sought to wipe the slate clean entirely, even going so far as not listing a "2" in the name. The new Pixel Buds are simply Pixel Buds. Anything else you remember with that name was clearly a figment of your own imagination.
Those original Pixel Buds that definitely didn't exist already felt outdated when they hit the market. And while a clean slate was certainly required, Google didn't do itself any favors by waiting that long. The landscape for wireless earbuds has grown by leaps and bounds in that time. The market has been saturated and the products feel more of a necessity than a luxury.
Six months after their introduction at a Pixel event in New York, the Buds are finally available for purchase in the U.S. — in Clearly White, at least. The other, more fun colors — Oh So Orange, Almost Black and Quite Mint — are not yet on the market. A minor quibble for those who have waited this long for a decent pair of Google headphones.
Color issues aside, I'm pretty into the design language here. It feels fresh in a way most earbuds don't — the case in particular. It would have been easy to knock-off Apple or Samsung or any number of competitors, but the new Pixel Buds manage to pull off a fresh aesthetic built on top of the same basic concept of charging case that's essentially universal across the board, at this point.
I actually prefer the matte black to the AirPod gloss. It's better to look at and feels nice to the touch. Jury's still out on how easily it will scratch. Full disclosure, I haven't really left my apartment since the Buds arrived — because, well, life. The case is ovular — a flattened egg, if you will. The top of the case opens with an easy flip. There's a black accent running around the lid, easily showing where to stick your thumb.
The case is fairly long in relation to the Buds themselves, owing, one imagines, to the size of the battery. All told, the Buds should get 24 hours with the case. There's a USB-C port on the bottom (they're wirelessly chargable, too) and a pairing button on the rear. The charging light flips on when open — white for full, orange for low battery.
Flipping the case open with the Buds in will also trigger a pairing dialog box on Pixel phones and other handsets running Android 6.0 and up. It's a super simple pairing process — one akin to what you'll get with AirPods on iOS. And once the headphones are registered to you, the box will pop up with the info on your other devices.
The Buds themselves are also aesthetically distinct from most of the competition. They feature a round button surface sporting a small, engraved Google "G." The surface gives you space for the touch controls, which are as follows:
Tap to play/pause media, answer calls
Double tap to skip track, end/reject call, stop the Assistant
Triple tap to rewind/go to previous track
Swipe forward to increase volume
Swipe backward to decrease volume
The Buds felt good in my ears with the default medium tips. There are a larger and smaller pair in the box, as well, so you can play around to get a better fit. They've been in for the better part of four hours and my ears feel fine — not something I can say with every pair of earbuds I've tested. They're not too large or heavy, so they don't pull on or press the ear. There's also a small, removable silicone wing at the top to keep them in place.
The battery on the buds is a bit lacking. After the aforementioned amount of time, I just got a low battery notification on the right bud. Curiously, they've run down at different rates. The right is at 14%, the left at 34%. Time to stick them back in the case for a recharge.
The sound is decent. Not the best sounding pair I've tried and certainly not the worst. I'd say they're pretty middle of the pack in terms of the price point. If audio is (understandably) you're biggest concern, I'd recommend opting for a pricier model from Sony, Sennheiser or Apple's AirPods Pro. There's no active noise canceling here, either. The "Hey Google" microphone array works as advertised whether activated by voice or a long press with a finger. The connection was mostly solid. I was able to keep the music playing while walking into another room, though I did hit a few rough patches here and there.
At $179, the new Pixel Buds are priced close to the middle of the pack. That feels about right. The models are a big upgrade over their disappointing predecessors, but are still a pretty middle of the road choice for Android users.
The co-founders of Walrus.ai, a new software company that raised $4 million in a new round of financing from Homebrew, Felicis Ventures and Leadout Capital, started their business with one problem.
Jake Marsh, Ogden Nathan and Scott White had a problem. They left Wealthfront to launch a new service that would solve what they saw as a key problem with new business workflows. Their idea was to integrate the disparate software silos that different parts of their former business used to complete assignments.
The company was going to be called Monolist and it was going to aggregate tasks across every tool into a single actionable list. Unfortunately it wasn’t working.
They had founded the business back in 2018 and had gone on to raise seed capital from Homebrew and Leadout Capital, but they were hitting walls in their product development.
“Reliability was a huge problem for us,” said company co-founder, Scott White. “There were various frameworks that would let you test your automation so that before you launch your software, you catch bugs… There were some code languages that exist that can help you do this, but they didn’t work for us at all.”
The browser testing frameworks that White and his co-founders were using hadn’t kept up with the evolution of the software development industry and couldn’t adequately recreate the ways that actual users would interact with the software. “The stuff is super brittle,” said White.
Typically, according to White, these assurance tests break and then force engineers and developers to then investigate why the tests broke, to see if they can figure out what went wrong with the test even before they move on to any quality assurance of the actual changes made to a product.
“They weren’t designed to handle that much complexity,” White said of the existing testing tools.
So White and his co-founders thought about how they’d solve what they see as one of the critical problems that engineers face.
“The problem for engineers right now is that writing tests for your applications is hard because you have to write code and the frameworks are very inflexible and flaky,” White said. “Engineers spend tons of time running tests and if those tests fail then your code would not get shipped so you have to debut all those tests.”
Enter the new venture from White and his co-founders.
That would be Walrus.ai . “We’re outsourced engineering through an API,” said White. “We understand how to do testing and we can do it way better and more quickly.”
Using simple text descriptions of a planned user interface, Walrus.ai’s co-founder said his company can run diagnostics on just how effectively the code manages to execute its planned commands.
Given its status as a relatively new kind on the testing block, Walrus.ai only has tens of paying customers right now as it spins out from Monolist.
The company sees its competition coming primarily from outsourced quality assurance companies like Rainforest QA; test recorders like Mabel and Testim; and testing frameworks like Selenium and Cypress, but believes that its ability to take natural language prompts and run QA tests will be enough of a differentiator to capture a significant share of the market.
A group of 471 French cryptography and security researchers has signed a letter to raise awareness about the potential risks of a contact-tracing app. A debate in the French parliament will take place tomorrow to talk about all things related to post-lockdown — including contact-tracing app StopCovid.
Among the group of researchers, 77 of them are affiliated with Inria, the French research institute that has been working on the contact-tracing protocol that will power the government-backed contact-tracing app, ROBERT. With this letter, it appears that Inria is conflicted about ROBERT.
"All those applications induce very important risks when it comes to protecting privacy and individual rights," the letter says. "This mass surveillance could be done by collecting the interaction graph of individuals — the social graph. It could happen at the operating system level on the phones. Not only operating system makers could reconstruct the social graph, but the state could as well, more or less easily depending on the approaches."
The letter also mentions a thorough analysis of centralized and decentralized implementations of contact-tracing protocols. It includes multiple attack scenarios and undermines both the DP-3T protocol as well as ROBERT.
Ahead of the debate in the French parliament tomorrow, researchers say that "it is essential to thoroughly analyze the health benefits of a digital solution with specialists — there should be important evidence in order to justify the risks incurred."
Researchers also ask for more transparency at all levels — every technical choice should be documented and justified. Data collection should be minimized and people should understand the risks and remain free not to use the contact-tracing app.
Over the past few weeks, multiple groups of researchers in Europe have been working on different protocols. In particular, DP-3T has been working a decentralized protocol that leverages smartphones to compute social interactions. Ephemeral IDs are stored on your device and you can accept to share ephemeral IDs with a relay server to send them to the community of app users.
PEPP-PT has been backing a centralized protocol that uses pseudonymization to match contacts on a central server. A national authority manages the central server, which could lead to state surveillance if the protocol isn't implemented properly. ROBERT is a variant of PEPP-PT designed by French and German researchers.
While the French government has always been cautious about the upsides of a contact-tracing app, there's been little debate about the implementation. Inria, with official backing from the French government, and Fraunhofer released specifications for the ROBERT protocol last week.
Many (including me) have called out various design choices, as you have to trust your government that they're not doing anything nefarious without telling you — a centralized approach requires a lot of faith from the end users as the government holds a lot of data about your social interactions and your health. Sure, it's pseudonymized, but it's not anonymized, despite what the ROBERT specification document says.
Moreover, ROBERT doesn't leverage Apple and Google's contact-tracing API that is in the works. France's digital minister, Cédric O, has been trying to put some pressure on Apple over Bluetooth restrictions with a Bloomberg interview. Given that Apple and Google provide an API for decentralized implementations, they have little incentive to bow to French pressure.
On Sunday, Germany announced that it would abandon its original plans for a centralized architecture in favor of a decentralized approach, leaving France and the U.K. as the two remaining backers of a centralized approach.
France's data protection watchdog CNIL released a cautious analysis of ROBERT, saying that the protocol could be compliant with GDPR. But it says it will need further details on the implementation of the protocol to give a definitive take on StopCovid.
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) also said on Twitter that the debate in front of the French parliament is particularly important. "Decisions will have an impact not only on the immediate future but as well on years to come," they say.
ఆర్ఎక్స్100… అజయ్ భూపతిని దర్శకుడిగా పరిచయం చేసిన సినిమా. కార్తికేయను హీరోగా పరిచయం చేసిన మూవీ. అటు హీరోయిన్ పాయల్ రాజ్ పుత్ ను కూడా హీరోయిన్ గా పరిచయం చేసిన చిత్రం. ఈ ఒక్క సినిమాతో వీళ్లు ముగ్గురూ సక్సెస్ కొట్టారు. అలాంటి సూపర్ హిట్ సినిమాకు త్వరలోనే సీక్వెల్ తీస్తానని ప్రకటించాడు దర్శకుడు అజయ్ భూపతి. హీరో కార్తికేయతో కలిసి లైవ్ ఛాట్ చేశాడు దర్శకుడు అజయ్. ఈ సందర్భంగా ఇద్దరూ కలిసి నెటిజన్లు […]
కెరీర్ స్టార్టింగ్ లో పవన్ కెరీర్ ను మలుపుతిప్పిన సినిమా తొలిప్రేమ. ఆ సినిమా తర్వాత పవన్ కు స్టార్ ఇమేజ్ తీసుకొచ్చిన సినిమా ఖుషి. ఇలా పవర్ స్టార్ కెరీర్ లో ప్రత్యేక స్థానం సంపాదించుకున్న ఖుషీ సినిమా విడుదలై నేటికి సరిగ్గా 19 ఏళ్లు అవుతోంది. దీంతో పవన్ ఫ్యాన్స్ అంతా మరోసారి అలెర్ట్ అయిపోయారు. సోషల్ మీడియాలో ఖుషీ నాటి సంగతుల్ని పంచుకుంటూ రచ్చరచ్చ చేస్తున్నారు. ఎస్ జే సూర్య దర్శకత్వంలో వచ్చిన […]
కరోనా వస్తే జీవితం నాశనమైపోతుందన్న భయం నుంచి ప్రజలు బయటకు రావాలని పిలుపునిచ్చారు ఏపీ ముఖ్యమంత్రి వైఎస్ జగన్మోహన్ రెడ్డి. సాయంత్రం ప్రజలనుద్దేశించి మాట్లాడిన ఆయన… వ్యాక్సిన్ వచ్చే వరకు కరోనాతో కలిసి జీవనం సాగించాల్సిన పరిస్థితి ఉంటుందన్నారు. అందుకు తగ్గట్టుగా సన్నద్దం కావాల్సిన అవసరం ఉందన్నారు. కరోనా సోకిన వారిపై వివక్ష చూపవద్దని కోరారు. కరోనా అన్నది ఎవరికైనా రావొచ్చునని… తనకూ రావొచ్చునని ముఖ్యమంత్రి వ్యాఖ్యానించారు. కాబట్టి కరోనా సోకిన వారిపై వివక్ష చూపడం మాని… […]
ఏపీలో కరోనా కేసులు పెరుగుతున్నాయి. ఇవాళ కూడా 80 కేసులు నమోదు అయ్యాయి. దీంతో మొత్తం కేసుల సంఖ్య 1,177కి చేరింది. వీరిలో 235 మంది డిశ్చార్జ్ అయ్యారు. యాక్టివ్ కేసుల సంఖ్య 911. ఈ వైరస్ బారిన పడి 31 మంది చనిపోయారు. ఏపీలో గత మూడు రోజులుగా కేసులు భారీగా నమోదు అవుతున్నాయి. తెలంగాణలో తగ్గాయి. కారణాలేంటి? అనే ప్రచారం నడుస్తోంది. అక్కడ తగ్గాయి. ఇక్కడ పెరిగాయి. ఇది ప్రభుత్వ నిర్లక్ష్యం అంటూ రాజకీయం […]
సీఎంలతో సమావేశమైన ప్రధాని మోడీ 3 తర్వాత కేవలం రెడ్ జోన్లలోనే లాక్ డౌన్ మెజార్టీ సీఎంల అభిప్రాయం కూడా అదే దేశంలో కరోనా ప్రభావం తీవ్రంగా ఉన్న రెడ్ జోన్ లకే లాక్డౌన్ పరిమితం చేయనున్నారా..? మే 3 తర్వాత లాక్డౌన్ నిబంధనలు ఎత్తివేయనున్నారా?… అంటే అవుననే సమాధానమే వస్తోంది. కరోనా ప్రభావం కారణంగా దేశంలో మే3 వరకు కేంద్ర ప్రభుత్వం లాక్డౌన్ విధించిన విషయం తెలిసిందే. దేశంలో కరోనా కట్డడికి చర్యలు, లాక్డౌన్ ఎత్తివేత […]
తెలంగాణ రాష్ట్రంలో హైదరాబాద్ జిల్లా తర్వాత అత్యధిక కరోనా పాజిటీవ్ కేసులతో రికార్డు సృష్టించిన సూర్యాపేటలో పరిస్థితులు క్రమంగా కుదుటపడుతున్నాయి. గత కొన్ని రోజులుగా పాజిటీవ్ కేసులు నమోదు కాకపోవడంతో కొన్ని ప్రాంతాల్లో కంటైన్మెంట్ జోన్లను ఎత్తివేశారు. జిల్లాలోని కుడకుడ, నేరేడు చర్ల, మఠంపల్లి ప్రాంతాల్లోని కంటైన్మెంట్ జోన్లను ఎత్తివేస్తూ కలెక్టర్ వినయ్ కృష్ణారెడ్డి ఉత్తర్వులు జారీ చేశారు. గత 24 రోజులుగా జిల్లాలోని కంటైన్మెంట్ ప్రాంతాల్లో విస్తృతంగా కరోనా పరీక్షలు నిర్వహించినట్లు చెప్పారు. ప్రతీ ఇంటికి […]
లాక్ డౌన్ కారణంగా సినీ పరిశ్రమ ఒక ఏడాది వరకు ఏ ప్రాజెక్టును చేపట్టే యోచనలో లేకుండా పోయింది. ఖాళీగా ఉన్న త్రివిక్రమ్ తన తదుపరి చిత్రాన్ని ఎన్టీఆర్ తో తీయడానికి రెడీ అయ్యాడు. అప్పటివరకు మరో సినిమా ఏదీ తీయకూడదని నిర్ణయించుకున్నాడట. ఎలాగూ సినిమాలు ఆడే పరిస్థితి లేకపోవడంతో ఆయన ఈ నిర్ణయం తీసుకున్నాడు. ఇక లాక్ డౌన్ తో 'ఆర్ఆర్ఆర్' కూడా వచ్చే సంవత్సరం వేసవికి వాయిదా పడింది. ఆర్ఆర్ఆర్ వాయిదాతో ఎన్టీఆర్ లాక్ […]
నిజం గడప దాటేలోపు అబద్దం ప్రపంచాన్ని చుట్టొస్తుందని పెద్దలు చెప్పారు. ప్రస్తుత సోషల్ మీడియా కాలంలో నిజం నోట్లోంచి రాకముందే అబద్దం ప్రపంచాన్ని చుట్టేస్తున్నట్లు కనిపిస్తోంది. ప్రస్తుతం ప్రపంచమంతా కరోనా కల్లోల్లానికి అట్టుడికిపోతోంది. చైనాలో ప్రారంభమైన ఈ మహమ్మారి ప్రపంచదేశాలను గజగజా వణికిస్తోంది. కోవిడ్-19 రోజురోజుకూ ప్రమాదకరంగా మారుతుండటంతో అన్ని దేశాలు వ్యాక్సిన్ రూపొందించడంలో నిమగ్నమయ్యాయి. ఈ క్రమంలో యునైటెడ్ కింగ్డమ్కు చెందిన ఆక్స్ఫర్డ్ యూనివర్సిటీ పరిశోధకులు సార్-కోవ్-2 కరోనా వైరస్కు వ్యాక్సిన్ సిద్దం చేశారు. ఈ […]
Wi-Fi calling: Work for home clicks with fixed broadband sector, says Crisil Internet Service Providers Association of India (ISPAI) said this was a good opportunity for the sector. The association also raised its long-standing demand of allowing active infrastructure sharing to include internet service provider (ISP) players, which is available to all other licences.
Five former employees file class action lawsuit against Wipro in US The lawsuit filed in a District Court in New Jersey claims that while only about 12 per cent of the United States' IT industry (the industry in which Wipro operates) is South Asian, at least 80 per cent (or more) of Wipro's United States workforce is South Asian (primarily from India).
