Specializing in Computer Repair, Networking, Internet Solutions, Web Designing, Hybrid App Designing and Windows Operating systems.
Wall Street Journal:
Overall, remote learning this spring didn't work: schools disagree on fair student assessment, students lack equal access to technology, teaching got harder — The pandemic forced schools into a crash course in online education. Problems piled up quickly. ‘I find it hectic and stressful’
Tanya Basu / MIT Technology Review:
Google Docs is a key tool for organizing protests, as activists anonymously edit public lists of funds, charities, books on racism, and letter-writing templates — Facebook and Twitter might have the bells and whistles, but the word processing doc's simplicity and accessibility have made it a winning tool.
Dan Goodin / Ars Technica:
Zoom consultant Alex Stamos and experts say only offering end-to-end encryption, which needs user authentication, to paying customers is a reasonable compromise — Critics say everyone deserves it. Others say safety should be factored in, too. — If you've waded into Twitter timelines …
Matt Day / Bloomberg:
Some Amazon workers say they're struggling to get paid sick leave as the deluge of requests swamps the company's heavily automated HR system during the pandemic — Tony Banks told Amazon.com Inc. right away when he tested positive for Covid-19. More than a month later, he's on the mend …
Stephanie Condon / ZDNet:
Connected learning platform Chegg has acquired Mathway, an automated learning app that helps students understand and solve math problems, for $100M in cash — The $100 million deal gives Chegg access to Mathway subscribers in about 100 countries. — Chegg, a leading direct-to-student learning platform …
Sofie Kodner / Protocol:
A list of donations by companies and prominent individuals in the tech community to anti-racism groups — Financial contributions are one of the five actions that Black Tech for Black Lives has asked “allies” to take in order to help. — Tech companies and the people who lead …
Manish Singh / TechCrunch:
Indian online travel booking company Yatra terminates pending merger with Atlanta-based software company Ebix, files suit for damages, alleging breach of terms — Indian online travel booking company Yatra has terminated a pending merger agreement with Atlanta-based software firm Ebix …
In the week after George Floyd’s murder, hundreds of thousands of people joined protests across the US and around the globe, demanding education, attention, and justice. But one of the key tools for organizing these protests is a surprising one: it’s not encrypted, doesn’t rely on signing in to a social network, and wasn’t even designed for this purpose. It’s Google Docs.
In just the last week, Google Docs has emerged as a way to share everything from lists of books on racism to templates for letters to family members and representatives to lists of funds and resources that are accepting donations. Shared Google Docs that anyone can view and anyone can edit, anonymously, have become a valuable tool for grassroots organizing during both the coronavirus pandemic and the police brutality protests sweeping the US. It’s not the first time. In fact, activists and campaigners have been using the word processing software for years as a more efficient and accessible protest tool than either Facebook or Twitter.
Google Docs was launched in October 2012. It quickly became popular, not only because Google email accounts were so widespread already, but also because it allows multiple users to collaborate and edit simultaneously. Microsoft Word, the incumbent, finally had a real rival.
But it has always been used for purposes beyond simple word processing. Teens use Google Docs as a way of exchanging notes during dull lectures, for example. And back when traveling was viable, Google Docs were used to plan vacations.
More recently, during the pandemic, Google Docs were widely shared to help people deal with the stress of lockdown. Shelter-in-place orders led to a series of feel-good lists on the platform, ranging from the one the New York Times ran of activities and reporters’ thoughts (“Notes from Our Homes to Yours”) to virtual escape rooms, socially distant comedy shows, crowdsourced and collaborative crosswords, and community grocery lists for people in need.
It wasn’t until the 2016 elections, when misinformation campaigns were rampant, that the software came into its own as a political tool. Melissa Zimdars, an assistant professor of communication at Merrimack College, used it to create a 34-page document titled “False, Misleading, Clickbaity-y, and/or Satirical ‘News’ Sources.’”
Zimdars inspired a slew of political Google Docs, written by academics as ad hoc ways of campaigning for Democrats for the 2018 midterm elections. By the time the election passed, Google Docs were also being used to protest immigration bans and advance the #MeToo movement.
Now, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder on Memorial Day weekend, communities are using the software to organize. One of the most popular Google Docs to emerge in the past week is “Resources for Accountability and Actions for Black Lives,” which features clear steps people can take to support victims of police brutality. It is organized by Carlisa Johnson, a 28-year-old graduate journalism student at Georgia State University.
Johnson created the Google Doc in the immediate aftermath of George Floyd’s death, but she had been compiling resources since the death of Ahmaud Arbery, whose murder by a father and son in February didn’t lead to arrests until video of the incident was released in May. “I’ve been doing this [sharing links for direct action] since 2014 with my own network of friends and family,” Johnson says. She’d never created a public Google Doc like this, and chose it over Facebook and Twitter because it is so accessible: “Hyperlinks are the most succinct and quickest way to access things, and you can’t do that on Facebook or Twitter. When you say ‘Contact your representative,’ a lot of people don’t know how to do that.” Direct links in the Google Doc make it much easier for people to get involved, she says.
Another viral Google Doc that emerged in the wake of George Floyd’s murder, listing resources for protestors and organizations accepting donations, was created by an activist known as Indigo, who identifies as nonbinary and uses a pseudonym so as not to be outed to family members. Indigo said accessibility and live editing were the primary advantages of a Google Doc over social media: “It’s important to me that the people on the ground can access these materials, especially those seeking legal counsel, jail support, and bail support. This is a medium that everyone I’ve organized with uses and many others use.”
Like Johnson, Indigo had been collecting resources after Floyd’s murder—“bookmarking and emailing myself tons of links” —and found that “I just couldn’t keep up with it. It seemed like no one else could either.” Indigo was frustrated with Twitter, though: “On the off-chance you find something phenomenal, you have to retweet, like, or share it in that moment or else it’s gone forever.” Google Docs was the answer.
“What’s special about a Google Doc versus a newsfeed is its persistence and editability,” says Clay Shirky, the vice provost for educational technology at New York University. In 2008, Shirky wrote Here Comes Everybody: The Power of Organizing Without Organizations, detailing how the internet and social media helped shape modern protest movements.
Shirky says that while social media has been great for publicizing movements, it’s far less efficient at creating stable shelves of information that a person can return to. What makes Google Docs especially attractive is that they are at once dynamic and static, he says. They’re editable and can be viewed simultaneously on countless screens, but they are easily shareable via tweet or post.
“People want a persistent artifact,” Shirky says. “If you are in an action-oriented network, you need an artifact to coordinate with those outside of the conversation and the platform you’re using, so you can actually go outside of the feed and do something.”
Johnson experienced that firsthand. Within days, her Google Doc had made it to actor Cole Sprouse’s Instagram stories and actress Halle Berry’s Twitter feed, multiplying its viewership.
To those looking to take action but don't know where to start:
— Halle Berry (@halleberry) June 3, 2020
Here is a comprehensive resource of just about everything you can do to at this time. https://t.co/CcnqTACy2y
Do NOT be silent, together we are unstoppable.#BlackTuesday #BlackLivesMatter
It helps that Google Docs are fairly straightforward to access and simple to use. But anonymity is an important advantage over Twitter or Facebook. Users who click on a publicly shareable link are assigned an animal avatar, hiding their identity. “No one can put you on blast on Google Docs,” says Shirky. “Google Docs allows for a wider breadth of participation for people who are not looking to get into a high-stakes political argument in front of millions of people.”
Google Docs isn’t the only tool that activists are using. Carrd, a platform for building one-page sites, has seen a sharp increase in protest pages like this one. AJ, the founder of Carrd ( who goes by just his initials), says that while he wasn’t expecting the site to find popularity among protesters, it makes sense.
The advantages? “[It’s] free with relatively inexpensive upgrades, the speed and ease at which you can throw together a site, and the fact that you can more or less do it all on mobile,” he ticks off.
For both Johnson and Indigo, the overall experience of creating Google Docs has been a surprisingly positive one; Indigo does receive the occasional “nasty DM” but shrugs it off. At any given moment, anywhere between 70 and 90 people are in Johnson’s and Indigo’s documents, and both spend significant time editing and fact-checking them.
But while Google Docs is easy to use and share, how private is it? Protesters have taken to putting their phones in airplane mode so their data and location can’t be tracked, along with covering up identifying features. Signal, which provides messaging with end-to-end encryption, has been one of the most downloaded apps of the past few weeks. Including sensitive information in a publicly viewable document might feel risky right now.
“It’s certainly a concern,” says Johnson. When she first created the document, she credited herself as “C. Johnson” to avoid being identifiable. But she spelled out her full name when she realized that she had a powerful part to play as a black woman. “Others are able to risk so much, and there’s accountability involved here,” she says, adding that privacy concerns are not as significant as the need for activism. Indigo echoes this thought: “The threat of hacking is real, especially because Google is free and not by any means encrypted. I’ve created backup documents and have taken all the precautions I can.”
Shirky says it’s a common misconception that protesters are seeking privacy from the state. “Most of them are concerned with activism, not privacy,” he says. In fact, Johnson says that for her and other activists, the goal is to disseminate as much information as accurately as possible.
“Google Docs lets me put it in one place and across social-media platforms,” she says. “Reach is what’s important at this time. A Facebook post can only go so far. An Instagram post can only go so far. But this? This is accessible. Nothing else is as immediate.”
Love and romance are tricky waters to navigate at times. Whether you’re starting a new relationship or trying to keep the spark alive, these romantic apps for couples will help you connect with your partner.
Just to be clear, we aren’t diving into the best dating apps. This article talks to those already with a partner, be it the excitement of someone new or the comfort of stability.
At times when going out for dates is difficult or you want a fresh way to connect with your loved one, these apps and digital guides are the relationship advice you need.
Whether you have just started dating or in a long term relationship, First Things First has all types of guides for couples. The Date Night mini-site is all about adding a little romance while staying at home.
The section has something for both virtual date nights or DIY date nights at home. If you find virtual date nights strange, this is the website to start with.
At the moment, they even have guided videos every Friday for virtual dating beginners to learn the ropes and get comfortable with the medium. Their Facebook posts are full of praise, so it’s worth checking out.
For DIY date nights, you’ll find new ideas posted regularly. It ranges from fun and spicy games of truth or dare to “what’s in the bowl” and other things. There’s a brief guide, a downloadable pamphlet for creative games between two people, and a few pointers on how to take it to the next level.
Conversations are the pillars of relationships. Are you trying to get to know someone new better? Or do you want to discover a new layer to someone you think you know inside out? Talk2You is a conversation starter for couples to explore each other.
The app has 360 questions spread over 10 categories like our history, the two of us, everyday life, dreams, intimacy, and more. The idea is that one person chooses the category and question, and asks it aloud to the partner.
One of you can be the questioner and write what you expect the answer to be. After your partner answers it, you can see how much it matched and how well you know each other.
Talk2You has a few instructions before you start. It’s quick to point out not to take the game too seriously. If a question doesn’t apply to you, or either of you find it uncomfortable, move on to the next one. And if something sparks a conversation, keep the app aside and talk. Your phone isn’t going anywhere.
The free Android app gives access to three categories for a total of over 100 questions. You’ll have to pay to unlock the rest.
Download: Talk2You for Android (Free)
Download: Talk2You for iOS ($0.99)
Drs. John and Julie Gottman of The Gottman Institute study relationships and couples. They turned their findings over the years into a fantastic app for partners to get to know each other better and to level-up the relationship.
The Gottman Card Decks are a pack of 14 flashcard decks: love maps, open-ended questions, rituals of connection, opportunity, sex, date, give appreciation, “I feel”, salsa (or sex life), needs, empathy, and listening. The Gottmans note that these decks prove popular and successful in workshops on the art and science of love.
Each deck has its own rules, where it prompts you and your partner to have a conversation about a topic. These aren’t hard and fast rules, and the objective isn’t to “win” at the game. You want to try and understand each other better, open up communication, or discover something new about your partner.
Apart from the Card Decks, check out the affiliated relationship quiz, “How well do you know your partner?” The Gottman Institute also has an active blog with insights about managing relationships. It’s one of the best websites to improve your communication skills.
Download: Gottman Card Decks for Android | iOS (Free)
Daily life doesn’t need grand romantic gestures. How loved you feel in your relationship is made up of small acts done regularly. Love Nudge is an app to find out what you value and what your partner values, and help you both show your love in ways that the other finds meaningful and touching.
Gary Chapman, the author of the Five Languages of Love, says people like to receive love as physical touch, quality time, acts of service, words of affirmation, and receiving gifts. Love Nudge starts you with a 30-question quiz to find out how you like to receive love in these five categories. Then, connect with your partner’s app, who has also taken the same quiz. Through acts that meet those categories, you can express your love in your partner’s language.
Love Nudge also encourages you to set tasks. You can choose from preset recommendations, or make your own goals. If you aren’t overly physical, set that goal to hug your partner and get reminders. Good relationships take time and effort, and the app is here to nudge you in the right direction.
The app also tracks how you feel, like a mood journal for your love life. Over time, you can see stats about how loved you feel and how your partner is feeling. The app is completely free, with no strings attached.
Download: Love Nudge for Android | iOS (Free)
So you can’t go out for a date night. So what? You can have a romantic evening at home, on a budget, and together or over a video call. The Dating Divas have a free “YouTube Date Night” package for couples to try. Download and print out the free PDF before you start, and cut the tasks and keep them ready.
The YouTube Date Night has three parts. Start with the scavenger hunt. It’s a list of 10 types of YouTube videos you have to find, like “a music video from your high school days” or an epic fail video. Make your list of links, then watch them together. If you’re doing a remote date, use an app to watch YouTube together in sync.
Next up is the YouTube Task Game. Pick up a chat and do the task in it. It’s a bunch of funny and endearing tasks, like lip-syncing to Endless Love or the try not to laugh challenge. When you’ve had enough, move on to the voting sheet for the six best videos of the night to make it a permanent memory. The whole thing is a sweet package and completely free.
This one can be done online or offline. In a famous study, two psychologists collected their findings on what makes people fall in love, and turned it into a 36-question quiz. You can use this in both a new relationship and with your long-term partner.
If you’re seeing someone new, these 36 questions will bring you closer or make it clear you don’t belong together. And for old couples, they help rekindle your spark. New York Times turned this quiz into a nice little web app, which is one of our best Valentine’s Day apps for a romantic date night. Check it out.
Read the full article: 5 Couples Apps for Romantic Date Nights at Home or Virtual Dates
Kyle Wiggers / VentureBeat:
Maryland-based Inky, which develops AI-powered anti-phishing technology, raises $20M Series B led by Insight Partners, bringing its total raised to $31.6M — Inky, a cybersecurity company developing products designed to protect against phishing, today announced it raised $20 million.
BuzzFeed News:
Citing Twitter and Snap's actions limiting Trump's reach, digital activists around the world urge both companies to do the same for politicians globally — Bowing to criticism that predates his presidency, Twitter and Snap have begun to limit how President Donald Trump uses their platforms …
Bloomberg:
JD and Walmart-backed Dada Nexus, which operates on-demand delivery services in China, closed just below $16/share offer, after raising $320M in upsized US IPO — - Legend Biotech, Shift4, Dada Nexus all exceed earlier targets — Listings come amid global IPO rush of more than $7.3 billion
Emily Bary / MarketWatch:
Shift4 Payments, which provides payments processing software for the hospitality industry, closed up 46% on first day of trading, after raising $345M in its IPO — Referenced Symbols — Investors voiced enthusiasm Friday for a payments business highly levered to an economic rebound.
The Official Microsoft Blog:
In an email to Microsoft employees, Satya Nadella promises more diversity by expanding connections with HBCUs and a more inclusive environment — An email from CEO Satya Nadella to Microsoft employees: — Seeing injustice in the world calls us all to take action, as individuals and as a company.
Australian Competition and Consumer Commission:
Australian court fines Sony Europe ~$2.4M for denying customers refunds for faulty PlayStation games and for misrepresenting consumer rights — The Federal Court has ordered Sony Interactive Entertainment Network Europe Limited (Sony Europe) to pay $3.5 million in penalties for making false …
Amy Errett’s company, Madison Reed, sells in-home care color. It may not sound like a glamorous business but, as it turns out, it’s a very durable one, done the right way. Not only has the seven-year-old outfit been slowing chipping away at the dominant personal care giants like L’Oreal that have long controlled what’s currently a $30 billion market, but during one of the most dramatic economic downturns of the past century, it has been attracting new customers for whom a salon has not been an option.
In fact, Errett — who was previously a VC with Maveron Ventures and has a side hustle as a venture partner with True Ventures — says the 300-person company is seeing revenue in excess of $100 million per year and that it will be profitable in the second half of this year. Presumably, that makes it a likely candidate for an IPO in the not-too-distant future.
We talked with Errett earlier this week about the business, which has raised $125 million to date from investors, including True Ventures, Norwest Venture Partners, and Comcast Ventures. We wanted know if, like so many other consumer companies hard hit by the pandemic, it has conducted recent layoffs, whether it is re-opening the brick-and-mortar “color bars” it started launching in the U.S., and where it’s headed next. Our chat has been edited for length and clarity.
TC: Like a lot of direct-to-consumer brands, you more recently began opening real-world stores — color bars — where you had licensed colorists working with your customers. How many did you have at the beginning of this year, before COVID-19 took hold?
AE: We had 12. We are reopening them now with 20 [because we had] eight that were [fully built] but never got opened in March, April and May. We’ll end the year with 25 and. we’re probably on track to open another 20 next year.
TC: Are they just scattered around the U.S.?
AE: They’re in hubs that we have selected based on the demographics of the women that live in those hubs and what we know from our online business. So they are in Northern California, where we’re headquartered. They’re New York, Dallas, Houston, and the Washington D.C. area. And we’re reopening in Atlanta, adding more in Dallas and Houston, and by year end, we’ll be in Miami and Denver.
TC: Can you comment on the financial metrics of the company? At one point, we’d read the company was doing around $50 million annually with 78% gross margins.
AE: The product margin of the business is in excess of 80%, meaning the actual product; the gross margin of the business, meaning fully loaded, is 60%. The growth has been amazing. We have 300,000 subscribers now, and we’re ahead of 2x the financials [you stated]. We’re a private company, so I don’t disclose [specifics] but we will be profitable the second half of this year.
TC: Obviously, you’ve captured some new customers who couldn’t go to a salon during this national lockdown. What percentage of your overall business do those 300,000 subscribers represent?
AE: It moves from day to day. So 52% of women in the U.S. color exclusively at home; 48% go to salons, some to our color bars; then 25% are called duelists. They’re excessively gray, or they want to stretch out salon appointments, so they do their hair at home [in between bookings].
Typically, 60% of the people that come to us that are salon goers, and 50% are home users. During the surge, the numbers did tip in the direction of 70% of the people that were coming to us were salon goers because they had no other place to go. The good news is that we are retaining an enormous amount of them. The average [subscriber] orders from us every six weeks, then we have people who buy a single box but there are serial one-timers who act like subscribers, so these are startlingly sustainable cohorts compared to typical D2C businesses.
TC: So you didn’t lay off anyone even as you were closing these color bars?
AE: I think seven employees decided they. had kids at work and couldn’t even work on a distributed work basis, but we have not done any furloughing. We closed all of our color bars around March 15. . .and we moved all of our in store colorists to our call center, which was already all certified licensed colorists because our sales is a very technical sale. Every woman in the world has at least five bad hair stories, so we put what I call a belt and suspenders around the advice because the most important thing for a customer at Madison Reed is to get the color right. You get one shot. So we moved these other people to that call center. We bought and sent them headsets at home and taught them about all the tech support in customer service, and thank goodness because our volume was insane.
TC: States are reopening. As colorists return to your stores, what precautions are you taking, and how uniform are your processes across different states?
ER: We are reopening stores, [most] at first with retail only [where] we’ll get the back and bring it out to you, and [over time] with sensible scheduling. We don’t know when we’ll go back to every chair.
And we’re taking the most stringent guidelines of any state and and laying that across the entire system. So even if a state says that a client doesn’t need to wear a mask, we’re wearing masks and our clients are wearing masks. Some people don’t want to do that. That’s okay. Then we’re not the right place for people to come if that’s true [because] our clients’ and our team members’ safety comes first.
TC: Last year, you announced a plan to roll out 600 stores, 100 of which would be operated by the company and 500 that were to be franchised. Is it fair to say that those plans are on hold and, if so, are they perhaps permanently on hold?
ER: We were just starting to sell franchises in February. We actually had our first set of meetings with potential franchisees and we were about to file the documentation that one needs to file for disclosure of franchises — then this happened. And we made a decision right now that for the rest of this year, we’re pushing that decision off. We have not decided whether that’s final or not.
I think one of the things that I’ve learned through all of this. is that making big, broad decisions right now isn’t the smartest thing a CEO can do. The world is just in flux. I can’t tell you with certainty what date we can take people back into our headquarters. I can’t tell you with any certainty if there [will be a] vaccine or a drug protocol of if it’s going to spread again, or there will be hotspots. I can’t tell you and I don’t think anybody can.
TC: Given your traction and your numbers, Is there any reason your next funding event wouldn’t be a a public offering?
ER: This is a massive category that has been widely overlooked. And when you look at the size of the prize — $15 billion alone in the U.S., with repetitive purchase patterns – – it has all the characteristics of a successful–
I’m an investor [too]. I was a GP and open and ran Maveron’s office in the Bay Area. Connie, you and I probably first met while I was being a VC, having a more relaxing life. I’m also a partner at True, so I do invest as well as part of the investment team. And so I’m actually just commenting with that hat on. Like, 80%-plus of our revenues are recurring in this company. At our color bars, we’re the only people who have the ability to use our own product.
TC: Meaning?
The stylist is never going to give the product to most women going to a salon today. They’re never going to say, ‘Oh, you’re going on vacation? Take this home with to you.’ I use Madison Reed, and now I can walk into a Madison Reed color bar and get the same consistency. The same exact color that I could take home, someone’s going to apply for me. That is a game changer in this industry.
We are the only people who are agnostic as to whether you want us to color your hair [in a store] or do it at home [or] buy it at Ulta, our only wholesale relationship today. If you look at L’Oreal, 85% of its business is selling tubes of color to stylists in salons. It is not a direct relationship with a consumer. That is not what L’Oreal has. The direct relationship with the consumer is the box sitting at Walgreens, which is a very small percentage of their business and it’s not a percentage they’re about because the margins are so thin. Remember, they’re charging $10; I’m charging $25.
The secret sauce here [regarding how we beat the personal care giants is that] L’Oreal’s and Unilever’s professional channel [creates] a conflict for them to innovate directly, based on technology or otherwise, to the direct consumer.
TC: So you don’t see them moving in your direction?
They are smart and they can decide that they’re going to come after us in different ways, and that’s fine. I’ll take the customer service, the relationship to the client, the product innovation, the way that we lead with mobile technology first any single day.
TC: Speaking of these giants and their portfolio of products, how many products does Madison Reed sell currently, and what might you roll out that would surprise customers?
AE: We have about 15 products, all in the category of hair color that’s better for you, whether it’s permanent hair color, semi-permanent hair color, glosses, toners, a highlight kit with non-ammonia bleach . . .We’re also rolling out color depositing masks [that you apply in the shower] that aren’t permanent.
And then I’ll just give you this hint: right now our business is really focused on women, so you can imagine that there’s a separate gender that may color their hair. That is a market that’s just terrific, right? Just for Men? I mean, are you kidding me? We’re going to blow the doors off that market.
