Specializing in Computer Repair, Networking, Internet Solutions, Web Designing, Hybrid App Designing and Windows Operating systems.
Brian Barth / MIT Technology Review:
A look at Toronto's growth as a tech hub, selling itself as a gentler, kinder version of Silicon Valley — The Canadian tech hub is selling itself as an antidote to the tech industry's worst impulses. But what does that entail? — It is a frigid February day when I visit Communitech …
New York Times:
TikTok users and K-pop fan accounts claim they registered thousands of tickets for Trump's Tulsa rally as a prank, resulting in lower than expected attendance — Did a successful prank inflate attendance expectations for President Trump's rally in Tulsa, Okla.?
Christine Hall / Crunchbase News:
Urbint, which uses AI to predict and prevent threats to energy infrastructure and worker safety, raises $20M Series B — Urbint, an artificial intelligence company for infrastructure and utility safety, secured $20 million in a Series B funding round co-led by Energy Impact Partners and Piva, the company said Thursday.
Your email inbox is one of your most important digital assets. If an attacker gets access to it, it can spell disaster for you. That’s why it’s vital to secure your email. And you can do that with the help of this free ebook.
Over six chapters, you’ll learn:
The tips in this ebook will ensure that you have all the information you need to protect your inbox. To start putting them into action, click here to download The Email Security Guide from TradePub. You’ll have to complete a short form to access the ebook, but it’s well worth it!
Image Credit: John Schnobrich on Unsplash
Read the full article: Secure Your Email With This FREE Guide
Ahead of the 2020 United States presidential election, Facebook is launching a new Voting Information Center. This is an effort to inform people about the election, including guidance on registering to vote and how, when, and where to vote on the big day.
However, in conjunction with this effort to inform and educate, Facebook is also giving people the option to turn off all political ads. So if you already know who you’re voting for, you can choose to never again see another political ad on Facebook.
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg announced the Voting Information Center in an op-ed for USA Today. He spells out Facebook’s three point plan in the run-up to this year’s election. Which is encouraging people to vote, preventing interference, and fostering free speech.
Launching The Largest Voting Information Effort in US History https://t.co/skymloG5bY
— Facebook Newsroom (@fbnewsroom) June 17, 2020
And in a post on the Facebook Newsroom, Naomi Gleit reveals that you can “turn off all social issue, electoral or political ads from candidates, Super PACs or other organizations that have the ‘Paid for by’ political disclaimer on them.” And here’s how to do that…
To turn off all political ads on Facebook:
You can also turn off political advertising from an individual advert. When you see an ad with the “Paid for by” political disclaimer attached, click on the information bubble and select “See Fewer Ads About This Topic”. This is quicker, but relies on you seeing an ad first.
On paper, these efforts to educate and inform users are good news for anyone who values democracy. However, Facebook doesn’t have a good track record in this regard, as you can see in our exposé looking at how Facebook data can be used to win elections.
Read the full article: You Can Now Turn Off All Political Ads on Facebook
Mark Gurman / Bloomberg:
What to expect from WWDC 2020: transition to ARM Macs, iOS 14 with Car Key and a Google Translate-like feature, third-party music services on HomePod, and more — - Company to announce move to Macs running its own processors — Developers complaining about longtime App Store rules, fees
Brian Fung / CNN:
VF Corp's The North Face, REI, and Upwork say they are committing to an ad boycott of Facebook in light of its handling of misinformation and hate speech — (CNN Business)Outdoor apparel brand The North Face has become the best-known company yet to commit to an advertising boycott of Facebook …
If you’re a commuter who is sick of driving, walking, or riding the bus, you’ve got a few options. You could ride a bike, but then you’re more or less resigning yourself to showing up to work at least a little bit sweaty. Plus, you may not jump out of bed in the morning raring to go.
Electric scooters can make the commute to work or a quick trip to the store much quicker without the inconvenience of riding a bike. The only downside is that they can be expensive. That is completely untrue when it comes to the GoTrax Xr, which retails at $300. The question is, can a scooter with a price this low consistently get you where you’re going?
The GoTrax Xr is a barebones scooter, but this simply means that the company focused on getting a few things right, rather than implementing a whole host of features poorly.
The built-in LED screen is utilitarian, but it tells you what you need to know. This means it shows you how fast you’re going, the remaining charge on the battery, and what speed mode you’re in. You also get a headlight on the front, but on the back, you only get a reflector, not a full tail light.
The GoTrax Xr features a built-in cruise control option, which is great for commuters. You also get a simple kickstand to help the scooter stand upright.
The brake line is exposed, which is unusual for an electric scooter. It’s more along the lines of what you would see on a bicycle. This is mainly an aesthetic issue, though I suppose it’s possible that the brake line could wear more quickly since it’s exposed.
The GoTrax Xr arrives mostly assembled. All you need to do is attach the brake line to the handlebars, then attach the handlebars to the rest of the scooter. Reattaching the brake line to the frame was slightly frustrating, but it still took less than five minutes to get fully assembled.
GoTrax correctly assumes that you’ll probably want to take the scooter for a ride as soon as you get it out of the box and assembled. The scooter arrives partially charged — actually close to fully charged in my case — meaning you don’t need to wait to charge the battery before you can head out for a ride.
The GoTrax Xr has a maximum speed of 15.5 miles per hour. This might sound slow, and on something like a bicycle it would be. But when you’re standing on a thin platform a few inches above the road, it certainly doesn’t feel slow. It can actually feel a little scary, especially if you’re not used to riding electric scooters all the time.
To keep it from speeding away from you, you need to kick off and get the scooter moving a bit before it will accelerate. Once it starts, it picks up speed fairly quickly. There are two speed modes, which you toggle between by holding the red button near the display. The speed is limited to around 10 miles per hour in the first mode, while the second lets you go up to the maximum speed.
I’m not a small person, and I’m actually right at the GoTrax Xr’s upper weight limit of 220 pounds. Even so, the GoTrax Xr still accelerates impressively quickly. Of course, this is when you’re moving on a relatively flat section of road.
The Xr will handle minor hills, and will do so with gusto, but as things get steeper it quickly loses power. As I knew I was at the upper end of the weight limit, I had friends who weighed less try out the scooter, and it had the same issue with hills. Still, it was surprising how well it handled hills that would require some extra leg power on a bicycle.
The GoTrax Xr has two braking methods. One is regenerative, which uses the motor to slow you down and actually ever so slightly recharges the battery, hence the name. The other method of stopping is the disc brake, which is very similar to the brakes you’ll see on bicycles, right down to the style of the handle on the left side of the handlebars.
Many scooters have dual braking controls: one for the regenerative brake and one for the disc brake. The Xr simplifies things by automatically engaging the regenerative brake as soon as you activate the disc brake. At least I think this is what’s happening because the braking power is surprisingly good. Between the regenerative braking in the front and the disc braking in the back, the GoTrax Xr can stop fairly quickly.
I had worried that because I was near the top of the weight limit, slowing down would be less effective, but fortunately, this was not the case. One other thing worth noting is that the speed limiter doesn’t work when going downhill, so you’ll want to keep a hand on the brakes.
The GoTrax Xr is meant for riding on smooth surfaces, ideally a road. You can take it elsewhere, but you’re not going to move very quickly or very comfortably.
Unlike more expensive scooters, the GoTrax Xr has no built-in suspension. That said, it does use air-filled tires where some other scooters are solid, so you do get some smoothing out of bumps from the tires. If you’re on a road, even a relatively rough one, the ride is smooth.
I tested the GoTrax Xr in a gravel parking lot, and this wasn’t nearly as comfortable as riding on the road. It was manageable, but I had to go slower, and I have a feeling that after a mile or so of bumping around like this I would have needed to take a break.
Trying the Xr on even bumpier turf like grass was basically impossible. Even with your weight as far toward the rear of the scooter as possible, even minor dips and divots can render the scooter stuck. If you were moving faster when you hit one of these, you could easily fall off.
When folded down, the GoTrax Xr is relatively easy to move around. At just over 25 pounds, it’s not the lightest thing to carry, but it’s not prohibitively heavy either. If you need to haul it inside your home or workplace, moving it is the easy part.
Actually storing the Xr is somewhat more difficult. This isn’t because of the overall size, but because the wheels mean you can’t stand it on its end to easily tuck into a closet. This means you need enough floor space to keep it, which is doable, but not inconspicuous.
Testing range is tricky with the GoTrax Xr since it doesn’t have an odometer. That said, I took a few trips around a loop I know is roughly a 1.2 miles long. After six trips, there was still a fair amount of juice left in the battery, so while it may not always make the max range, you can safely make at least eight or nine miles.
According to GoTrax, the internal battery on the Xr (which isn’t replaceable, by the way) recharges in roughly four hours. In my testing, I never fully drained the battery, but the Xr always reached a full charge in less than four hours.
One thing to note is that the manual says that the included power supply has a light that will turn from red (charging) to green (charged) once the Xr is fully charged. I never actually saw this go from red to green, except for when I unplugged the charger from the scooter. I could have just received a defective charger, but it’s worth pointing out.
One important thing to know is that whether or not electric scooters are legal varies between countries. In the United States, laws vary between states and even towns and cities.
For example, in New York State, where I am, there are currently no state-wide laws regarding electric scooter operation. This is set to change in August 2020, when scooters will be legal to operate on roads with a posted speed limit of 30 miles per hour or less. This can vary by city, and electric scooters are currently illegal in New York City.
You may be subject to further restrictions depending on where you are as well. In some areas, you need to register the scooter as you would any other vehicle, in others you may need a license. Depending on where you are, you may be required to wear a helmet.
On that last point, for your own sake, you should wear a helmet when you’re using one of these.
The GoTrax Xr is far from the most feature-packed or elegant electric scooter on the market. But for the price, it’s a great deal for a solid scooter. Spending more will get you more features, but especially if you’re buying your first electric scooter and you’re not sure about how much you’ll use it, this is a great place to start.
One thing to note is that the range on the Xr may be a problem if you’re looking to use it to commute. GoTrax makes a slightly upgraded version, the Xr Ultra, that bumps the range up to 16 miles. The two are the same in every way, except that the Ultra costs a little more due to the extended range.
Either way, the GoTrax Xr feels sturdy enough that I’m confident it will last you quite a while.
Read the full article: GoTrax Xr Is a Budget Electric Scooter You Won’t Outgrow
There’s nothing like challenging a buddy to a game to get your competitive juices flowing. Here are some of the best multi-game apps and websites to play with friends online.
Instead of downloading several different apps or signing up for lots of websites, the simpler way is to use apps that already have multiple games in them. One account, many games, and the ability to play with friends—what’s not to like about that?
From playing card games online with friends to recreating tabletop games, strap in for some player vs. player action.
You might enjoy playing games online with friends, but what do you do when they’re busy? Plato focuses on making new friends as you play with a strong and smooth chat messaging feature, and “social lounges” to meet like-minded people.
Social Lounges are Plato’s version of chat rooms. Scroll through the list to find people from your area, your country, or with similar interests. Join a room and you might just find a new friendship over the internet.
In each game, there’s a “type here to chat” window at the bottom. Press it to see your chat overlaid on the current game, and use your main phone keyboard. It’s the best implementation of chatting in mobile games that we’ve seen.
Once you sign up, you can join or create any game. Plato has more than 30 social games, including excellent versions of pool, table soccer, Ocho (same as Uno), and mini-golf. The physics, graphics, and gameplay are smooth as butter, so when the game is functioning well, it feels nice to chat along with the opponent.
Download: Plato for Android | iOS (Free)
PlayingCards.io is the best version of playing card games with friends online. The website has a few game templates ready, and you can customize the table and card deck to create any card game you want. No one needs to sign-up or download anything to use it.
On the canvas or table, you can add a standard 52-card deck, an empty cardholder, other types of card decks, a spinner for turns, a counter, and so on. Set it up how you want, and share the link to play with friends online. Once the friends join, they can control what is happening on the screen too. All movements are synced.
Now, here’s the catch. You need to know the rules of the card game, the website isn’t going to teach you or restrict wrong moves as many apps do. Think of it like having a deck of cards with you, just virtually. PlayingCards.io also doesn’t have built-in chat, so you’ll need to set that up in a second window or device.
Compared to a lot of other apps, PlayingCards.io is more work. But the simplicity and customization make it feel more homely, which is what you often want with card games, right?
Bunch combines video chat and video gaming into one slick app. You need to register with a Facebook account to use it and invite your friends to join before it can work. Once that’s set up, choose from one of Bunch’s built-in games or other games you have installed on your phone or tablet.
That’s one of the cool things about Bunch. By including support for other apps, it doesn’t restrict what you play. Many popular games already work with Bunch, including Monopoly, PUBG, Uno, Ludo King, Scrabble Go, and Chess. Of course, you and your friends will both need to have these games already installed on your phone.
You can have up to eight people on a video call in Bunch. The video calling is smooth, but low-resolution so that the gameplay and calling can work well simultaneously. The game itself plays just like normal, but only in a miniaturized window inside the Bunch app, while you also get to see your friends’ video calls.
Download: Bunch for Android | iOS (Free)
A large collection of classic board games is waiting to be played online at Board Game Arena (BGA). It’s the simplest way to play games with your friends in your browser. Create an account, ask your friends to create one too, and add them.
You can start or join a game for free. The collection of games at BGA includes Carcassonne, Connect Four, Battleships, Yahtzee, Terra Mystica, Lost Cities, Clans of Caledonia, and many more. In case you aren’t familiar with any game, you can learn the rules on the website itself, and even play a trial game against AI.
BGA allows both real-time games as well as turn-by-turn games which you can play at your own leisure. It also has a simple chat window, and tracks all moves played so far. You can disconnect and reconnect easily, and can also play against random strangers online.
Try it out, you’ll see why Board Game Arena is one of the best websites to play free board games online.
Don’t have a video game console to play games against friends on the TV? Couch Friends makes games that you can play at a party, with as many friends as you want. Everyone plays on their phones, and all you need is a smart TV or a computer screen that all players can see.
Here’s how it works. Visit Couch Friends from the browser of the main screen, and choose from one of the five games: Bombergirl, Breakout, Space Shooter, Football, and Asteroids. They’ll all feel instantly familiar as they’re recreations of classic games. The chosen game creates a new room with a unique code.
Then visit Couch Friends on your phone’s browser and enter the code. The phones become remote controls for the game playing on the big screen. It’s like you’re playing on a video game console with your friends!
When you want to quickly play a game online with friends, the best option is to go for a browser-based game. No one has to install anything, and most of them don’t even need you to sign up.
Here are some of the best free browser games to play online with friends, whether you’re on the same computer or miles apart.
Read the full article: 5 Free Multi-Game Apps and Websites to Play With Friends Online
Bloomberg:
Sources: ARM ousted ARM China CEO Allen Wu after discovering that he had set up a competing investment fund; Wu maintains he is still in charge of ARM China — - Chinese corporation rules mean he will be difficult to remove — Wu maintains he is still in charge of Arm China Joint Venture
“Da 5 Bloods,” the new Netflix film co-written and directed by Spike Lee, tells the story of four Black veterans who return to Vietnam decades after the war, in search of hidden gold and the body of their long-dead squad leader.
The film seems to straddle several genres, starting out as a drama focused on the relationship between the four older men — but it becomes more of a western as it progresses, and their conversations are increasingly punctuated by brutal violence.
Whatever the genre, “Da 5 Bloods” is openly polemical — emphasizing the war’s lingering scars on both American veterans and Vietnam — and formally audacious. It mixes different visual styles to stunning effect, while also casually demonstrating a superior alternative to the expensive de-aging effects seen in last year’s big Netflix movie “The Irishman.” And It’s all held together by Delroy Lindo’s magnificent performance as Paul, the “blood” who seems most tormented by his memories of the war.
In addition to reviewing the film, we use the free release of HBO’s “Watchmen” this weekend as an excuse to talk about how much we like the show.
You can listen to our review in the player below, subscribe using Apple Podcasts or find us in your podcast player of choice. If you like the show, please let us know by leaving a review on Apple. You can also follow us on Twitter or send us feedback directly. (Or suggest shows and movies for us to review!)
If you’d like to skip ahead, here’s how the episode breaks down:
0:00 Intro
0:31 “Watchmen” discussion
5:16 “Da 5 Bloods” review
23:30 “Da 5 Bloods” spoiler discussion
Over the past few months, COVID-19 has brought much of the fundraising community to a standstill. However, amidst it all India’s hyper0growth telco Reliance Jio Platforms has put its fundraising efforts into full gear.
Over the past three months, Jio has raised over $15.5 billion from a cohort of investors that include prominent financial institutions like KKR and Silver Lake Partners, massive sovereign wealth funds like Saudi Arabia’s Public Investment Fund, and some of the biggest names in tech including Facebook.
The recent deals have cemented Mukesh Ambani’s ambition to make his oil-to-retails giant Reliance Industries (India’s most valuable firm) a top homegrown internet giant.
On Friday, he said he plans to publicly list Reliance Jio Platforms and Reliance Retail, the largest retail chain in the country — also controlled by him — in the next five years.
As Reliance Jio Platforms, which has become the India’s top telecom operator with over 388 million subscribers in less than four years, continues its funding spree, at Extra Crunch we are doubling down on our focus on covering everything Jio from here and out.
As we’ve attempted to get up to speed on the company, we’ve compiled a supplemental list of resources and readings that we believe are particularly helpful for learning the story of Jio, which remains a mysterious firm to many.
Aaron Mackey / Electronic Frontier Foundation:
Proposals by Sen. Hawley and the DOJ to amend Section 230 protections would violate the First Amendment and bury tech platforms in legal cost and liability risk — Whether we know it or not, all Internet users rely on multiple online services to connect, engage, and express themselves online.
