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mamun258 · 8 months

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The future of GPT Store may not be the App Store

After the launch of GPT Store, most developers may have started thinking about how to obtain commercial benefits. However, in addition HE Tuber to this, the biggest significance of GPT Store at present may be to make AI more accessible to ordinary users. Easier to use. Let’s take a look at the sharing of this article.

Because the palace battle scene was delayed for 2 months, OpenAI's GPT Store was finally launched early yesterday morning.

Its main function is to help users find more useful and popular GPTs, and also to allow developers to make some real money.

If you don't know much about GPTs, you can think of them as customized versions of ChatGPT.

We don’t need to write code and use natural language conversations to create a ChatGPT with exclusive skills, such as a “digitally proficient media editor”. At the same time, they also have built-in functions such as networking and drawing.

In order to make GPTs more professional when "role playing", we can upload files or call third-party APIs to let them access more external data and services.

GPTs developers are already thinking about how to share money with OpenAI, but after experiencing it, we can find that the biggest significance of GPT Store at present is actually to make AI more useful for ordinary users.

1. The entry-level AI version of the App Store is easy to use but not amazing enough.

At first glance, the GPT Store does look a bit like the App Store on a mobile phone.

Every week, GPT Store recommends several selected GPTs, similar to the App Store's "Editor's Choice", and also reveals the most popular GPTs, similar to the App Store's rankings.

In addition to the official products of ChatGPT, the categories of GPTs also include mapping, writing, programming, education, efficiency, research analysis, lifestyle, etc. I looked around and saw the word "productivity", so I didn't have to worry about getting bored playing with things.

In the first week after GPT Store was launched, the following 6 GPTs were selected:

AllTrails recommends personalized hiking routes.

Consensus, searches and synthesizes results from 200 million papers.

Code Tutor, a code tutor produced by "Khan Academy".

Canva, design presentations, icons and more.

Books, recommended reading guide.

CK-12 Flexi, middle and high school math and science tutor.

The low barriers to entry for creating GPT also means it’s harder to stand out. What’s so special about GPTs, which is favored by the government?

To put it simply, they are "older". Most of them call third-party APIs. The creators themselves are a team and have their own website and other mature services.

Canva is produced by the graphic design tool Canva of the same name. In addition to providing design suggestions, it is more importantly a navigation function.

I misunderstood its purpose at first, so I told it that I had sorted out the information about the defendants of AI companies due to copyright issues, and sent it to it according to categories such as "defendant", "reason for prosecution", "plaintiff", etc., and asked it to help me generate a clear picture. chart.

However, Canva cannot generate it with one click on the current page. It can only interact with the Canva official website according to my needs, find a suitable template, provide a thumbnail of the template for me to click, and jump to the Canva official website for design.

I repeatedly urged it to help me generate the page on the current page, but it refused to relent and ignored me. It sincerely invited me to use Canva, which made people doubt whether it had any "new" indicators.

The once most popular paper GPT "Consensus", the website of the same name has a paper search function.

When I asked "Why is learning languages on Duolingo addictive? Please provide a literature review." It summarized the main points at the beginning of each paragraph and gave specific literature and jump links after the main points. Writing a manuscript Don’t worry about running out of inspiration.

CK-12 Flexi, which serves middle and high school students, is like the overseas version of "Homework Helper". I find a junior high school question bank and input the questions into it to get the answers. It always reminds me at the end, "Dear, there are more updates on the CK-12 website." There are so many learning resources.”

"AllTrails" for finding hiking and other sports routes, with pictures and texts, detailing everything, listing the location, introduction, difficulty, altitude, length, estimated completion time and other details. It can also meet personalized needs such as dog walking, and is also closely related to your own official website association.

It is understandable to "bring in private goods" to attract new ones to yourself. Practice has also proved that the GPTs recommended by the official are not necessarily reliable.

When I asked Books to recommend a medieval fantasy novel, the title and author were all the same. "Illusion" is still an unavoidable problem for generative AI.

Among the 6 GPTs, the most interesting one to me is Khan Academy’s Code Tutor. This non-profit educational institution has been cooperating with OpenAI since 2022. It is not surprising that OpenAI recommends its GPTs this time.

Code Tutor is like a patient and gentle teacher. He believes that it is better to teach someone to fish than to teach him to fish. He does not directly help you write code, but helps you solve the difficulties you encounter in programming. He is not afraid of you asking stupid questions and always asks questions. At the end, I care if you understand.

When I mentioned that I wanted to make a "Pomodoro Clock", Code Tutor broke down the steps and inspired me to think step by step. When I asked to see the reference answers, it would also give me demonstrations, but it still encouraged me to do it myself, which is very suitable for beginners to get started.

Aside from the $20 subscription to GPT-4, using GPTs itself is free. How users who create GPTs can make money is still a mystery. The specific plan will be launched in the first quarter, targeting creators in the United States first. Currently, it is only known to be related to the amount of interaction.

Although the GPT Store is similar to the App Store and integrates a large number of applications, its revenue model is more like short video or music software. Instead of pricing the applications itself, it gets paid based on the creators' share.

And the GPT Store does not have detailed introductions, demonstrations and user reviews like the App Store. All we can see is the name, icon and introduction.

After a complete experience, this GPT Store is not particularly "subversive".

We still search for the GPTs we need in the GPT Store, and then keep them in the sidebar. We look for apps, which is similar to searching and downloading apps in the App Store.

Some GPTs are not as easy to use as full-featured apps. They play a supporting role in providing suggestions, and the actual operation has to be completed by jumping to the website. But after all, GPTs rely on large AI models, and some are also connected to their own databases. The answers are more relevant and comprehensive than GPT-4, and they are also more suitable for people and personalities.

In fact, a more ideal form would be to directly enter the requirements in ChatGPT, and call up the corresponding GPTs in the background to solve specific problems. Multiple calls can be made in one answer, and the application can come to us.

Therefore, GPT Store has just hit the big-model App Store moment, and we look forward to the subsequent improvement of the ecosystem.

2. In the era of technological equality in AI, everyone is a product manager (right?)

Since the release of GPTs, those who know code and those who don’t know code have become confused.

According to OpenAI statistics, in just 2 months, users have created more than 3 million GPTs. In addition, GPTs Hunter and other wild GPTs recommendation websites also include public GPTs on the order of 100,000.

However, the threshold for "development" has been lowered, and the threshold for "plagiarism" has also been lowered.

There are large model "shells" of technology giants on the outside, and GPTs made by individuals inside to "learn from" each other.

Searching in the GPT Store, you are likely to find GPTs with the same name or similar functions, and even the avatars are exactly the same.

Because some users will take the prompt words of GPTs and then make another one themselves, GitHub also has a project that collects cracked GPTs prompt words.

This time OpenAI has added manual and automatic review functions. Users can also report GPTs, which may be able to kill the arrogance of "Eastern imitation".

In any case, GPTs that rely solely on prompt words and built-in functions are likely to live or die. GPTs can only call APIs and access higher-quality databases as a moat. This is where ordinary users and developers are distinguished.

Developers are struggling, but for ordinary users, GPTs further lowers the threshold for prompt words, and they can just start using it.

In fact, ChatGPT's capabilities are already very powerful. You can ask it any question in human language, but when we complete a specific thing, the effect may not be satisfactory.

For example, if you ask it to translate an English report, it is likely to come out with a stiff translation tone. In the past, we had to use prompt word distribution to guide it, asking it to translate literally first and then translate it freely.

But now, there are already many GPTs that specialize in free translation and more fluent language. We don’t even need to write the prompt word. We just paste the entire article in and it will start spitting out the results directly.

So to a certain extent, the producers of GPTs assume the role of a pioneer in AI.

They know better than ordinary users how to write prompt words, how a problem can be solved by AI, and how to control the unreliability of AI. They then package AI into GPTs to provide simpler and more useful services.

The task of ordinary users has become how to find excellent GPTs faster. In the past, many GPTs navigation websites provided this function to help you sort by ratings, categories, etc. Now GPT Store can also do it, but it is not rich enough.

This time, OpenAI President Greg Brockman also announced the news that GPTs can now learn from chats and remember details and your preferences, but this feature is still in testing. "This is the first step to build your personal ChatGPT." .

From a personal perspective, the fledgling GPTs have also democratized AI creation. No matter whether the GPTs we construct are complex or simple, trying to give prompt words and upload your own database are actually efforts to not fall behind in the AI era.

Thinking on the bright side, saving yourself time is equivalent to making money from GPT Store.

The fight over money is already happening quietly in the dark. Although GPTs are still in their infancy, there is a possibility of crowding out startups that provide services similar to GPTs.

For example, the GPTs of game characters such as "Love and Producer" may have hit platforms such as Character.AI that customize two-dimensional characters and chat partners. GPTs for authentic speaking practice may also be able to compete with NetEase Youdao.

In December 2023, OpenAI announced that it would use GPTs to replace the Beta test function "plug-in" launched in May of the same year, saying that GPTs had learned experience from the plug-in.

The "Actions" of GPTs are actually built based on plug-ins. Simply put, they call one or more APIs to implement more customized operations and interact with external data or the real world, such as connecting to personal mailboxes or travel industry databases.

Ordinary users can directly use other people's GPTs as copilots in work and life, and developers can also connect GPTs to external data or services through coding, allowing GPTs to move closer to agents.

The GPT that amazes me most at the moment is the GPT builder tool GPT Builder - a chatbot that talks to you when developing GPTs.

It is a GPT itself, developed by OpenAI, and is the backbone of GPTs. OpenAI will continue to improve it and serve both newbies and veterans.

Because of it, we have more GPTs and more directly accessible AI functions.

After the popularization of GPTs, it is not clear how much money creators can make, but it is certain that the process of people retrieving, obtaining, and processing information will be reshaped, and traditional search engines, which have always been criticized, will also be accommodated in GPTs. in the ecology.

As OpenAI President Greg Brockman said, to accomplish some things in the past, we had to switch between different applications, but ChatGPT is "a unified language interface built on countless tools."

The existence of GPTs has blurred the boundaries between creators and users. This may be an era where everyone is a product manager, but it is also an era where it is difficult to do better.

Author: Zhang Chengchen

Source public account: Ai Faner (ID: ifanr); connect with love and create differences.

This article is published with the authorization of @爱faner, a cooperative media by Renren is a product manager. Reprinting without permission is prohibited.

The title picture comes from Unsplash and is based on the CC0 license.

The opinions in this article represent only the author's own. The Renren Product Manager platform only provides information storage space services.

#video #sharing #watch #upload

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newstfionline · 4 years

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Thursday, January 7, 2021

The coronavirus intensified a hunger crisis last year, but 2021 could be worse (Washington Post) The coronavirus pandemic unleashed cascades of suffering in 2020. People around the globe faced the threat of the virus, along with the devastating ripple effects of efforts to control its spread. For much of the world, the legacy of the pandemic will be impossible to untangle from the stark material inequities that worsened it—and that it exacerbated. Among the most dangerous of these: a mounting hunger crisis, set to grow even more dire in 2021. The World Food Program, the branch of the United Nations responsible for delivering lifesaving food assistance, expects to need to serve 138 million people this year—more than ever in its 60-year history. The rise in hunger is “due to what I call ‘the three Cs’—conflict, covid and climate,” said Steve Taravella, a WFP spokesman. “We don’t take the word ‘famine’ loosely, but with famine looming in several countries at once, we’re facing a genuine crisis.” And as the situation worsens, the agency is also facing major funding shortfalls. It expects to raise only around half of the $15.1 billion it projects it will need in 2021, Taravella said. The agency is steeling itself “for an especially heartbreaking year,” he said.

Pro-Trump mob storms US Capitol in bid to overturn election (AP) A violent mob loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol on Wednesday and forced lawmakers into hiding, in a stunning attempt to overturn America’s presidential election, undercut the nation’s democracy and keep Democrat Joe Biden from replacing Trump in the White House. The nation’s elected representatives scrambled to crouch under desks and donned gas marks, while police futilely tried to barricade the building, one of the most jarring scenes ever to unfold in a seat of American political power. A woman was shot and killed inside the Capitol, and Washington’s mayor instituted an evening curfew in an attempt to contain the violence. The rioters were egged on by Trump, who has spent weeks attacking the integrity of the election and had urged his supporters to descend on Washington Wednesday to protest Congress’ formal approval of Biden’s victory. Some Republican lawmakers were in the midst of raising objections to the results on his behalf when the proceedings were abruptly halted by the mob. The president gave his supporters an added boost Wednesday morning during an appearance at a rally outside the White House, where he urged them to march to the Capitol. He spent much of the afternoon in his private dining room off the Oval Office watching scenes of the violence on television. At the urging of his staff, he reluctantly issued a pair of tweets and a taped video telling his supporters it was time to “go home in peace.” The Pentagon said about 1,100 District of Columbia National Guard members were being mobilized to help support law enforcement at the Capitol. More than a dozen people were arrested. As darkness began to set in, law enforcement officials worked their way toward the protesters, using percussion grenades to try to clear the area around the Capitol. Big clouds of tear gas were visible.

Biden win confirmed (AP) Congress confirmed Democrat Joe Biden as the presidential election winner early Thursday after a violent mob loyal to President Donald Trump stormed the U.S. Capitol in a stunning attempt to overturn America’s presidential election, undercut the nation’s democracy and keep Trump in the White House. Lawmakers were resolved to complete the Electoral College tally, and they pushed through the night with tensions high and the nation’s capital on alert. Before dawn Thursday, lawmakers completed their work, confirming Biden won the election. Trump, who had repeatedly refused to concede the election, said in a statement immediately after the vote that there will be a smooth transition of power on Inauguration Day.

Democrats ahead in Georgia (Foreign Policy) Democrat Raphael Warnock has been declared the winner in his race against Republican Sen. Kelly Loeffler while the other race between Jon Ossoff and Sen. David Perdue remains too close to call, although the New York Times predicts Ossoff is likely to win. Warnock has a lead of more than 50,000 votes and Ossoff is ahead by more than 16,000 with most of the uncounted votes remaining in the heavily Democratic Atlanta area. If Democrats win both seats, they would take control of the Senate with Vice President Kamala Harris casting the tie-breaking vote. Foreign Policy’s Mike Hirsh argues that no matter who prevails in Georgia, the effect on President-elect Joe Biden’s foreign policy is likely to be minimal. “Over the past four years the Senate Republicans have been more willing to challenge President Donald Trump on foreign-policy issues—and thus may end up being more receptive to Biden’s plans, especially when it comes to restoring relations with U.S. allies that have been so damaged during the Trump years,” Hirsh writes.

New Year & New Economic Woes for Cubans as Prices Surge (AFP) Raisa Lemus had to return home to fetch extra money to finish her shopping, Arturo Sobrado was angered by the “abusive” bus fare hike and Norma Pousada was left bemused that shops no longer accepted her money. For Cubans, the new year has begun with a steep, painful rise in prices due to a complex economic reform launched on January 1 by the government that also included an increase in salaries. The two cohabiting currencies in circulation for a quarter of a century are being fused into one: and one is worth 24 times less than the other. To soften the blow, the government announced a bumper five-fold hike in the minimum wage. But basic goods such as food and electricity have also seen a sharp rise in prices since the Christmas holidays. Although the government has set a six-month period to phase out the convertible peso—which is pinned to the dollar and was introduced in 1994 to replace the US currency that was commonly used alongside the regular peso—many stores have put up signs saying they are not accepting it any more.

Chilean lawmakers propose making coronavirus vaccine mandatory (Reuters) Chilean lawmakers on Tuesday presented a bill before Congress that would make vaccination against the coronavirus mandatory as the country’s center-right government pushes to inosculate the majority of its population by mid-year. The bill would modify the country’s health code, which already requires vaccination against smallpox, whooping cough and other diseases, according to the opposition Christian Democracy party lawmakers who submitted the legislation. An IPSOS survey in early December found that seven out of 10 Chileans said they would be willing to get vaccinated. Health Minister Enrique Paris said earlier this week that officials would study the proposal.

British judge denies WikiLeaks’ Julian Assange bail in extradition case, citing flight risk (Washington Post) A British judge on Wednesday refused to grant bail and release WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who will remain in a prison cell on the outskirts of London while the U.S. government pursues its case against him. Assange is charged with 18 federal crimes, including conspiring to obtain and disclose classified diplomatic cables and sensitive military reports from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. Lawyers for the U.S. government said they will appeal to Britain’s High Court the judge’s ruling to halt the extradition, a process that could take several months. Prosecutors want Assange flown to Northern Virginia to face the charges, which could lead to a life sentence in a maximum-security prison if he were convicted. In her ruling from the bench denying Assange’s bid for freedom, the judge recited some history, noting that Assange was granted bail by a British court in 2010 as he fought extradition to Sweden, where he was wanted for sexual assault. The Swedish case was later dropped. The judge recalled how in June 2012 Assange fled from British justice and sought refuge in the Ecuadoran Embassy in London, which granted him asylum. Assange spent almost seven years as a fugitive in the embassy, until Ecuador revoked his protection and British police arrested him in April 2019. Since then, he has been in Belmarsh.

India’s internet shutdowns cost its economy nearly $3 billion in 2020 (Quartz India) India’s constant internet blackouts have taken a huge toll on its economy. National shutdowns left Indian businesses without hundreds of hours of vital internet access, costing billions in lost revenue. Authorities cut Indians off from the internet for more than 1,655 hours as a result of national shutdowns, according to research by Top10VPN, a publication focused on internet privacy. And many people with internet still couldn’t use it without obstacles. Governments also deliberately reduced internet bandwidths for more than 7,200 hours, bringing speeds down to 2G—SMS and voice calls continue to function but modern websites and apps are rendered useless. It’s not too far from a complete blackout. The economic cost of these restrictions amounts to a whopping $2.88 billion in 2020, according to Top10VPN.

China reacts to storming of U.S. Capitol (Foreign Policy) Pro-Chinese Communist Party (CCP) commenters are gleeful at the scenes of chaos in Washington on Wednesday, after U.S. President Donald Trump’s push to overturn the November 2020 election results culminated in armed supporters breaching the U.S. Capitol. Many in China have made comparisons to so-called color revolutions in Eastern Europe and Central Asia, which Beijing paints as U.S.-backed attempts to topple hostile governments. The belief that the United States would collapse like the Soviet Union has circulated among members of the Chinese elite since the mid-2000s, especially after the 2008 financial crisis. Under President Xi Jinping, Chinese officials have been encouraged to study the Soviet collapse closely as an example of what mistakes China should avoid. The scenes in Washington, so reminiscent of the Russian parliamentary violence of the 1990s, will only encourage such convictions.

China steps up curbs near Beijing (Reuters) Chinese authorities imposed travel restrictions and banned gatherings in the capital city of Hebei province, which surrounds Beijing, in the latest escalation of measures to stave off another coronavirus wave. The province, which entered a “wartime mode” on Tuesday, accounted for 20 of the 23 new locally transmitted COVID-19 cases reported in mainland China on Jan. 5, more than the total of 19 cases in the province in the three previous days. The head of the World Health Organization on Tuesday said he was “very disappointed” that China still had not authorized a team of international experts tasked with examining the origins of the coronavirus into the country.

Hong Kong Police Arrest Dozens of Pro-Democracy Leaders (NYT) The Hong Kong police arrested 53 elected pro-democracy officials and activists early Wednesday for their involvement in an informal primary election, the largest roundup yet under the new national security law imposed by Beijing to quash dissent. The mass arrests—which included figures who had called for aggressive confrontation with the authorities as well as those who had supported more moderate tactics—underscored Hong Kong officials’ efforts to weaken any meaningful opposition in the city’s political institutions. The police also visited the offices of at least one law firm and three news media organizations to demand documents, broadening the burst of arrests that started before sunrise and sent a chill through Hong Kong’s already-demoralized opposition camp. The moves suggested that the authorities were casting a wide net for anyone who had played a prominent role in opposing the government.

North Korea’s Kim says economic plan failed as rare party congress begins (Reuters) North Korean leader Kim Jong Un said his five-year economic plan had failed to meet its goals “on almost every sector” as he kicked off the ruling Workers’ Party congress on Tuesday, state media KCNA reported on Wednesday. The rare political gathering, which Kim last hosted in 2016, has drawn international attention as he is expected to unveil a new five-year economic plan and address foreign policy, just two weeks before U.S. President-elect Joe Biden takes office. In his opening speech, Kim said the country had achieved a “miraculous victory” by bolstering its power and global prestige since the last meeting, referring to military advances that culminated in successful tests in 2017 of intercontinental ballistic missiles capable of striking the U.S. mainland. But the five-year economic strategy he set forth in 2016 had failed to deliver, he said, calling for a boost in North Korea’s self-reliance to tackle internal and outside challenges hindering its progress.

Netanyahu re-election hopes hinge on vaccination campaign (AP) For media-obsessed Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the coronavirus vaccine has arrived just in time. With elections approaching in March, Netanyahu has placed his world-leading vaccination drive at the center of his reelection campaign—launching an aggressive media blitz portraying him as almost singlehandedly leading the country out of the pandemic. He appears to be betting that a successful vaccination effort can persuade voters to forget about his corruption trial and the economic damage caused by the coronavirus crisis. Netanyahu, like his good friend Donald Trump and other world leaders, frequently tries to use social media and tightly controlled press conferences to bypass the traditional media—and the scrutiny that has come along with it. While this strategy has often served Netanyahu well, his obsession with controlling the message also threatens to backfire. It lies at the heart of a corruption case in which he is accused of granting favors to powerful media figures in exchange for positive coverage of him and his family. An expanded indictment released this week outlined 150 incidents showing detailed control he allegedly tried to exert over the media. This included pressure on a news site to drop critical coverage about a lacy dress worn by his wife, and pushing the site to publish photos of her meeting actor Leonardo DiCaprio.

Syria says Israel strikes again, several missiles downed by air defences (Reuters) Israel struck targets in southern Syria on Wednesday in the third such attack in nearly 10 days, state TV reported as military defectors said the missiles targeted Iranian revolutionary guard bases. A military spokesman said missiles flying over the Golan Heights targeted several locations and air defences downed several missiles. Live coverage showed a multi-storey building on fire. There was no immediate comment from an Israeli military spokesman but Israel’s Defence Force Chief of Staff Aviv Kochavi said last month the missile strikes had “slowed down Iran’s entrenchment in Syria”. “We have struck over 500 targets this year, on all fronts, in addition to multiple clandestine missions,” Kochavi said in comments published in Israeli media.

Saudi Arabia Leads Oil Production Cuts (Foreign Policy) The OPEC+ group of oil producing countries have agreed to cut production in February, as Saudi Arabia volunteered to take one million barrels of its oil off the market per day in order to shore up prices. The decision seems to have done the trick, at least temporarily. The U.S. oil price benchmark passed the $50 dollar mark for the first time since February in the wake of the news. The Saudi decision reflects the uncertain global economic prospects in the year ahead. Vaccine programs, heralded as the quickest route to normalcy, have sputtered in some countries and are potentially years away in others. Saudi Arabia’s decision to shoulder the production cuts seems to have kept oil producing countries together, but as Edoardo Campanella argued in November, the group needs to reimagine its role if it is to remain relevant in a changing world.

Theft leads to community giving in Miami (AP) Two days before Thanksgiving, on the eve of a turkey giveaway for dozens of jobless residents in an impoverished Miami neighborhood, Sherina Jones got word that one of the free community refrigerators she’d been stocking was stolen. Jones had been helping to feed the poor in Miami for months. About half of her clients are homeless; others are day laborers who take to-go lunches or single moms who can’t feed their kids. When one of the refrigerators was stolen just before the Thanksgiving Day turkey giveaway, it was more than a theft. It felt like an act against a community in need. Just when it seemed the Grinch-like act would ruin the holiday, something magical happened: Residents of a community where many can barely afford rent pulled together, each giving a little until they ended up collecting quite a lot. The Rev. Michael Daily heard about the stolen refrigerator on the news. He works at a community agency that helps local churches and knew that many parishioners were counting on those meals. He used agency funds to buy Jones a fancy double-door refrigerator and enlisted a construction worker to help build protective housing so it can’t be stolen. A group of artists designed T-shirts and donated the proceeds. All together, more than 330 people raised over $23,000 on a fundraising website. The community’s response to a toy drive in December allowed Jones to give away dozens of bicycles, dolls and other presents to 400 families. “People come by and stock the fridge during the evenings or buy a bulk of things and drop it off. I’m so appreciative,” Jones said. “We’ve all come together to take care of each other.”

#headlines #news

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gamingtech · 3 years

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How Musicians Used Gaming Tech To Adapt To A Gig

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investmentgfriend711 · 3 years

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This review was posted. A verified customer. Verified customer. I registered on the website www.latineuro.com, but the website was real scam. These jerks haven’t provided the correct password, so I couldn’t open the website. I was really upset, ‘coz I paid money for the registration and membership. All my attempts to reach them failed. LatinEuro has a client score of 3.sixty eight stars from fifty six reviews indicating that the majority clients are sometimes happy with their purchases. We are a Dating website with basically essentially the most stunning girls and guys. The members are seeking dating, romance, friendship, love, and additional. LatinEuro Introductions reviews first appeared on Complaints Board on Jan 10, 2013. The latest review Total joke was posted on Nov 3, 2016. The latest complaint Latineuro is knowing selling information which does not exist was resolved on Jan 10, 2013. LatinEuro Introductions has an average consumer rating of 2 stars from 3 reviews. Latineuro Review. As a rule, the price can range from 50 cents to two and a half dollars. “Casey might be the most hated woman in America,” reviews Jean Casarez on Anderson Cooper 360, CNN, TV, on 7/7/11. However, there’s there hardly any worldwide opinion on Casey.

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https://investmentgfriend711.tumblr.com/post/653763026381619200/minute-dating-near-laguna-ca. The new LatinEuro dating survey of who get responses and who doesn’t makes this assumption an understatement. In general, folks of all sexes and ages may be at liberty to utilize the website’s providers, if they actually feel like that.

Does Latineuro Have A Mobile App?

While many properly-revered dating web sites have this function, Latineuro doesn’t. It is a web-based dating platform that provides an interesting system of communication with Latin ladies – you’ll be able to literally “order” a dialog with a lady you like. However, don’t count on that she will definitely answer your curiosity. LatinEuro.com on-line dating website was created in 1996.

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From the start, I was impressed with how they dealt with me as a purchaser. LatinEuro.com is for anybody excited about meeting someone for friendship, dating, or one thing more. There are many individuals who flip to the Latineuro women dating website. The members are looking for dating, romance, friendship, love, and additional. LatinEuro.com is a dating, personals and relationship web site that helps individuals to seek out friendship, romance, and relationships with sincere and genuine folks.

They all refuse to share their private contact information. Don’t be that gullible man who is ideal candidate for stringing along and coning. I actually have no problems with the company itself, Bob or the other employees. New rochelle dating at college. The downside is that, the last time round, only three out of about 25 ladies responded at all. Those who did wrote again to me only a few times with a few words whereas I went to the difficulty to write down quite a few letters and translate them to Spanish.

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She’s enthusiastic about researching, checking matchmaking providers, and recommending credible sites to singles. There are many people who flip to the Latineuro women dating web site. In most cases, these are men from the USA who’re prepared to get acquainted with beautiful Latina ladies. On the other aspect, there are ladies who’re sick and tired of their countrymen who merely take them without any consideration. They simply want to communicate with a mild, caring man.

Almost all the accounts have pictures, and it seems like they are actual. However, there are profiles that had been created a decade ago, and the photo gallery hasn’t been updated since then.

Second of all – you should enroll if you wish to make contacts with Latin girls on this platform. According to the information provided on the official website online, each single consumer is secure. Latineuro is knowing selling data which doesn’t exist.

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Despite the truth that she is young, she will already be referred to as one of the profitable and in style Brazilian girls. Like many different scorching Brazilian women from our list, she has a horny body, and perhaps this impressed her to create her personal model of minimalist swimwear. LatinEuro customers typically contact one another by telephone, which differentiates it from other latineuro websites. Furthermore, while different dating platforms could match international singles, LatinEuro supported cross-border dating long earlier than it was fashionable. Then and now, daters selected to create a profile on LatinEuro because they wanted to fulfill companions exterior of these they have been prone to meet head to head in typical settings.

There may be nothing specific about Dominican Republic or another Latino nation in these options and these will work fully the world over. So in case you’re excited about seeking Latin singles as an illustration, you probably can search the Web and uncover Latina relationship companies that assist you to discover a date. And be assured, the attractive girls as correctly are looking for males who might make them glad. In case you’re in 50’s and 60’s and by no means very sure how a Latin Euro lady will reply, you needn’t worry.

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LatinEuro has a client score of 3.sixty four stars from 56 reviews indicating that the majority shoppers are typically satisfied with their purchases. First of all, you don’t must get registered on LatinEuro web site if you want simply to take a look at the feminine profiles and prices. Second of all – you should enroll if you want to make contacts with Latin women on this platform. Latin Euro is a dating site that was designed to help Western men discover Latin ladies for dating and marriage.

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Thanks Latineuro for the standard of your women along with your degree of buyer assist. Each time I wanted to call or communicate through e mail with a employees, I normally acquired the equal latineuro website luxurious treatment.

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compareandcontrastessay681 · 4 years

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waqasblog2 · 5 years

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SEO & Progressive Web Apps: Looking to the Future - Moz

Practitioners of SEO have always been mistrustful of JavaScript.

This is partly based on experience; the ability of search engines to discover, crawl, and accurately index content which is heavily reliant on JavaScript has historically been poor. But it’s also habitual, born of a general wariness towards JavaScript in all its forms that isn’t based on understanding or experience. This manifests itself as dependence on traditional SEO techniques that have not been relevant for years, and a conviction that to be good at technical SEO does not require an understanding of modern web development.

As Mike King wrote in his post The Technical SEO Renaissance, these attitudes are contributing to “an ever-growing technical knowledge gap within SEO as a marketing field, making it difficult for many SEOs to solve our new problems”. They also put SEO practitioners at risk of being left behind, since too many of us refuse to explore – let alone embrace – technologies such as Progressive Web Apps (PWAs), modern JavaScript frameworks, and other such advancements which are increasingly being seen as the future of the web.

In this article, I’ll be taking a fresh look at PWAs. As well as exploring implications for both SEO and usability, I’ll be showcasing some modern frameworks and build tools which you may not have heard of, and suggesting ways in which we need to adapt if we’re to put ourselves at the technological forefront of the web.

1. Recap: PWAs, SPAs, and service workers

Progressive Web Apps are essentially websites which provide a user experience akin to that of a native app. Features like push notifications enable easy re-engagement with your audience, while users can add their favorite sites to their home screen without the complication of app stores. PWAs can continue to function offline or on low-quality networks, and they allow a top-level, full-screen experience on mobile devices which is closer to that offered by native iOS and Android apps.

Best of all, PWAs do this while retaining - and even enhancing - the fundamentally open and accessible nature of the web. As suggested by the name they are progressive and responsive, designed to function for every user regardless of their choice of browser or device. They can also be kept up-to-date automatically and — as we shall see — are discoverable and linkable like traditional websites. Finally, it’s not all or nothing: existing websites can deploy a limited subset of these technologies (using a simple service worker) and start reaping the benefits immediately.

The spec is still fairly young, and naturally, there are areas which need work, but that doesn’t stop them from being one of the biggest advancements in the capabilities of the web in a decade. Adoption of PWAs is growing rapidly, and organizations are discovering the myriad of real-world business goals they can impact.

You can read more about the features and requirements of PWAs over on Google Developers, but two of the key technologies which make PWAs possible are:

Note that these technologies are not mutually exclusive; the single page app model (brought to maturity with AngularJS in 2010) obviously predates service workers and PWAs by some time. As we shall see, it’s also entirely possible to create a PWA which isn’t built as a single page app. For the purposes of this article, however, we’re going to be focusing on the ‘typical’ approach to developing modern PWAs, exploring the SEO implications — and opportunities — faced by teams that choose to join the rapidly-growing number of organizations that make use of the two technologies described above.

We’ll start with the app shell architecture and the rendering implications of the single page app model.

2. The app shell architecture

In a nutshell, the app shell architecture involves aggressively caching static assets (the bare minimum of UI and functionality) and then loading the actual content dynamically, using JavaScript. Most modern JavaScript SPA frameworks encourage something resembling this approach, and the separation of logic and content in this way benefits both speed and usability. Interactions feel instantaneous, much like those on a native app, and data usage can be highly economical.

Credit to https://developers.google.com/web/fundamentals/architecture/app-shell

As I alluded to in the introduction, a heavy reliance on client-side JavaScript is a problem for SEO. Historically, many of these issues centered around the fact that while search crawlers require unique URLs to discover and index content, single page apps don’t need to change the URL for each state of the application or website (hence the phrase ‘single page’). The reliance on fragment identifiers — which aren’t sent as part of an HTTP request — to dynamically manipulate content without reloading the page was a major headache for SEO. Legacy solutions involved replacing the hash with a so-called hashbang (#!) and the _escaped_fragment_ parameter, a hack which has long-since been deprecated and which we won’t be exploring today.

Thanks to the HTML5 history API and pushState method, we now have a better solution. The browser’s URL bar can be changed using JavaScript without reloading the page, thereby keeping it in sync with the state of your application or site and allowing the user to make effective use of the browser’s ‘back’ button. While this solution isn’t a magic bullet — your server must be configured to respond to requests for these deep URLs by loading the app in its correct initial state — it does provide us with the tools to solve the problem of URLs in SPAs.

The bigger problem facing SEO today is actually much easier to understand: rendering content, namely when and how it gets done.

Rendering content

Note that when I refer to rendering here, I’m referring to the process of constructing the HTML. We’re focusing on how the actual content gets to the browser, not the process of drawing pixels to the screen.

In the early days of the web, things were simpler on this front. The server would typically return all the HTML that was necessary to render a page. Nowadays, however, many sites which utilize a single page app framework deliver only minimal HTML from the server and delegate the heavy lifting to the client (be that a user or a bot). Given the scale of the web this requires a lot of time and computational resource, and as Google made clear at its I/O conference in 2018, this poses a major problem for search engines:

“The rendering of JavaScript-powered websites in Google Search is deferred until Googlebot has resources available to process that content.”

On larger sites, this second wave of indexation can sometimes be delayed for several days. On top of this, you are likely to encounter a myriad of problems with crucial information like canonical tags and metadata being missed completely. I would highly recommend watching the video of Google’s excellent talk on this subject for a rundown of some of the challenges faced by modern search crawlers.

Google is one of the very few search engines that renders JavaScript at all. What’s more, it does so using a web rendering service that until very recently was based on Chrome 41 (released in 2015). Obviously, this has implications outside of just single page apps, and the wider subject of JavaScript SEO is a fascinating area right now. Rachel Costello’s recent white paper on JavaScript SEO is the best resource I’ve read on the subject, and it includes contributions from other experts like Bartosz Góralewicz, Alexis Sanders, Addy Osmani, and a great many more.

For the purposes of this article, the key takeaway here is that in 2019 you cannot rely on search engines to accurately crawl and render your JavaScript-dependent web app. If your content is rendered client-side, it will be resource-intensive for Google to crawl, and your site will underperform in search. No matter what you’ve heard to the contrary, if organic search is a valuable channel for your website, you need to make provisions for server-side rendering.

But server-side rendering is a concept which is frequently misunderstood…

“Implement server-side rendering”

This is a common SEO audit recommendation which I often hear thrown around as if it were a self-contained, easily-actioned solution. At best it’s an oversimplification of an enormous technical undertaking, and at worst it’s a misunderstanding of what’s possible/necessary/beneficial for the website in question. Server-side rendering is an outcome of many possible setups and can be achieved in many different ways; ultimately, though, we’re concerned with getting our server to return static HTML.

So, what are our options? Let’s break down the concept of server-side rendered content a little and explore our options. These are the high-level approaches which Google outlined at the aforementioned I/O conference:

The latter is cleaner, doesn’t involve UA sniffing, and is Google’s long-term recommendation. It’s also worth clarifying that ‘hybrid rendering’ is not a single solution — it’s an outcome of many possible approaches to making static prerendered content available server-side. Let’s break down how a couple of ways such an outcome can be achieved.

Isomorphic/universal apps

This is one way in which you might achieve a ‘hybrid rendering’ setup. Isomorphic applications use JavaScript which runs on both the server and the client. This is made possible thanks to the advent of Node.js, which - among many other things - allows developers to write code which can run on the backend as well as in the browser.

Typically you’ll configure your framework (React, Angular Universal, whatever) to run on a Node server, prerendering some or all of the HTML before it’s sent to the client. Your server must, therefore, be configured to respond to deep URLs by rendering HTML for the appropriate page. In normal browsers, this is the point at which the client-side application will seamlessly take over. The server-rendered static HTML for the initial view is ‘rehydrated’ (brilliant term) by the browser, turning it back into a single page app and executing subsequent navigation events with JavaScript.

Done well, this setup can be fantastic since it offers the usability benefits of client-side rendering, the SEO advantages of server-side rendering, and a rapid first paint (even if Time to Interactive is often negatively impacted by the rehydration as JS kicks in). For fear of oversimplifying the task, I won’t go into too much more detail here, but the key point is that while isomorphic JavaScript / true server-side rendering can be a powerful solution, it is often enormously complex to set up.

So, what other options are there? If you can’t justify the time or expense of a full isomorphic setup, or if it's simply overkill for what you’re trying to achieve, are there any other ways you can reap the benefits of the single page app model — and hybrid rendering setup — without sabotaging your SEO?

Prerendering/JAMstack

Having rendered content available server-side doesn’t necessarily mean that the rendering process itself needs to happen on the server. All we need is for rendered HTML to be there, ready to serve to the client; the rendering process itself can happen anywhere you like. With a JAMstack approach, rendering of your content into HTML happens as part of your build process.

I’ve written about the JAMstack approach before. By way of a quick primer, the term stands for JavaScript, APIs, and markup, and it describes a way of building complex websites without server-side software. The process of assembling a site from front-end component parts — a task a traditional site might achieve with WordPress and PHP — is executed as part of the build process, while interactivity is handled client-side using JavaScript and APIs.

Think of it this way: everything lives in your Git repository. Your content is stored as plain text markdown files (editable via a headless CMS or other API-based solution) and your page templates and assembly logic are written in Go, JavaScript, Ruby, or whatever language your preferred site generator happens to use. Your site can be built into static HTML on any computer with the appropriate set of command line tools before it’s hosted anywhere. The resulting set of easily-cached static files can often be securely hosted on a CDN for next to nothing.

I honestly think static site generators - or rather the principles and technologies which underpin them — are the future. There’s every chance I’m wrong about this, but the power and flexibility of the approach should be clear to anyone who’s used modern npm-based automation software like Gulp or Webpack to author their CSS or JavaScript. I’d challenge anyone to test the deep Git integration offered by specialist webhost Netlify in a real-world project and still think that the JAMstack approach is a fad.

The significance of a JAMstack setup to our discussion of single page apps and prerendering should be fairly obvious. If our static site generator can assemble HTML based on templates written in Liquid or Handlebars, why can’t it do the same with JavaScript?

There is a new breed of static site generator which does just this. Frequently powered by React or Vue.js, these programs allow developers to build websites using cutting-edge JavaScript frameworks and can easily be configured to output SEO-friendly, static HTML for each page (or ‘route’). Each of these HTML files is fully rendered content, ready for consumption by humans and bots, and serves as an entry point into a complete client-side application (i.e. a single page app). This is a perfect execution of what Google termed “hybrid rendering”, though the precise nature of the pre-rendering process sets it quite apart from an isomorphic setup.

A great example is GatsbyJS, which is built in React and GraphQL. I won’t go into too much detail, but I would encourage everyone who’s read this far to check out their homepage and excellent documentation. It’s a well-supported tool with a reasonable learning curve, an active community (a feature-packed v2.0 was released in September), an extensible plugin-based architecture, rich integrations with many CMSs, and it allows developers to utilize modern frameworks like React without sabotaging their SEO. There’s also Gridsome, based on VueJS, and React Static which — you guessed it — uses React.

Enterprise-level adoption of these platforms looks set to grow; GatsbyJS was used by Nike for their Just Do It campaign, Airbnb for their engineering site airbnb.io, and Braun have even used it to power a major e-commerce site. Finally, our friends at SEOmonitor used it to power their new website.

But that’s enough about single page apps and JavaScript rendering for now. It’s time we explored the second of our two key technologies underpinning PWAs. Promise you’ll stay with me to the end (haha, nerd joke), because it’s time to explore Service Workers.

3. Service Workers

First of all, I should clarify that the two technologies we’re exploring — SPAs and service workers — are not mutually exclusive. Together they underpin what we commonly refer to as a Progressive Web App, yes, but it’s also possible to have a PWA which isn’t an SPA. You could also integrate a service worker into a traditional static website (i.e. one without any client-side rendered content), which is something I believe we’ll see happening a lot more in the near future. Finally, service workers operate in tandem with other technologies like the Web App Manifest, something that my colleague Maria recently explored in more detail in her excellent guide to PWAs and SEO.

Ultimately, though, it is service workers which make the most exciting features of PWAs possible. They’re one of the most significant changes to the web platform in its history, and everyone whose job involves building, maintaining, or auditing a website needs to be aware of this powerful new set of technologies. If, like me, you’ve been eagerly checking Jake Archibald’s Is Service Worker Ready page for the last couple of years and watching as adoption by browser vendors has grown, you’ll know that the time to start building with service workers is now.

We’re going to explore what they are, what they can do, how to implement them, and what the implications are for SEO.

What can service workers do?

A service worker is a special kind of JavaScript file which runs outside of the main browser thread. It sits in-between the browser and the network, and its powers include:

The benefits of these kinds of features go beyond the obvious usability perks. As well as driving adoption of HTTPS across the web (all the major browsers will only register service workers on the secure protocol), service workers are transformative when it comes to speed and performance. They underpin new approaches and ideas like Google’s PRPL Pattern, since we can maximize caching efficiency and minimize reliance on the network. In this way, service workers will play a key role in making the web fast and accessible for the next billion web users.

So yeah, they’re an absolute powerhouse.

Implementing a service worker

Rather than doing a bad job of writing a basic tutorial here, I’m instead going to link to some key resources. After all, you are in the best position to know how deep your understanding of service workers needs to be.

The MDN Docs are a good place to learn more about service workers and their capabilities. If you’re already confident with the essentials of web development and enjoy a learn-by-doing approach, I’d highly recommend completing Google’s PWA training course. It includes a whole practical exercise on service workers, which is a great way to familiarize yourself with the basics. If ES6 and promises aren’t yet a part of your JavaScript repertoire, prepare for a baptism of fire.

They key thing to understand — and which you’ll realize very quickly once you start experimenting — is that service workers hand over an incredible level of control to developers. Unlike previous attempts to solve the connectivity conundrum (such as the ill-fated AppCache), service workers don’t enforce any specific patterns on your work; they’re a set of tools for you to write your own solutions to the problems you’re facing.

One consequence of this is that they can be very complex. Registering and installing a service worker is not a simple exercise, and any attempts to cobble one together by copy-pasting from StackExchange are doomed to failure (seriously, don’t do this). There’s no such thing as a ready-made service worker for your site — if you’re to author a suitable worker, you need to understand the infrastructure, architecture, and usage patterns of your website. Uncle Ben, ever the web development guru, said it best: with great power comes great responsibility.

One last thing: you’ll probably be surprised how many sites you visit are already using a service worker. Head to chrome://serviceworker-internals/ in Chrome or about:debugging#workers in Firefox to see a list.

Service workers and SEO

In terms of SEO implications, the most relevant thing about service workers is probably their ability to hijack requests and modify or fabricate responses using the Fetch API. What you see in ‘View Source’ and even on the Network tab is not necessarily a representation of what was returned from the server. It might be a cached response or something constructed by the service worker from a variety of different sources.

Here’s a practical example:

No content, right? Just some inline scripts and styles and empty HTML elements — a classic client-side JavaScript app built in React. Even if you open the Network tab and refresh the page, the Preview and Response tabs will tell the same story. The actual content only appears in the Element inspector, because the DOM is being assembled with JavaScript.

Now run a curl request for the same URL (https://www.gatsbyjs.org/docs/), or fetch the page using Screaming Frog. All the content is there, along with proper title tags, canonicals, and everything else you might expect from a page rendered server-side. This is what a crawler like Googlebot will see too.

This is because the website uses hybrid rendering and a service worker — installed in your browser — is handling subsequent navigation events. There is no need for it to fetch the raw HTML for the Docs page from the server because the client-side application is already up-and-running - thus, View Source shows you what the service worker returned to the application, not what the network returned. Additionally, these pages can be reloaded while you’re offline thanks to the service worker’s effective use of the cache.

You can easily spot which responses came from the service worker using the Network tab — note the ‘from ServiceWorker’ line below.

On the Application tab, you can see the service worker which is running on the current page along with the various caches it has created. You can disable or bypass the worker and test any of the more advanced functionality it might be using. Learning how to use these tools is an extremely valuable exercise; I won’t go into details here, but I’d recommend studying Google’s Web Fundamentals tutorial on debugging service workers.

I’ve made a conscious effort to keep code snippets to a bare minimum in this article, but grant me this one. I’ve put together an example which illustrates how a simple service worker might use the Fetch API to handle requests and the degree of control which we’re afforded:

The result:

I hope that this (hugely simplified and non-production ready) example illustrates a key point, namely that we have extremely granular control over how resource requests are handled. In the example above we’ve opted for a simple try-cache-first, fall-back-to-network, fall-back-to-custom-page pattern, but the possibilities are endless. Developers are free to dictate how requests should be handled based on hostnames, directories, file types, request methods, cache freshness, and loads more. Responses - including entire pages - can be fabricated by the service worker. Jake Archibald explores some common methods and approaches in his Offline Cookbook.

The time to learn about the capabilities of service workers is now. The skillset required for modern technical SEO has a fair degree of overlap with that of a web developer, and today, a deep understanding of the dev tools in all major browsers - including service worker debugging - should be regarded as a prerequisite.

4. Wrapping Up

SEOs need to adapt

Until recently, it’s been too easy to get away with not understanding the consequences and opportunities posed by PWAs and service workers.

These were cutting-edge features which sat on the periphery of what was relevant to search marketing, and the aforementioned wariness of many SEOs towards JavaScript did nothing to encourage experimentation. But PWAs are rapidly on their way to becoming a norm, and it will soon be impossible to do an effective job without understanding the mechanics of how they function. To stay relevant as a technical SEO (or SEO Engineer, to borrow another term from Mike King), you should put yourself at the forefront of these kinds of paradigm-shifting developments. The technical SEO who is illiterate in web development is already an anachronism, and I believe that further divergence between the technical and content-driven aspects of search marketing is no bad thing. Specialize!

Upon learning that a development team is adopting a new JavaScript framework for a new site build, it’s not uncommon for SEOs to react with a degree of cynicism. I’m certainly guilty of joking about developers being attracted to the latest shiny technology or framework, and at how rapidly the world of JavaScript development seems to evolve, layer upon layer of abstraction and automation being added to what — from the outside — can often seem to be a leaning tower of a development stack. But it’s worth taking the time to understand why frameworks are chosen, when technologies are likely to start being used in production, and how these decisions will impact SEO.

Instead of criticizing 404 handling or internal linking of a single page app framework, for example, it would be far better to be able to offer meaningful recommendations which are grounded in an understanding of how they actually work. As Jono Alderson observed in his talk on the Democratization of SEO, contributions to open source projects are more valuable in spreading appreciation and awareness of SEO than repeatedly fixing the same problems on an ad-hoc basis.

Beyond SEO

One last thing I’d like to mention: PWAs are such a transformative set of technologies that they obviously have consequences which reach far beyond just SEO. Other areas of digital marketing are directly impacted too, and from my standpoint, one of the most interesting is analytics.

If your website is partially or fully functional while offline, have you adapted your analytics setup to account for this? If push notification subscriptions are a KPI for your website, are you tracking this as a goal? Remembering that service workers do not have access to the Window object, tracking these events is not possible with ‘normal’ tracking code. Instead, it’s necessary to configure your service worker to build hits using the Measurement Protocol, queue them if necessary, and send them directly to the Google Analytics servers.

This is a fascinating area that I’ve been exploring a lot lately, and you can read the first post in my series of articles on PWA analytics over on the Builtvisible blog.

That’s all from me for now! Thanks for reading. If you have any questions or comments, please leave a message below or drop me a line on Twitter @tomcbennet.

Many thanks to Oliver Mason and Will Nye for their feedback on an early draft of this article.

This content was originally published here.

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professorjjong · 7 years

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Hi rose I was wondering if you had any tips or suggestions on how to learn Japanese by oneself. Do you think knowing Chinese would help in learning it? It's so cool that you know more than one language I wish I could be that cool ;w;

hahaha i’m really #NotCool lol

i actually learned japanese by myself so i’m literally full of tips and suggestions haha.

addressing knowing chinese--do you mean that you’re currently learning chinese? if you’re considering learning them side-by-side i honestly don’t think that would be very helpful? the two languages developed independently of each other so they’re virtually unrelated grammatically. japanese kanji does come from china but, unless you’re talking about traditional chinese, almost all of the characters were edited to be faster to write, whereas the original versions are still used in japanese. i do think kanji is important (and fun!) to learn but you should take it slowly and don’t make it your first priority. you’re not going to want to learn a bunch of kanji right off the bat because you’re going to forget all of the ones that aren’t used in common words. i’d say learn a few every week or so? find a pace that works with you best.

if you mean that you already know chinese, there’s a handful of words which are similar and, if you can write it,you’ll be able to pick up kanji faster simply because your brain is already wired to interpret and recreate such characters. but tbh i don’t think it would be much of an advantage.

but before you even touch kanji, learn both kana systems. you can find guides fro them easily enough online. some ppl recommend not learning katakana but tbh i find that katakana is used very often. learn hiragana first going down the rows. at first i learned it five per day but i bumped up that speed after a while. keep writing them. write them whenever u have a free minute just write them over and over again and try to make their sounds as you do.

from this point.... it’s a little fuzzier? there’s a fuck ton of japanese resources out there online. not including textbooks you can buy or rent at ur local library. my suggestion is to find a resource that starts from the beginning and get going with it. no matter what website or book it is it’s not going to be perfect. keep this in mind. i remember with my first book it explained adjectives so poorly i gave up on learning japanese for months because i thought it was just too hard--but then i eventually found a different source which explained adjectives in like two sentences and it made perfect sense. so, whenever you’re using your primary reference and it confuses you, go to a secondary source and see if it explains it better. there’s so many resources out there you can find the explanation you need for any topic.

when you have a basic grasp of grammar, like ‘AはBです” levels of basic, start speaking and writing it. i have a little gaudy pink journal which contains my very first japanese journal to myself, written in glittery pink pen. for these journals don’t look up new words and don’t worry about being grammatically correct. just write. set a length requirement--maybe only four or five lines at first and then let that requirement grow larger and larger as it gets easier and easier for you to write. if you find yourself needing a word in english, like you got halfway through the sentences before suddenly realizing you don’t know the word you need, try to sound it out in katakana. believe it or not, it’s sometimes a struggle to understand english words said in japanese, so try to get yourself used to this concept. do try, however, to only use words you know and to write every day. it doesn’t matter if your journals start out like ‘my name is susan. i am seventeen. i went to school today. in the morning i ate breakfast. i had a test.’ just write.

as for talking, virtually the same rules apply. at first you’re going to have to force it, so try in the morning while you’re getting ready, or in the shower, while cooking... etc.. look up pronunciation videos online and soon you’ll find yourself not forcing out the japanese when you’re talking to yourself.

once you have a good basis in grammar, you can move on to learning more vocabulary. i, personally, used the jlpt sets on memrise, starting with n5. but, as with all sets, these aren’t perfect. memrise is, however, fucking great. use it to build sets of the vocabulary in your primary resource or vocabulary you think might be useful to you in your journals. memrise is themed around learning words being similar to taking care of plants, so it times when you should review different words. on the mobile app you can set it to alert you at a specified time to go over your words, and you can also set goals to drive you to review words or learn new words for a certain length of time every day.

personally, for the words i add to my own personal lists, i don’t worry about kanji, as the jlpt sets all have kanji. you will, however, need to learn kanji using something else. personally, i used he book remembering the kanji but it’s not perfect. as with grammar, there’s a lot of different resources so find the one that explains kanji in the way you like best.

for me i made flashcards of kanji and went over them daily. when the number became too great for that, i went over all of them once a week and put the words i got wrong into a separate pile called my ‘stress words.’ i would go over these several times a day and then, once a week, would learn a few more kanji and add those to the new ‘stress words’ for that week. i also bought a mini white board to use when writing kanji but it’s also a good idea to practice with graph paper so you can learn to keep them in the proper shape and size.

another great app i liked a lot is hellotalk. it’s virtually an instant messaging app meant to connect you with people who are native speakers of the language you want to learn. since i used it, it has also become a little bit more facebook-esque,which i think can make things a bit awkward--as you can make a post about what ur eating or whatever and a japanese person might see it and then you can use that as a way to start conversation and avoid the awkwardness. it also has ways for you to limit what sex and age range can talk to you, but when i used the app recently i had people voice call me virtually immediately and i’m personally not comfortable with that :/ i’d hope that the app has maybe changed that setting but i haven’t checked. i’d suggest downloading it and seeing if the setting has changed or if ur comfortable with just refusing calls from people because having ppl to talk to is the best way to learn.

another website similar to hellotalk is lang-8, but, instead of instant messaging, on lang-8 you write journal entries in the language you’re learning and native speakers correct it--and then you correct their journals in exchange. obviously, you have to be a bit more advanced in japanese to manage this, but it’s very useful! your journals don’t have to be anything insightful--i remember writing one about how iced coffee is more popular in asia than it is in america and another about going to the grocery store. it’s also a good way to potentially meet ppl you may befriend and speak japanese to some day!

these next two are hella amazing. one is an app called imi wa? it’s a great dictionary app that helps you conjugate verbs, search kanji by not only radicals but by ‘primitives,’ and, best of all, has an analyze function which lets you paste in a block of text and defines all of them so you can translate sentences with much more ease. the other is rikai-kun (chrome), -chan (mozilla) and -sama (i forgot?). it’s another dictionary for ur browser that will let you scroll over words and immediately look over their definitions. you can develop an over reliance on it but at the beginning stages it’s going to be hella useful so, download it.

a great resource in particular to use with rikaikun is nhk easy , which is japanese news articles written for elementary and middle school students--and foreigners! you can set it so locations/names/businesses will appear in different colors and you can scroll over some words for definitions. the articles are also relatively short so i’d recommend going through at least one a day to practice your reading. also considering following japanese fans or artists on twitter and trying to translate their tweets--but if you find yourself getting overwhelmed by the number or length of tweets, don’t feel pressured to understand all of them. a lot of learning a language by yourself is trying to avoid frustrating yourself--since you’re studying alone, there’s nothing to keep you from giving up aside from yourself. so if you find yourself getting very frustrated, you should probably switch up what you’re doing.

in terms of practicing your listening skills, i’d recommend watching dramas. try to find half hour long dramas (or just watch half an hour long episode) and then immediately after watching the half hour, watch it again without subtitles. at first you’ll feel like you get absolutely nothing out of this, but stick with it.make sure not to play with your phone or distract yourself while listening. try to remember what the characters said or what’s going on in the episode. soon you’ll find yourself recognizing words!!! then phrases!!! then sentences!! then you’ll be able to understand it on your own!

if you really like anime, you can also watch anime at first or every once in a while--but i’d really recommend dramas. people in anime don’t speak like normal people do, but it can be easier to recognize words and such because their voices are clearer. dramas better reflect the way actual japanese people speak. (however i wouldn’t recommend watching something like terrace house because it is actual people talking and the mics aren’t perfect. if you’re a student, i’d say to watch high school dramas because they will contain words which may be relevant to you in your journals and while talking to ourself and what not!)

you can also rewatch episodes with the screen blackened, so you’re just listening to it? i personally think this is lots of fun but that’s just me.

songs tend to follow their own grammatical rhythms so they’re not too useful for studying aside from vocabulary.

the key, to me, at least, was to study every day. my schedule was:

1. talk to self.

2. study stress words (once a week go over all kanji)

3. half hour drama episode (watch twice)

4. nhk article

5. journal

6. memrise vocab

7. translating tweets

the key is to try to study every day and to make a schedule of your own which lines up with how much free time you have. you can divide drama episodes into ten minute blocks, read your article on the bus, write your journal before bed and do memrise while waiting in line at the grocery store. just find something which works for you--and don’t let yourself get frustrated. even if you’re tired as all fuck, try to at least reach your memrise goals or watch your drama episode, or whatever study method you find the most useful. it’s hard work, but be nice to yourself!

頑張って！

#i talked A LOT so i put it under a read more otl #answered #anonymous #Anonymous

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abyssal-debonair · 7 years

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Sorry for inactivity. I’ve been at a low for a while, it’s just been worse for the last couple of months. I haven’t been as productive as I can normally, reluctant to do anything but nap, barely making it by in school even though my grades don’t show it.

That’s the thing - I don’t really show during my depressive episodes. Sometimes, I’m even caught laughing or smiling so the assumption so in alright. I remember in seventh grade having a panic attack but able to ace a quiz in the subsequent period (the panic attack was unrelated to the quiz so that could’ve played a factor). Others only realize something is wrong unless I tell them, and I often don’t. The guilt of having other people stressed about my issues is too great. For instance, when I first told my parents, my mom cried, and that image refuses to leave this consciousness I claim as my own. This damned consciousness. I talked with my therapist about possibly having dysthymia; able to function despite incessant depression, sometimes experiencing depressive episodes. I already knew for a while I had some form of depression but the classic clinical diagnosis doesn’t seem to wholly fit me.

So yeah, there’s a piece of my mental state at 1216am.

I have been trying to write again, so expect some short stories that I’ve been promising. I say as though I have a large following. I still have a semblance of a following so yeah. Thanks guys.

I’d be posting photos, however I take and post the majority of these pictures though mobile. However none of them upload. I’ve tried posting four pictures and all of them have failed to go online, even after the app updated. Textposts are fine, even gifs, I can reblogn stuff, but photos don’t work. Next time I’m going to try though the mobile website and, worse case senario, have to email them to myself and post through computer. I’d rather not do that because it reduces the quality of the photo. Disheartening, I know. I'll figure something out and get better. School ends first week of June for me, maybe that'll help.

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desparoz · 7 years

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App Support for iPad Centric Workflows

Its been some two years since Apple announced iOS 9, complete with iPad split screen and other multitasking functionality.

My iPads Pro are a key part of my writing, productivity and increasingly, photography, workflow. This is even more the case since the announcement of iOS 11, and all the incredible new iPad Pro centric enhancements.

Most of the apps I use on a daily basis to support my workflows have embraced and support iOS multitasking, including the split screen functionality. These apps include:

Bear

Byword

Draftsd

iBooks

Lightroom

Medium

Micro.blog[1]

OmniFocus[2]

ProtonMail

Reeder

Slack

Spark Mail[3]

The Photographers Ephemeris

Timepage

Tweetbot

Ulysses

V for Wikipedia

500px

The list of apps that have refused to provide support for iPad Pro users is, fortunately, much shorter.

Affinity Photo

Flickr

Kindle

Pocket

I can kind of forgive Affinity as its quite a new app, and in the photography editing space which kind of develops a whole screen mentality.

But Kindle and Pocket are core reading/research/writing workflow apps. To be core to these types of workflows, the apps need to support iPad Pro type functionality.

Kindle holds a near monopoly, but Pocket has competition. I can’t help but wonder whats holding them back.

Doing this personal analysis of the core apps in my workflows it is pretty pleasing to see that most apps are well positioned to support the growing importance of iPad in a mobile lifestyle. And it is pretty telling to me that at some point I will need to make a call about apps that don’t support my workflows…

@pocketsupport Should I wait much longer, or move to another solution? Whats your advice?

— Des Paroz (@desparoz) July 4, 2017

Which was only released today. ↩

And I am pretty sure most other Omni apps ↩

And other apps from Readdle ↩

App Support for iPad Centric Workflows was originally published on BalancedLight

#apps #iOS #iPad #iPad pro #workflow

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endenogatai · 4 years

Text

Apple Pay and iOS App Store under formal antitrust probe in Europe

Apple is under formal investigation by antitrust regulators in European Union — following a number of complaints related to how it operates the iOS App Store and also its payment offering, Apple Pay.

The Commission said today that it has concerns that conditions and restrictions applied by the tech giant may be distorting competition in a number of areas, following a preliminary probe of the issues.

Back in March 2019, European music streaming service Spotify filed an antitrust complaint against Apple — railing very publicly against what it dubbed an “Apple tax”; aka the 30% tariff the tech giant applies on accepting payments in apps on its App Store. Spotify also accused Apple of impeding its business by applying arbitrary rules — such as making it harder to offer its own users discounts.

The Commission confirmed today that it’s looking formally into whether Apple’s rules for app developers on the distribution of apps via the App Store violate EU competition rules. It said the probe focuses on Apple’s mandatory requirement that app developers use its own proprietary in-app purchase system, as well as restrictions applied on the ability of developers to inform iPhone and iPad users of alternative cheaper purchasing possibilities outside of apps.

As well as the very public complaint from Spotify, the Commission has received a similar complaint from an unnamed e-book/audiobook distributor related to the impact of the App Store rules on competition.

Two specific restrictions imposed by Apple in its agreements with companies that wish to distribute apps to users of Apple devices will be investigated, per the Commission — namely [emphasis its]:

(i) The mandatory use of Apple’s own proprietary in-app purchase system “IAP” for the distribution of paid digital content. Apple charges app developers a 30% commission on all subscription fees through IAP.

(ii) Restrictions on the ability of developers to inform users of alternative purchasing possibilities outside of apps. While Apple allows users to consume content such as music, e-books and audiobooks purchased elsewhere (e.g. on the website of the app developer) also in the app, its rules prevent developers from informing users about such purchasing possibilities, which are usually cheaper.

“Following a preliminary investigation the Commission has concerns that Apple’s restrictions may distort competition for music streaming services on Apple’s devices,” it writes in a press release. “Apple’s competitors have either decided to disable the in-app subscription possibility altogether or have raised their subscription prices in the app and passed on Apple’s fee to consumers.

“In both cases, they were not allowed to inform users about alternative subscription possibilities outside of the app. The IAP obligation also appears to give Apple full control over the relationship with customers of its competitors subscribing in the app, thus dis-intermediating its competitors from important customer data while Apple may obtain valuable data about the activities and offers of its competitors.”

Commenting in a statement, Commission EVP Margrethe Vestager — who heads up competition policy for the bloc — added: “Mobile applications have fundamentally changed the way we access content. Apple sets the rules for the distribution of apps to users of iPhones and iPads. It appears that Apple obtained a ‘gatekeeper’ role when it comes to the distribution of apps and content to users of Apple’s popular devices. We need to ensure that Apple’s rules do not distort competition in markets where Apple is competing with other app developers, for example with its music streaming service Apple Music or with Apple Books. I have therefore decided to take a close look at Apple’s App Store rules and their compliance with EU competition rules.”

Vestager’s reference to a “gatekeeper” role has specific significance as the Commission is currently consulting on updating regulations for digital platforms — including floating the possibility of ex ante regulation for platforms deemed to be gatekeepers vis-a-vis other suppliers. (In parallel, the Commission is consulting on updates to competition law that may allow it to intervene more swiftly in future, in instances where it suspects digital markets have ‘tipped’.)

Spotify welcomed the Commission’s action, writing in a statement:

Today is a good day for consumers, Spotify and other app developers across Europe and around the world. Apple’s anticompetitive behavior has intentionally disadvantaged competitors, created an unlevel playing field, and deprived consumers of meaningful choice for far too long. We welcome the European Commission’s decision to formally investigate Apple, and hope they’ll act with urgency to ensure fair competition on the iOS platform for all participants in the digital economy.

On Apple Pay, the Commission said a formal investigation of how it operates the payment tech will look at the “terms, conditions and other measures” Apple applies for integrating the payment solution in merchant apps and websites on iPhones and iPads; Apple’s limitation of access to the NFC functionality on iPhones for payments in stores; and allegations of “refusals of access to Apple Pay”.

Following a preliminary probe, the Commission said it is concerned Apple’s processes “may distort competition and reduce choice and innovation”.

It also notes that Apple Pay is the only mobile payment solution that is allowed to access NFC technology on iOS devices for making payments in stores.

“The investigation will also focus on alleged restrictions of access to Apple Pay for specific products of rivals on iOS and iPadOS smart mobile devices,” it added.

The Commission said it will carry out the investigations “as a matter of priority”, but there’s no set timeframe for how long this process might take.

EU antitrust investigations have tended to take a number of years from an announcement of a formal probe to a decision being reached. (Although, in an ongoing investigation against Broadcom, Vestager recently dusted off a tool to accelerate regulatory intervention — but as yet there’s no formal ‘statement of objections’ against Apple so it remains to be seen how this case will proceed, and whether regulators may seek to speed up any intervention.)

Reached for comment on the Commission’s announcement of the two antitrust investigations, Apple dubbed the complaints “baseless” — choosing to throw shade on the complainants by claiming these companies are after “a free ride, and don’t want to play by the same rules as everyone else”.

Here’s Apple’s statement on the two investigations in full:

Throughout our history, Apple has created groundbreaking new products and services in some of the most fiercely competitive markets in the world. We follow the law in everything we do and we embrace competition at every stage because we believe it pushes us to deliver even better results.

We developed the App Store with two goals in mind: that it be a safe and trusted place for customers to discover and download apps, and a great business opportunity for entrepreneurs and developers. We’re deeply proud of the countless developers who’ve innovated and found success through our platform. And as we’ve grown together, we’ve continued to deliver innovative new services — like Apple Pay — that provide the very best customer experience while meeting industry-leading standards for privacy and security.

It’s disappointing the European Commission is advancing baseless complaints from a handful of companies who simply want a free ride, and don’t want to play by the same rules as everyone else. We don’t think that’s right — we want to maintain a level playing field where anyone with determination and a great idea can succeed.

At the end of the day, our goal is simple: for our customers to have access to the best app or service of their choice, in a safe and secure environment. We welcome the opportunity to show the European Commission all we’ve done to make that goal a reality.

Apple has had a number of run-ins with EU regulators over the years — including a probe of its acquisition of Shazam (which was later cleared); a major investigation of ebook pricing; and a probe of tax benefits in Ireland which saw it on the hook for $15BN.

French competition regulators also recently fined the tech giant $1.2BN for anti-competitive sales tactics. It’s also been fined $27M by French regulators this year for throttling old iPhones.

This report was updated with comment from Spotify

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sheminecrafts · 4 years

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Apple Pay and iOS App Store under formal antitrust probe in Europe

Two specific restrictions imposed by Apple in its agreements with companies that wish to distribute apps to users of Apple devices will be investigated, per the Commission — namely [emphasis its]:

Spotify welcomed the Commission’s action, writing in a statement:

Following a preliminary probe, the Commission said it is concerned Apple’s processes “may distort competition and reduce choice and innovation”.

It also notes that Apple Pay is the only mobile payment solution that is allowed to access NFC technology on iOS devices for making payments in stores.

“The investigation will also focus on alleged restrictions of access to Apple Pay for specific products of rivals on iOS and iPadOS smart mobile devices,” it added.

The Commission said it will carry out the investigations “as a matter of priority”, but there’s no set timeframe for how long this process might take.

Here’s Apple’s statement on the two investigations in full:

French competition regulators also recently fined the tech giant $1.2BN for anti-competitive sales tactics. It’s also been fined $27M by French regulators this year for throttling old iPhones.

This report was updated with comment from Spotify

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technicalsolutions88 · 4 years

Link

Two specific restrictions imposed by Apple in its agreements with companies that wish to distribute apps to users of Apple devices will be investigated, per the Commission — namely [emphasis its]:

Spotify welcomed the Commission’s action, writing in a statement:

Following a preliminary probe, the Commission said it is concerned Apple’s processes “may distort competition and reduce choice and innovation”.

It also notes that Apple Pay is the only mobile payment solution that is allowed to access NFC technology on iOS devices for making payments in stores.

“The investigation will also focus on alleged restrictions of access to Apple Pay for specific products of rivals on iOS and iPadOS smart mobile devices,” it added.

The Commission said it will carry out the investigations “as a matter of priority”, but there’s no set timeframe for how long this process might take.

Here’s Apple’s statement on the two investigations in full:

French competition regulators also recently fined the tech giant $1.2BN for anti-competitive sales tactics. It’s also been fined $27M by French regulators this year for throttling old iPhones.

This report was updated with comment from Spotify

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#Technical Solutions #SEO #Online Earning #Youtube Marketing #Android Developer

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newidaho · 5 years

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19. Social Media, 2054

Don’t have the time/patience/desire to read with your eyes? Don’t have eyes? Well, have your friend read you this: You can check out the audiobook for free on Apple, Google, Stitcher, or Spotify. Subscribe for new episodes every Wednesday!

A Brief History of Social Media

As Researched by Steven Carki, UNI Class of ’56

Dated 24 November 2054

Sometimes it’s difficult to think back to the days of our grandparents, where social media was no more than a handwritten list of friends you could call on the telephone. Now online social networks have been a part of our every day lives for nearly fifty years. Clubhouse, the latest, greatest player in the game, just celebrated its twentieth birthday this past year.

Of course, social media didn’t always look the way it does today. While myself and many of my peers were raised on Virtual Reality, our parents were raised in the era of screens, with VR no more than a new fad, a technology they knew had potential, but did not yet know to what end.

Thus, for my final presentation in Modern Anthropology, I would like to discuss the history of social media in the world. Ideally, I would like to leave behind a transcript so that others may look back and remember where all this came from.

The first major surge in social media took place in the early ‘00s. The first notable social media giant was a company called MySpace, which debuted in 2003 and remained the largest social networking site in the world until 2009. Its replacement, Facebook, was founded one year later in 2004 and took the market by storm for the next couple decades. Other giants include Twitter, founded 2006, and Instagram in 2010.

For the 2010s, these companies would rule the social media market, especially after the advent of the smart phone in 2007. As the smartphone became more and more commonplace, social media apps became the go-to time-wasters on everybody’s glass devices, each with their own niche. Facebook, much like Clubhouse today, provided a central hub for all friends, where you could like different pages, post status updates, keep photo albums, and make your own clubs and events. Twitter’s interface prompted users to share short blurbs that their followers could scroll through. Instagram was similar to Twitter, but for pictures only (Hartford, 2045).

As the ‘20s approached, however, the fall of the social media giants appeared imminent to those who kept their eyes open. The influx of participants from the older generation on these applications signified the beginning of the decline. What once appealed to the younger generations was adopted by their grandparents, seriously cutting down the cool factor of the software. Though this trend was noticeable far earlier, the median age range of each company had grown to 46-52 by 2025 (Skaroff 2034).

In addition to the influx of older generations, privacy scandals started to plague the giants from the 2010s well into the ‘20s. What started as companies selling user information for ad revenue evolved into much more suspect behavior, with rumors accusing the companies of everything from colluding to form a national registry to selling information to hackers under the table.

Regardless of who the information was sold to, the increasingly sophisticated methods each company used to pry into their users’ lives made their followers increasingly uncomfortable. The result for social media companies was an immediate drop in reputation and a steady decline in market share as long-time users looked for more trustworthy alternative social media outlets.

Unfortunately for users, it was extremely difficult for any competing social media network to attain critical mass in the smartphone application market. Even amidst the controversy, social media companies continued to innovate and improve their services at a rate that no others could keep up with. Even with new features added to keep users on board, however, the companies continued to undermine their trustworthiness as they proceeded to sell their users’ information in creative new ways that inevitably made it above ground in due time.

Toward the end of the ‘20s, things were looking dire for the giants. With the continued growth of virtual reality, everyone could feel a sea change coming. To prepare for the new age, in 2027 each company decided, allegedly independently, to change their name, building what was later known as “The ’27 Club”. One after one, each tried to become known as something new—“F,” “Birdie,” and “QuickPic”.

Suffice to say, the rebranding tactic left much to be desired. Not only were users not fooled by the new branding, the new names were notably lamer than their predecessors. Add to this the aging demographic of the giants’ user bases, and the companies seemed destined for irrelevance.

The companies held on for about four more years until each of them finally went bankrupt in the “Social Crash of ’31”. It took a decade longer than many thought it should have, but people were finally done with the social media giants for good. The disappearance of the giants left a huge hole in the social media market, which many new companies tried to fill. The general populace, however, had apparently decided they were done, and refused to adopt any of the new players in the web-based social media market. Technology users returned to a world of group and personal messages, forgoing the need to broadcast their lives for a time.

This period after the Social Crash of ’31 was known as “The Great Purification”. Though the period of absolute social media abstinence lasted only three years, this time was generally viewed favorably by those who lived through it. A generation was perceiving the world and relationships in a whole new way. Like someone newly sober, there was an element of latent wonder in this new view, and many asked themselves why they didn’t get off the services sooner.

Even though many enjoyed their new perspective on the wagon, all it took was a new innovator for the great majority of consumers to fall off. In 2034, nine years after the Lucid Mask redefined Virtual Reality into a major consumer market, a new social media craze was born out of a dorm room on New Idaho University’s campus.

The new mastermind was Nathan Habernick, a prodigious English Major in his junior year. As he put it in a 2035 interview:

“I was always captivated by the worlds that authors and filmmakers would create. I wanted to do the same. For a while, I was just writing and writing, but that didn’t feel like quite enough. And I didn’t necessarily have a huge interest in gaining mastery over some other medium. I just wanted to make my own world and live in it. So I was getting high with my friends one day—come on, it’s 2035 and you’re gonna look at me like I can’t say that?—I was stoned, alright, and I was wondering why there wasn’t yet any easy way to create your own environment in virtual reality. And the applications that were out there just weren’t pushing it far enough. I wanted to make my own world, and I wanted my friends to be able to hang out in it. The market was ripe for a change. So, anyway, that’s how the idea of Clubhouse was born.” (Habernick 2035)

Clubhouse was the disrupter that should have taken down the social media market, had the world not already been in the middle of The Great Purification. Though it began humbly, Clubhouse scaled quickly, allowing users greater and greater freedom to build their own virtual space that their friends could enjoy with them.

Clubhouse eventually began to integrate all the features that the other social media giants had done before them. Users could personalize their own “Bulletin Board” for view by anyone specified in their privacy settings. “Walkie-Talkie” was added soon after launch as the native chat feature in the application. Users could even host Virtual gatherings in each of their Clubhouses.

It wasn’t until 2037 that Clubhouse hit the mainstream with its AR integration, implemented into the second generation of Lucid Lenses. Though the VR app was still popular, the AR implementation was much more useful day-to-day, leading to a surge in popularity similar to the one Facebook experienced when it expanded from desktop to mobile.

In addition to finding a comfortable home in the VR and AR market, Clubhouse made sure to avoid the downfall of its predecessors by brainstorming alternative streams of income to the sale of user data. From the application’s launch, Habernick made sure to emphasize the importance they placed on the privacy of their users. Instead of selling users’ information, Habernick set Clubhouse up with an eCommerce platform that allowed users to sell their own data, goods, and services. By taking a small cut from each interaction, Clubhouse was able to sustain comfortable profits. Though Clubhouse ads didn't start off quite as sophisticated as the social media companies of yesteryear, the surprisingly large amount of users that voluntarily sold their data allowed ad companies to attain approximately the same level of insight into their possible customer base, eventually netting Clubhouse notable ad revenue in addition to what they were gaining from eCommerce.

In 2054, at the time of this writing, Clubhouse remains the most profitable social media company on the market today. Though it has grown over the years, its primary principles have remained the same, which has led to a user loyalty that was never present in the old, dead giants.

After proving there was a place for social media in the new era, it didn’t take long for other companies to follow in Clubhouse’s footsteps. Many of these companies built their base on the new functionality allowed by AR technology. For instance, Infrariend, est. 2024, when activated, allowed users to spot consenting Clubhouse friends from miles away through what resembled an infrared headset. This technology came in handy for many AR games of the 21st century.

Another successful (though slightly more unnerving) company was Foot-Steps, founded in 2045. Foot-Steps allows VR and AR users to sync up with their friends’ AR glasses, literally giving users the chance to walk in someone else’s shoes. Oddly enough, even after the privacy scares of the ‘20s, consumers seemed to be willing once more to risk their privacy for the chance to try new technology. Though there is no conclusive evidence that Foot-Steps is or isn’t spying on their users, it would appear that the trustworthy precedent set by Clubhouse has lulled users into a false sense of security when trying new applications.

As of 2054, no social media application has approached the current success of Clubhouse. In fact, the social media market has remained relatively stagnant for the last decade or so. The reputation of Clubhouse is certainly in better shape after 20 years than the giants’ had been. For Clubhouse’s reign to be displaced in the future, it may be necessary for a disrupter in the tech market as a whole. Just as AR replaced mobile, whatever the next step for mass human communication is will likely be the spot to see major competitors.

Until then, Clubhouse holds a proud monopoly over social media, and few seem to mind. Habernick, in fact, has been guest teaching around a class a semester at UNI for the past five years or so. If you ever happen to run into him on campus, you can feel proud that a fellow Okapi has changed the world. We can only hope that the next disrupter comes from the same magical place.

Works Cited

Habernick, Nathan. Personal Interview. 20 Feb 2035.

Hartford, Melanie. A Generation of Socialites. San Francisco, New History Press, 2045.

Husk, Rajit. Hanging at the Clubhouse. New Idaho, New Idaho UP, 2053.

Skaroff, Nicholas. “Understanding the Social Crash.” Journal of Social Media, vol. 12, no. 1, 2034, pp. 13-16.

#New Idaho #Ben Vizy #New Novel #Writing #Writing Community #Novelist #Novel Writing #2054 #Augmented Reality #Futurism #social media #New Social Media

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Navigating Through the Options for Electronic Navigation

New Post has been published on https://fitnessqia.com/awesome/navigating-through-the-options-for-electronic-navigation/

Navigating Through the Options for Electronic Navigation

If you’re into any level of adventure travelling, you’ve probably got a GPS device and some kind of go-to mapping app for electronic navigation. I know it’s one of the most common questions I’m met with on the trails and I typically don’t have a solid answer for people other than “it depends.” This is because the market has become so saturated with products in niche areas that it can be challenging to find affordable options for our weekend activities that can also serve a purpose in the same sphere as our fitness watches. I’m not likely to take a large iPad and a plug-in receiver on a hike where a fitness watch would better serve that purpose. With so many activities and lifestyle factors at play, there has to be a one-size-fits-all option for everyone, right?

Today I’m going to get us started moving in the right direction with some little-known products and try to help you ascertain the right device for your activities. There’s no solid one-size-fits-all option for everyone, but we just may be able to get you close. As we move through this topic, I want to stress that I haven’t used every device on the market, but I have been doing this for a long time. I used Microsoft Streets and Trips back in 2005 to chase tornadoes from a massive Toshiba laptop, dreaming about how nice it would be to have WiFi for our GRLevel3 storm software. I’ve had my hands in everything from the Blue Force Tracker to the Garmin ForeTrex and most other things in between. I’ll break down some of the things that work well for my personal use and for my team’s utilize on the trails.

Fitness Watches and Long Walks on the Beach

There’s a lot of information to cover on this subject so we’re going to be lumping some together so that it’s as streamlined as possible. First up, we’re going to be discussing most handheld divisions and GPS/ Fitness watches, as well as where they belong in the world of outdoor activities.

We’ll define “fitness” as any activity that you perform on a daily or weekly basis that involves familiar routes and a relatively low likelihood of navigational faults. I’m not saying a GPS watch can’t serve a greater intent than tracking and posting your run to your favorite app, but they’re not practical for many heavy users. This will also lump in the more basic style of handheld GPS devices as they’re typically limited in capability.

As an example, I’ve been wearing the Suunto Ambit3 since the beginning of 2015 and it’s been an incredible hiking companion. I’ve used it to log waypoints in foreign countries so that I can grab straight-line roads to the nearest embassy, airport or train station if everything goes pear-shaped. I also use it for my hiking and biking escapades all around the country. I typically don’t broadcast my information to my MovesCount app, but I know that’s an option if I ever need it. It’s not going to get me to the nearest Taco Bell( probably for the better) but it will log my miles and get me out of a dangerous situation if I need it to.

Handheld GPS devices are sort of like a movie villain that refuses to die. With the exception of devices like the Garmin Rino 750, I guess these things are better off replaced by your cellphone. Nearly every telephone on the market now comes equipped with an internal GPS receiver that will handle your electronic navigation situation without any complaints. The main point to attain here is that it’s important to be completely familiar with how your maps will function without cellular service. Google builds it optional to download complete map sections for offline utilize, where other mapping services like Gaia GPS have a minimum base layer map available in any condition. Speaking from experience, I’ve reverted to my iPhone and offline Google Maps after I took a new device to the field without the manual.

Consider what your needs are

I know there are a lot of you immediately doing one of two things. You’re either already writing angry comments about how I junked satellite devices or you’re going to school me on paper maps and a compass. I deserve the latter, but we’re going to talk about devices like the inReach, SpotX and Iridium GO! shortly.

Satellite Messengers

This is a category all its own. Personally, I don’t suppose the majority of them handheld devices even deserve a spot in your bag, but there are a few components I really like. Garmin makes a device called the inReach Explorer that gives you tracking ability, basic electronic navigation functionality and the ability to share this information via satellite. You also have the option to two-way message other inReach devices on the Iridium network. The key selling point for something like this is the relatively low-cost barrier for the massive Iridium satellite array and the reliability of the SOS feature provided by said network.

Devices in this category would be well-suited as an emergency device for any situation where navigation and SOS features would be needed. Most general aviation aircraft will contain an Emergency Locator Transmitter, but there’s a chance that the older aircraft may contain outdated equipment that’s no longer monitored or lack the capability to transmit at all. Vehicle breakdowns, airplane accidents and boating emergencies can all be great nominees for this division, but I would caution against using these as a primary mean for navigation. If you’re boating by chart and compass or flying Visual Flight Rule, you’d probably be fine with one of these in your Go-Bag for emergencies.

There are some other makes and models out there like the Spot Messenger X. Personally, I haven’t used one of these but in my research over the past year, I’ve watched some wildly varied reviews. While I definitely don’t want to share an opinion of a product I’m not familiar with, I do want to say that most negative reviews came from some kind of a testing scenario that the device failed. The majority of positive feedback I can find is simply speculative. I would really like to hear real-world experience from anyone that has used these devices with any success.

Escapade Travel and Route Planning

While satellite equipped devices are a great back up solution for electronic navigation, most of us have moved to some kind of phone or tablet-based platform. Android definitely has a dog in this fight, but iOS is king of electronic navigation in my world. In recognizing the importance of devices that serve multiple functions and purposes, we’ve opted for an array of iPad models and several mobile platforms that help ensure we’re making good decisions along the way.

We use apps like MyRadar to keep up with weather and almost exclusively use the Gaia GPS Teams account to handle all of our mapping and routing. Use multiple-platform systems like these afford our team opportunities to work on other resources from our laptops or our tablets without having to constantly switch back and forth.

I is proposed that you do your homework

I did mention early on that there’s no one-size-fits-all alternative for everyone in electronic navigation, but one piece of equipment we’ve found to work very well is the Bad Elf GPS Pro. There are plenty of standalone divisions that will log your tracks for you, but we needed something that could pipe data to our tablets and also use an external antenna for when we’re confined to our trucks. Anyone who knows me is a well-known fact that I’m no stranger to drilling pits into my truck for functionality so I opted for a through-hole antenna.

One of the other pieces of equipment we’ve discussed in a previous article that we’re fond of is the PepWave Max BR1 Mini router paired with our MobileMark LTM4 07 antenna. There are some other options out there, but this is where we’ve settled in given the inherently robust, yet versatile nature of these devices. Typically when we upload daily ways to a Google Map or into Gaia GPS for editing, we’ll pull our GPX files from the BR1 router. The drawback to location reporting with this setup is that you need cellular coverage to broadcast/ report your physical locating and it isn’t very portable. Fortunately, the router stores the data onboard for something like seven days so that it can be accessed subsequently. Basically, the router stores your GPS data even if it isn’t able to be uploaded to the cloud.

With the limitations of our vehicle-borne router, we needed something that could also can be used to exit private vehicles and continue forming tracks. This takes us back to Bad Elf.( I know this sounds like more of a sales pitch for these guys, but I wasn’t paid to say this .) We’ve been using these things for years and I’ll encompass the reasons we don’t use their competitors’ devices in the next section. We carry two devices for these tasks; the first being the GPS Pro I mentioned earlier and the second largest being their Apple-specific plug-in style device.

With the Pro, we can log hikes, ATV rides, general aviation flights, or anything else that takes us away from our beloved BR1 routers and we can do it without anything but the GPS Pro device. Once we’re back in the truck, we can plug that Pro device into the external antenna and it feeds our information technology and tablets with streaming GPS data and presents us with the option to download the recently recorded data. Their plug-in model is great for scheming when you’re away from the trucks and you need a bit more detail on your device. They also do well with your iPhone for things like ATV treks or motorcycle rides, but they’re not as resistant to the elements.

While there are other options for small Bluetooth devices, this is the only one we’ve found that provides us with all of the functions that we needed specifically for our undertakings. As with all else, I recommend that you do your homework on each device’s specific features and assess them against your needs. I’ve found that the devices we use tend to cross over into many other activities quite well, but they do have one minor drawback. While they’re probably ergonomic to hold, they don’t seem very tacticool. I always have some image in my head that advanced place equipment should be square and blocky and have rubberized coatings everywhere. I guess it shows that they cater to everyone.

Asset Tracking and Resource Management

Now let’s encompas electronic navigation in marine GPS, desert racing and emergency management. If you need to way assets for any reason, there are a few alternatives to help get you where you need to be.

If you’ve watched any form of desert racing, you’ve likely noticed that those guys are utilizing marine chart plotters and GPS systems to make their route down the way.( This has nothing to do with the Stella III devices used in time/ speed tracking .) Marine Automatic Identification Systems( AIS) are similar to our BR1 routers in that they pull GPS signal from their GPS antenna and then broadcast that data over VHF. Our routers use cellular networks, whereas AIS utilizes standardized VHF frequencies.

My needs are not the same as yours

You’ll also notice that it’s possible to track ships all around the globe on sites like Vessel Finder. Due to the standardization of transponder frequencies and the interest of foreign nations to track goods and ships at all times, satellites were put in place to see those VHF transponder signals. Typically more information is available on the ship when they’re close to shore, but if you really want that info you can go to aprs.fi and check areas along the shore.

There are some other options for reporting your locating info. A company I recently learned about called LEADNAV is basically blending spacecraft data and location reporting with the planning and tracking capabilities of most popular GPS apps. It’s my journalistic duty to give the most unbiased insight I can on new tech like this, so I did reach out to the organization for more info. It seems their founder, Damian, is a former career Navy SEAL with heavy involvement in mission planning and navigation.

The LEADNAV platform aims to aid in off-grid scheming and communication by reporting location and asset information into their cloud to be shared with your team or the rest of the world. A good example of this setup would be for emergency asset management. Teams are able to track their personnel in real day anywhere on earth through the use of the Iridium satellite network and proprietary software. Their platform aims to be extremely versatile, appealing to the escapade traveler, emergency coordinators, or even weekend warriors. They feature alternatives like basic GPS functionality all the route up to real-time tracking.

One of the things I did say in the previous segment is that I would discuss why we don’t use some external GPS devices. LEADNAV does use the Dual XGPS1 60 device that’s gained quite a bit of popularity in electronic navigation, however, we’ve found that it doesn’t quite fit the bill for our needs. I’m sure that’s an issue that can be easily mitigated, but I can’t say for sure what our systems would look like otherwise since I haven’t set my hands on their equipment. My beef with the XGPS1 60 is its perceived lack of versatility. While it’s a great receiver, I haven’t procured it to be as convenient a grab-and-go alternative as our Bad Elf systems. I would say that if you’re considering buying a system like any of the custom-built LEADNAV products, don’t let the GPS receiver turn you off. My needs are not the same as yours.

Wrapping Up Electronic Navigation

There are a lot of options out there for electronic navigation. I realize that some of my opinions are pretty strongly-held and that they may not exactly line up with yours; that’s penalty. The most important takeaway here is to consider what your needs are. There’s a ton of information available and it can be quite confusing to navigate the intricacies of these electronic navigation technologies. Hopefully, this piece was helpful, if only because it offered a brief look into some of the less popular technologies. Feel free to ask any questions you may have or share your experiences in the comments. I tend to follow up on these articles in a pretty timely manner.

Editor-in-Chief’s Note: Derek Gill has been a Plank Owner here at ITS from the beginning and has an extensive background in healthcare, pharmaceutical research and technical diving. He’s been certified in SCUBA since 2000 and diving technical/ CCR since 2010. He speaks several languages including Russian and Spanish as well as several computer languages. These combined abilities have opened the door to more creative ventures in Network Security and Physical Security consulting. Derek is a veteran of the US Navy and a former Navy Corpsman who worked alongside the US Marine Corps. His military moniker, “Witch Doctor, ” has stuck with him ever since and it can now be found across many internet forums where he takes pride in trolling sensational zealots from multiple industries.

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