Specializing in Computer Repair, Networking, Internet Solutions, Web Designing, Hybrid App Designing and Windows Operating systems.
Will Oremus / OneZero :
A look at some radical proposals for creating better social networks, from establishing sites as nonprofits to restrictions on data collection — An offhand tweet sparked an outpouring of ideas to fix what's broken about Facebook and Twitter — Welcome back to Pattern Matching …
Greg Thomson / Decrypt:
Voice, a blockchain-based social media site on EOS that rewards users with tokens for posting “quality content”, is now open for the public to browse — After months of delays, and a $150 million cash injection, the EOS-based Voice platform is now open for viewing. — EOS — In brief:
Manuel Vonau / Android Police:
Indian ISPs start restoring access to DuckDuckGo after blocking the service via their DNS servers starting July 1; it is unclear why the service was blocked — Following the Indian ban of almost 60 Chinese apps including TikTok and Weibo, many people living in the country now report …
Sankalp Phartiyal / Reuters:
India's TikTok ban resulted in a surge in popularity for Indian apps like Roposo, Mitron, and Chingari; Roposo says it has added 22M users in 48 hours — NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Indian tech and entertainment firms are looking to capitalise on sudden opportunities arising from a government ban …
An online video conference sounds easy. You switch on your laptop and click on the virtual meeting app to start the webcam. But this remoteness and the ease of technology to connect all of us can make you oblivious to the little dos and don’ts behind meeting your colleagues on the screen.
You might struggle with the technology or the ambiance of your home. So, preparation for the meeting is just as important. Then, once you are in the meeting, your manner will be the key to elevate your presence.
In essence, online video conferences are a part of our lives now. Hate them or like them, you have to deal with them. Why not use the cheat sheet below to make the best of these video meetings?
FREE DOWNLOAD: This cheat sheet is available as a downloadable PDF from our distribution partner, TradePub. You will have to complete a short form to access it for the first time only. Download Online Video Conferencing Essentials.
| Preparation | |
|---|---|
| Heed the Dress Code | Treat an online meeting like an in-person meeting and follow workplace standards. |
| Take care of your grooming before you sit down for the meeting. | |
| Project a professional face as it adds a sense of normalcy to a remote conversation. | |
| Avoid distracting colors that are too bright or too dark. It can throw off some webcams that auto-adjust exposure and brightness. | |
| Face the camera with a good posture. | |
| Set Up Your Equipment | Choose a comfortable chair to sit on. |
| Use a monitor that lets you see slides and spreadsheets easily. (A smartphone screen is good for a casual meeting but not for viewing data.) | |
| Invest in a good noise-canceling headset. | |
| Familiarize yourself with the chat software you have to use. Pay special attention to settings you might need during the meeting. | |
| Avoid backlighting as it can obscure your face. Natural light or overhead lights are ideal. | |
| Nothing is as important as good bandwidth. Anything less than 20MBPS can pixelate your video. | |
| If the meeting is critical, keep an alternate connection ready. For instance, you can set up an independent WiFi hotspot. | |
| Close unnecessary background applications and stop simultaneous streaming programs in your browser. | |
| Place your webcam at eye level so that you can make eye contact with others in your team. | |
| Be your own tech support or test your equipment with a colleague a few minutes before the real meeting. | |
| Switch on your webcam and preview the frame and the effect of light indoors. More light is better. | |
| Disable notifications for the course of the meeting. | |
| If you plan to share your screen, be sure to keep personal data out of the way. | |
| Spruce Up Your Environment | Mute your mobile phone to avoid interruptions. |
| Clean up your room and desk. | |
| Scan your background and ensure there’s nothing inappropriate. | |
| Choose a virtual background in apps like Microsoft Teams and Zoom to hide cluttered backgrounds. | |
| Have water and tea/coffee handy. | |
| Choose an isolated space, preferably with a door, so that you can hold a meeting without distractions. | |
| Inform your family about the meeting schedule beforehand. | |
| Ensure that your children will remain occupied for the duration of your meeting. | |
| Keep your pets away from your meeting area. | |
| Manage Your Time | Schedule online meetings well in advance. |
| Be on time always. It helps to be online a few minutes before the meeting starts. | |
| If you cannot attend the meeting or will be late for it, inform the person leading the meeting in advance. | |
| Switch on or activate your conferencing equipment beforehand to avoid last minute glitches. | |
| Avoid participating in an online meeting while driving. It is neither safe nor an efficient use of your meeting time. | |
| Consider an audio meeting as a last resort. | |
| Organize Your Thoughts | If you’ll be leading the meeting, set an agenda with start and end times. |
| Keep all your data next to you or in an accessible folder on your computer. | |
| Bookmark anything relevant to the meeting. | |
| Declutter your desktop to keep the right information accessible at a glance. | |
| Jot down your queries so you can introduce them at the right time. | |
| Share content and files before the meeting to ensure all participants are prepared for the discussion. | |
| Participation | |
| Mind Your Manners | Introduce yourself when all team members are not familiar with each other. |
| Always use video because facial expressions convey your thoughts in the absence of other gestures. | |
| Use visual cues (like a raised palm) to signal that you want to speak. | |
| Participate by speaking clearly into the microphone. Staying silent or disabling your webcam is just like being a chair filler in a real meeting. | |
| Mute your microphone when you are not speaking as it can pick up a lot of background noise. | |
| If you need to move around in the middle of a meeting for personal tasks, switch off your video to avoid causing a distraction. | |
| Wait for the other person to finish speaking as time lags over the web can often cause team members to speak over each other. | |
| Stay Present | Avoid multitasking or drifting off to Facebook or Twitter when you’re in a meeting. |
| Don't eat during a meeting. Sipping water or a beverage like tea or coffee is okay. | |
| To make eye contact with a meeting participant, look into the camera and not at the person’s face or their background. | |
| Use the text chat feature if available as a support for queries and for linking to relevant documents. | |
| Say goodbye with a smile at the end of the meeting. A casual chat on non-work topics also helps wrap up meetings on a cheerful note. | |
| If you’ve been leading the meeting, ensure that you log off last. | |
Of course, it’s not all about technology. Some simple social graces can boost your presence in any online meeting. After all, video conferences are more “in your face” as everyone is visible on the screen. The video helps but the small frame isn’t enough to showcase your body language or emotions as you confab with your team.
That’s why all the above nuances are critical regardless of the online meeting tool you choose to collaborate with your team. In short, to get online video meeting etiquette right, don’t do anything you wouldn’t do in an actual meeting.
Image Credit: Visuals on Unsplash
Read the full article: Essential Tips for Online Video Conferencing
Pei Li / Reuters:
Tencent launches US game studio LightSpeed LA, to create AAA titles and increase overseas share of its total games revenue, which accounted for 23% in Q4 2019 — HONG KONG (Reuters) - Tencent Holdings, China's biggest social media and video game company, launched a new California-based studio this week …
Welcome back to This Week in Apps, the Extra Crunch series that recaps the latest OS news, the applications they support and the money that flows through it all.
The app industry is as hot as ever, with a record 204 billion downloads and $120 billion in consumer spending in 2019. People are now spending three hours and 40 minutes per day using apps, rivaling TV. Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus.
In this Extra Crunch series, we help you keep up with the latest news from the world of apps, delivered on a weekly basis.
This week, we’re tracking the continued ramifications of the in-app purchases incident ignited by Basecamp, which has emboldened more developers to voice their gripes with Apple publicly in the past few days. The app stores are also this week enmeshed in world of politics, ranging from the India-China border dispute to apps impacted by China’s big brother-esque regulations to the latest with Apple’s antitrust probe.
In a major upset to mobile app businesses competing on a global stage, India this week blocked 59 apps developed by Chinese firms, due to concerns that the apps were engaging in activities that threatened the “national security and defense of India,” according to the Indian government.
The ban itself is a political power move as it follows deadly clashes between Indian and Chinese troops along the disputed Himalayan border in June, which led to the death of at least 20 Indian soldiers on June 16. (China didn’t disclose its casualties.) Indian government officials claimed they had received reports of the apps stealing and transmitting user data in an unauthorized manner to servers outside the country. This is what necessitated the ban, they said.
India’s move could prove to have larger repercussions, as it sets the stage for a world where Chinese internet companies are excluded from key markets. This isn’t something that’s limited to apps, of course. For instance, the U.S. is rallying its allies to stop using Huawei technologies for 5G. But China’s policies could mean its more successful apps, like TikTok, will lose key markets and therefore, forfeit revenue and power.
The move to ban the Chinese apps in India most notably impacts TikTok. To date, India had been the app’s largest overseas market until now, with some 200M+ users across around 611M lifetime downloads. In the most recent quarter, TikTok and the 58 other banned apps combined, had been downloaded around 330M times. The ban is estimated to impact roughly one in three smartphone users in India, according to research firm Counterpoint.
Google and Apple began to comply with New Delhi’s order on Thursday, to prevent Indian users from accessing the banned apps. In addition, India’s Department of Telecommunications ordered telecom networks and ISPs to block access to those 59 apps immediately.
Kevin Mayer, the chief executive of TikTok, said on Wednesday his app was in compliance with Indian privacy and security requirements and he was looking forward to meeting with various stakeholders in the Indian government to discuss.
Bloomberg:
Colin Huang, the CEO of Chinese e-commerce company Pinduoduo, steps down; the company says he will remain chairman and work on long-term strategy — - PDD shares have more than quadrupled in less than two years — Huang gives away $14 billion stake after stepping down as CEO
Email spam is an unavoidable nuisance of online life. And while your email provider probably does a good job of filtering out junk, you might wonder how to report email fraud if you receive a particularly shady message.
Let’s take a look at how to report email fraud to the proper resources.
First, we’ll look at what government agencies you should report fraud to, based on where you live.
If you receive a fraudulent email and live in the United States, you can report it to both the FBI and the FTC.
For the FBI, visit the IC3 (Internet Crime Complaint Center). There, you can file a complaint. Click the FAQ link to see some details about what a complaint entails. The page is intended for people who have been victims of online crime, but you can fill out the details even if you haven’t fallen for anything.
Next, you should also consider filing a complaint with the FTC. Select a category from the left side and walk through the steps to put your report into the correct category.
Finally, you can also report email fraud to your state’s consumer protection office. Visit USA.gov’s State Consumer Protection Offices page to find the information for your state.
Residents of Canada should head to the Canadian Anti-Fraud Centre’s Report fraud page. This will walk you though reporting what happened.
Note that you’ll need to sign in with an approved partner account (such as a bank) or create a new GCKey account.
If you live in the UK, the National Cyber Security Centre asks that you forward phishing emails to the Suspicious Email Reporting Service: report@phishing.gov.uk.
You also have the option of reporting it to Action Fraud using the online form.
Those in Australia should head to the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s Scamwatch form.
While it’s a good idea to let the appropriate authorities about email fraud, it’s not the only step you can take. Agencies like the FBI probably won’t respond to what you file using their forms, and they can’t help you recover money if you handed it over to scammers.
If you receive a fraudulent email pretending to be from a certain company, you should report it to the real company. You’ll find contact info for most businesses on their website, and some have a dedicated email address for forwarding fraudulent messages.
For instance, Amazon’s suspicious communication page has instructions for reporting scam messages. It asks you to forward fraud emails to stop-spoofing@amazon.com. PayPal requests that you forward fake emails to spoof@paypal.com.
Hopefully, the company in question can have a team look into the specific scam in an attempt to shut it down. If many people report it, they’ll be more likely to start investigating.
The last step of reporting scam emails is to let the email service know. Companies like Google and Microsoft don’t want malicious users taking advantage of their services to rip people off.
Most email services have an option for reporting phishing messages, as well as options to report accounts that break the rules. Let’s look at a few of the most popular ones.
In Gmail, you can click the three-dot menu to the right of any message and choose Report phishing. This will remove the email from your inbox and report the danger to Google.
If the fraudulent email came from a Gmail address, you can also use the Gmail abuse reporting form. This helps Google investigate people using the service for illicit means.
Unfortunately, Yahoo Mail doesn’t have simple reporting tools like Gmail does. You can mark an email as spam in your Yahoo Mail account, but there’s no option to report fraud or phishing.
Yahoo’s help pages direct you to Yahoo Support to report security issues, but at the time of writing, this wasn’t working properly. Your results with it may vary.
If you use Outlook on the web, open an email and select Junk > Phishing > Report to let Microsoft know about the problem.
Microsoft has a dedicated email address for reporting phishing. Create a new email message and drag the scam message into it to add it as an attachment. Then send the message to phish@office365.microsoft.com so the company can take a look.
Microsoft also has a special page for reporting tech support scams.
If you receive a particularly nasty phishing email, it’s wise to report it using the above channels. Doing so will increase the chance that authorities take action against it.
Unfortunately, it’s hard to be optimistic about this. Due to the nature of email fraud, it’s very difficult to shut down scammers who use this method. The email provider may be able to cut off someone’s access, but that won’t stop them from opening another account and continuing on.
With just an email address to go on, government authorities probably won’t be able to shut down a scam operation. Email addresses are disposable, and the scammers can use VPNs and other methods to hide their location so you can’t trace the email.
This is why gift cards are such a common method of payment for scams. Compared to wiring someone money, gift card codes are essentially impossible to trace. As a result, requesting payment via gift cards is one of the telltale signs of phone scams.
If you or a loved one ever fall victim to email fraud, you can use these methods to explain what happened and hopefully get help. But in most cases, that money is gone. That’s why it’s vital to stay up-to-date on current scams and know how to spot email phishing.
The best defense against email fraud is a healthy caution of everything you receive.
We’ve seen where you can report email fraud to government agencies, companies, and email service providers. Making more people aware of fraud is important, but it’s also very difficult to shut down scam operations before they pop back up.
If you also get similar messages on your phone, find out how to report spam text messages next.
Read the full article: How to Report Email Fraud and Spam to Authorities
If you’re looking for a monitor upgrade, you’ll first need to establish your budget. Once you have that settled, you can narrow down which monitor you’re after, ranging from an entry-level product to splashing out on a luxury purchase.
Whether you’re after an affordable device or want to go all-out, here are the best ultrawide monitors for every budget.
First of all, let’s explore a model that won’t break the bank: the VIOTEK GNV34DBE. Despite having a gaming focus, it doesn’t hike up the price to appeal to avid gamers. It’s priced at a highly affordable level that makes it an ideal entry point for those curious about 1440p ultrawide monitors.
Even though it’s a relatively cheap widescreen monitor, it doesn’t skimp on the quality. For the price, you get a 1440p resolution, a 34-inch screen, and a screen curvature for further immersion. You can either place it on the monitor stand or mount it to a wall, depending on which would suit your space best.
Despite the monitor being one of the best in its price bracket, it’s still covered by some great protective plans. VIOTEK offers a three-year warranty plan for this monitor, which also comes with a “no dead pixels” policy. Should a dreaded dead pixel appear, VIOTEK will replace it.
While the above monitor is perfectly fine for gaming, you can pay a little more for a few more features while still respecting your bank balance. The LG 34GL750-B 34-inch Ultragear has some nice extras for both Radeon and Nvidia users, so you’re in luck regardless of which you use.
If you use Radeon, this monitor supports FreeSync, which helps remove screen tearing while you game. It also supports Nvidia’s equivalent of this technology, G-SYNC. Aside from this, the monitor has some nice touches that come in handy when gaming.
For instance, its 1ms motion blur reduction keeps the action crystal-clear so you can always see what’s happening. Unfortunately, it’s a little lacking in the resolution department. While other ultrawide monitors use a 1440p resolution, this one only goes up to 1080p. As such, if the resolution is important, consider one of the other monitors on this list.
If going budget isn’t your style and you want the best that money can buy, look no further than the Alienware Curved 34-inch WQHD Monitor. This is one of the best ultrawide monitors for gaming as it is compatible with G-SYNC, has a 1440p resolution, and is curved for added immersion. On top of this, it has a 120Hz refresh rate, 2ms response time, and good color quality.
The monitor also features In-Plane Switching (IPS) technology to ensure the colors are always vibrant. IPS prevents colors from being washed out when viewed from an angle, so you can always ensure a great picture quality regardless of where you look at it from.
Finally, this Alienware monitor is perfect if you want something with a fantastic visual design. It uses the company’s Legend Industrial Design, which gives a sleek and stylish look which keeps your PC looking futuristic.
If you’re constantly changing windows while working, you’ll know the importance of having everything laid out in front of you. The Samsung 34-inch Ultrawide Monitor is impressively sized and is one of the best ultrawide monitors for work.
You may wonder why it’d be better to buy a single ultrawide monitor, rather than several smaller ones. With multiple displays, you can place a window in each one, making multitasking a breeze. This Samsung model emulates this setup using Picture-by-Picture (PBP), which allows two sources to show their inputs on each side of the screen.
You can go even further with Picture-in-Picture (PIP), which reduces the second image to 25 percent of the screen and allows you to move it around. With these two features, you can customize your monitor’s display to highlight what’s important to you.
Additionally, the 34-inch display has a ratio of 21:9, giving each window plenty of space, so your workspace won’t feel cluttered. Whether you’re doing in-depth research or coding multiple applications, this ultra-widescreen monitor is a fantastic addition to your office.
If you’re after the best ultrawide monitor on the market, you’ll be delighted with the Dell U-Series 38-inch Screen LED-Lit Monitor. The impressive 38-inch screen is coupled with an immersive design to really draw you in. That’s not to mention the fact that it comes equipped with a stunning 3840×1600 resolution.
There’s also two HDMI ports, a USB-C connection, two USB upstream powers, and one USB downstream port. As such, you can use this monitor to extend the USB ports on your computer. This is a desirable convenience if, for instance, your PC is on the floor and you have to bend down to plug in devices all the time.
The 5ms response time means that this monitor isn’t as suited to gaming as the the Alienware WQHD. However, for all other graphical or media tasks, it’s a dream. If you’re after an immersive ultrawide screen, then the Dell U-Series 38-inch monitor might be right for you.
If you’re interested in an ultrawide monitor, there’s a device here to suit your needs. Whether you’re after a performance improvement or a high-value investment, there’s an ultrawide monitor for you.
That said, even casual gamers might find themselves more interested in the best 4K gaming monitors for all budgets instead. We’ve also explained the differences between LCD and LED displays.
Read the full article: The 5 Best Ultrawide Monitors for All Budgets in 2020
No matter how old or young you are, or how intelligent you think you may be, it’s important to exercise your brain regularly. Thankfully, there are lots of fun ways to do that. One of which is to play multiplayer brain games with your friends.
These mobile games will test your gray matter, and let you show off your knowledge and skills to anyone willing to play with you. So, can you beat your friends at one of these awesome multiplayer brain games? They’re all free to play.
Mazes can make for great brain exercise game and the bigger the maze, the more challenging it is. Maze King is a great game for showing off your solving skills against others. Play through the Stage Mode to get the hang of the game, then head to the Multiplayer Mode to take on a friend.
You can invite friends with a tap that will send a link to the game via text message. Or, you can compete against a random player if you prefer.
Download: Maze King for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
Chess Time is a terrific mobile option for playing pals around the world. The game offers different background colors to choose from, leaderboards by country and rating, and a timer to see how long the challenge lasts. You can also enable options such as the quick chat keyboard, coordinates display, and valid move color.
Connecting with friends is easy: You can search for a player if you know their username or send an invitation to them via email or text.
Download: Chess Time for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
If you prefer to take on your Facebook friends in a game of chess, then Chess With Friends Free is the way to go. Search for one of your pals or find a player by username. You can enable chat notifications, show yourself available to other players, and make yourself visible on the leaderboards.
Chat while you play or just concentrate on the game. You can also discover a new opponent and view the leaderboard for the month.
Download: Chess With Friends Free for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
Skillz – Logical Brain is an excellent way to train your brain alone, but is even better against others. The app has a variety of brain teasers for you to pick from or you can play a random game.
Start off level one by picking a friend, once you sign into Google (on Android). Then, show off your skills in puzzles and challenges that put your memory, reflexes, accuracy, and speed to the test.
You can type a message to other players who are waiting in rooms to play and see where you stand on the leaderboard.
Download: Skillz – Logical Brain for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
QuizUp is an enjoyable trivia games with a huge variety of topics. You can pick from business, education, history, and science. Or see who knows the most about sports, games, television, and music. The trick is to answer quickly and correctly in a round of questions. Move up the levels as you annihilate your pals in this battle of wits.
You can connect easily using Facebook and then search for friends who have the game installed. After you play a round, tap the chat button to gloat to your buddy about how you just outscored them.
Download: QuizUp for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
The original Trivia Crack is still around and still a blast. Your goal is to collect a character for each of the six categories: art, history, science, sports, geography, and entertainment. To do this, continue to answer questions correctly for the category you hit when you spin the wheel.
Log into Facebook to play against friends or connect to Twitter to invite others. Trivia Crack is a turn-based game, so you can take your spin when you have time. You can also chat within the game and share your level achievements to rub in your victories.
Download: Trivia Crack for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
If you enjoyed the first Trivia Crack game, then check out Trivia Crack Kingdoms. In a royal battle against your buddies, find out who really is the brainy one in the realm of trivia.
Pick a channel topic such as sports, world history, food and drink, movies, or television shows. Then when you answer correctly, you earn crowns, striving to collect them all before your opponent does.
By connecting to Facebook, you can challenge your friends. Plus, Trivia Crack Kingdoms offers an in-app chat for a little trash talk.
Download: Trivia Crack Kingdoms for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
Words With Friends has been popular around the world for years. But if you’ve never tried it and you enjoy word games, then you must check it out. Gameplay is similar to Scrabble, where you create words with the letters you are given. The words must connect on the game board and longer words and letters with higher point values help you score bigger.
Like Chess With Friends Free and made by the same company, Words lets you play against your Facebook pals. Chat during the game, take your turn when you have a minute, and show off your smart skills with high-scoring words.
Download: Words With Friends for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
For a Words With Friends style game with cute characters, try your skills at Word Chums. With the same type of Scrabble gameplay, a colorful interface, and a cheerful experience, creating words for high scores is truly fun. Word Chums also offers power-ups for replacing all of your letters and getting high-scoring hints.
You can play against your Facebook friends, other Word Chums players, or someone in your contacts list. The game has an in-app chat for some friendly ribbing during the competition.
Download: Word Chums for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
For a different type of word game battle, Pictoword is a picture-based challenge. The concept is simple. You see two images that combine to form one word. You just have to figure out what that word is with the number of letter spaces provided.
Unlike the other games in this list, Pictoword lets you create a “family” to play against others. You will need to solve your way through many levels first, but this is great practice. Then, create your group, invite members, and chat during a break.
Download: Pictoword for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
Another brainy game to play against your friends is Infinite Word Search. The game is played in the same classic style of the word search puzzles you have seen all over the place. But Infinite Word Search lets you choose the topic for your puzzle with options like animals, countries, fashion, and many more.
If you think your word finding skills are better than your Facebook friends, connect and play a pal. In real-time gameplay, see who can find the most words the quickest. This adds quite a bit of challenge to the gameplay, especially if you are both looking for the same word at the same time.
Download: Infinite Word Search for Android | iOS (Free, in-app purchases available)
Don’t forget that there are tons of Facebook Instant Games worth playing as well. There are plenty to play alone, but what’s the fun in that when you can outscore a friend and brag about it?
Pop open your mobile Facebook app and select Gaming from the menu. Or, when you are online on a desktop or laptop, click the Home button and pick Games from the left-hand navigation.
Here are just a few brainy games you can play against your friends:
On your mobile device or online, just choose a game and hit Play.
It’s normal to love a game that you are good at. If you often outscore or simply outplay your friends, that’s even better. With these games, you can sharpen your skills and prove that you’re the smartest among your friends. So, let the brainy battle of wits begin!
For more fun games to play with friends, check out these cross-platform mobile multiplayer games.
Read the full article: 15 Multiplayer Brain Games to Play With Friends
Wall Street Journal:
Hong Kong's new national security law could force platforms like Facebook and Twitter to relinquish some of the freedom their operations have had in the city — New national-security law means authorities can ask companies to delete users or their content — HONG KONG—U.S. technology titans face …
Lauren Kaori Gurley / VICE:
Some Amazon contracted delivery drivers in the US say they are feeling overwhelmed and overworked by dramatic increases in workloads during the pandemic — Amazon's contracted delivery drivers say that their workloads have dramatically increased during the Covid-19 pandemic, in some cases more than doubling.
Kevin Roose / New York Times:
The Wild Wild Web, a shoot-first, aim-later era of tech strategy, is coming to an end, and a less willfully naïve, self-policing ethos is taking its place — The internet is changing, and the freewheeling, anything-goes culture of social media is being replaced by something more accountable.
Time is the most precious commodity. We can’t create more time, so the best we can do is to save it. Through shortcuts and hacks, these websites and apps will help save time in many activities, and it all adds up.
Technology is all about speed, isn’t it? It helps us do things faster, or enables shortcuts that get the more done in less time. The internet is here to help you gain information faster by summarizing books or YouTube videos, or level-up your computer usage by learning keyboard shortcuts. It’s all about saving time and making the best use of it.
Don’t have the time to read a full book, but still want to know its best ideas? Sipreads is a free newsletter by two people who read books and summarize their salient points. Basile Samel and Ali Salah send one new book every week, while you can browse some of the previous summaries on the website.
Sipreads focuses on self-learning books, so you won’t find a summary of the latest Dan Brown novel here. Some of the famous titles already covered include Atomic Habits, The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck, The Start-up of You, and How to Win Friends and Influence People. Nuggets of personal development wisdom in short time is the goal here.
The summaries are usually seven to ten minute reads. Both Basile and Ali have a concise writing style that turns the book’s major points into something like a Medium article, full of sub-headers and bullet points. And if you find that it works for you, then you can go read the full book. But you’re never left out of the conversation when people start discussing the book.
Writers on the internet often drone on and fluff up their writing with unnecessary words to lengthen the material and make it seem more authoritative, like this sentence. Don Patrick wants to cut the fat and give you an instant summary of any article with his AI extension.
Summarize the Internet isn’t the first extension offering this, but it takes a different approach. Patrick, an amateur language programmer with a deep interest in AI, ditched statistical methods and came up with a combination of word choice, sentence weaving, and story flow. As he explains, the target was for the summarizer to extract what the writer found important, minus what the reader finds unimportant (like introductions, examples, speculation, etc.)
After trying a few of these summary-making extensions, I can say Summarize the Internet is better at drawing out important points than others. Typically, a good article reduces to 50%, while a weak article reduces to 30% of its original length. While the extension’s pop-up pane is open, you can skim the main article in the tab too, in case you want to cross-reference.
Download: Summarize the internet for Chrome | Firefox (Free)
Someone links you to a long YouTube video. Is it actually interesting or useful? FizzD uses AI to go through the video and summarize it into chapters, highlights, and key concepts, so you can browse a video like it was an article with sub-headers.
Once you install the extension, you’ll see a “Fizz It” button next to the Share and Save buttons under the video. Click it and wait for a minute for FizzD to work its magic. Soon, the video will have a few yellow dots, marking what FizzD thinks are chapters within the long video. Hover over a dot to see the chapter title, and click to jump to it.
In the top-right corner of the video pane, you’ll see two new overlays: Highlights and Key Concepts.
Highlights is a text summary of the main points of the video, but you can’t use them as timestamps. Key Concepts show up as blue dot timestamps, so you can see where one of the main subjects was discussed in different chapters.
FizzD is a fascinating implementation of AI in videos. It doesn’t work with every YouTube video and seems to be at its best in educational videos like TED talks and webinars.
Download: Fizzd for Chrome (Free)
Stop reaching for your mouse or trackpad to go from one window to another. Just press Alt+Tab (or Command+Tab) to switch windows. The most amount of time you can save on a computer is by learning keyboard shortcuts like this.
Use the Keyboard (UTK) is a gorgeous collection of keyboard shortcuts for the most-used programs, apps, and websites in 2020. It includes guides for software like Zoom, Slack, Gmail, Notion, Chrome, Netflix, Trello, and a bunch of other offline and online apps that you use on a daily basis.
It’s especially nice that the guide includes web apps because often such keyboard shortcut guides ignore them and you have to rely on browser shortcuts alone.
With one switch, UTK can flip between Windows and macOS shortcuts. You can also check the original reference for any sheet of shortcuts, which usually comes from the developer’s official notes. UTK’s neat and tidy interface is fantastic to look at, and you might want to convert it into PDFs to print.
While UTK serves apps, it doesn’t have shortcuts for operating systems. So make sure you check out our master list of all essential Windows keyboard shortcuts, which you can also download for free.
The internet is full of food writers sharing recipes, but there’s always a long preamble, right? The mood they were in, some story about how the recipe was handed down, and all those things you don’t need. These two recipe websites are about cooking quickly without wasting time.
The Skullery simply gives you recipes quickly. No registration, no meandering preambles, it’s all about cooking immediately. Your browser will remember favorites, you can change measures on-the-fly without going to another converter, and you can quickly browse or search for anything. The recipe has step-by-step instructions, which you can cross-off within the browser app too. It just works.
Hurry The Food Up is a vegetarian cooking blog with a time-oriented approach. Speed is key here, with most recipes being under 30 minutes. And yes, that includes both prep time and cook time. Choose your type of diet, time, and meal course to filter the recipes. Hurry The Food Up is also available as an app on Android.
Download: Hurry The Food Up for Android (Free)
These apps are excellent time-saving shortcuts to many of the things you do daily. But technology is only going to go so far in freeing up time for you. If you truly want to squeeze more out of your daily 24 hours, you need to learn time management and set goals.
Read the full article: 5 Time-Saving Websites & Apps for the Best Shortcuts
