Mark Zuckerberg Tops the 2015 New Establishment List—and Snags the October Cover!

Facebook chairman and C.E.O. Mark Zuckerberg has struck deals with The New York Times and BuzzFeed to publish articles directly into users’ pages. He’s reportedly negotiating with record labels and content providers to secure rights to music videos and scripted shows. And, if he has his way, virtual reality may someday soon connect every person in the world. These are just a few of the reasons why Zuckerberg tops Vanity Fair’s 2015 New Establishment Disrupters list, a milestone the magazine celebrates by featuring the mogul on the October cover, in a photo by Annie Leibovitz.

“At 31, Mark Zuckerberg stands out as something of an elder statesman,” Vanity Fair editor Graydon Carter writes in his October editor’s letter. “He is far and away the youngest person ever to grab the top spot on the New Establishment list. He has not only proved himself as a brilliant entrepreneur; he may well become one of the great long-haul corporate leaders of the past half-century. . . . The $240 billion company he scratched out of his dorm room at Harvard is apparently just his first step toward world domination in the realm of social networking.”

The Disrupters list ranks 50 innovators who have defined the year in terms of how we interact, how we work and play, and what cultural products we consume and how. Uber’s Travis Kalanick, comedian Amy Schumer, and Instagram C.E.O. Kevin Systrom join Zuckerberg in this year’s group of wave makers. A companion list, the Powers That Be, catalogues 25 visionary executives and entertainers who have consolidated their spheres of influence while continuing to affect the culture in new ways. This year’s No. 1: Taylor Swift, who makes her first appearance on the list after using her platform to make giant companies like Apple conform to her will. She joins previously established powers that be including the Walt Disney Company’s Bob Iger; James, Rupert, and Lachlan Murdoch; and HBO’s Richard Plepler.

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Kanye would be the best US President in history

If the lead actor in 1954 classic Cattle Queen of Montana can go on to become commander-in-chief, and The Terminator can be elected to run the eighth largest economy in the world, is it really that hard to imagine successful producer, musician and entrepreneur Kanye West living it up in the Oval Office?

West’s announcement that he would be running for American presidency in 2020 has been met with such immediate ridicule you might be confused into thinking that presidential elections are something Americans take seriously. In reality, United States citizens have a propensity for electing slightly mad individuals, including one with a fetish for having Vaseline rubbed on to his head during breakfast and another who frequently exposed himself in high-level meetings.

The good news is there are plenty of reasons to get behind a West 2020 campaign.

While his biggest singles are his more mainstream pop and dance hits like Gold Digger and Stronger, he has a long and continued history as an artist unafraid to tackle social issues. He doesn’t constrain his political perspectives to his music either, famously stating on national television in 2005 that then US president George W. Bush “doesn’t care about black people”. (Bush later highlighted that moment as “the worst in his presidency”.)

By delving into some of West’s more potent, politically charged lyrics, one may be able to understand what is driving his foray into politics and what his agenda might become.

Kanye understands what is wrong with contemporary America

The system broken, the school’s closed, the prison’s open – Power (2010)

You know the kids gonna act a fool / when you stop the programs for after-school – We Don’t Care (2004)

The US has the highest incarceration rate in the world, with 2.2 million inmates. In comparison China, with a population roughly three times as large, has 1.5 million incarcerated people. West is making the simple point that spending up to five times more on locking people up compared with educating kids is a pretty silly way to run a country. A president who wants to spend more money on education than on locking millions of people in jail? The guy is too damn sensible.

Kanye is sick of gun violence

I feel the pain in my city wherever I go / 314 soldiers died in Iraq, 509 died in Chicago – Murder to Excellence (2011)

It’s time for us to stop and redefine black power / 41 souls murdered in 50 hours – Murder to Excellence (2011)

The US leads the world in mass shootings. While it has just 5% of the world’s population, it’s the location of 31% of mass shootings. Political paralysis and fighting between state and federal governments has made gun reform almost impossible, but the interesting thing about West’s attitude to violent crime is how frequently he looks deeper into the root causes. To West, addressing gun violence isn’t just about limiting access to weapons, it’s about fighting poverty and tackling a culture that glorifies violence. That’s the kind of policy rigour missing from DC.

He’s anti-war

Been a don, praying for the families lost in the storm / Bring our troops back from Iraq, keep our troops out of Iran – Power (Remix) (2010)

Not only does opposing the Iraq war put West to the left of Hillary Clinton, he’s staunchly against military adventurism in Iran. While the threat of war with Iran has receded significantly since president Obama’s landmark nuclear deal, for a period it looked almost inevitable. Props to him for taking such a firm, coherent position opposing invasion.

He’s pro-drug law reform (probably)

And if you’re losin’ your high then smoke again – Get ‘Em High (2004)

With more and more public figures declaring the war on drugs an abject failure, who better to lead the drug law reform campaign from the White House than a president who admitted to being stoned when he announced his candidature?

Now we have a decent idea of the policy agenda a West presidency could entail. But if the thought of an anti-war, drug- and gun law-reforming president who prioritises spending on education isn’t enough to get you on board team West, consider the potential context in 2020:

Donald Trump has been president for four years and declared war on pretty much everyone who isn’t white, rich and a man. He’s expanded military intervention in the Middle East and tripled the prison population by locking up undocumented migrants. Meanwhile education and health funding has been slashed in order to build a giant wall separating the US from Mexico.

Luckily, there’s one man with the ideas and vision necessary to take on president Trump. Kanye West isn’t just the president we deserve, he’s the president we need.

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Homo naledi; new human species discovered

Researchers say bones found in South African cave are Homo naledi, a new species of ancient human relative, but some experts are skeptical of find.

A huge haul of bones found in a small, dark chamber at the back of a cave in South Africa may be the remnants of a new species of ancient human relative.

Explorers discovered the bones after squeezing through a fissure high in the rear wall of the Rising Star cave, 50km from Johannesburg, before descending down a long, narrow chute to the chamber floor 40 metres beneath the surface.

The entrance chute into the Dinaledi chamber is so tight – a mere eight inches wide – that six lightly built female researchers were brought in to excavate the bones. Footage from their cameras was beamed along 3.5km of optic cable to a command centre above ground as they worked inside the cramped enclosure.

The women recovered more than 1,500 pieces of bone belonging to at least 15 individuals. The remains appear to be infants, juveniles and one very old adult. Thousands more pieces of bone are still in the chamber, smothered in the soft dirt that covers the ground.

The leaders of the National Geographic-funded projectbelieve the bones – as yet undated – represent a new species of ancient human relative. They have named the creature Homo naledi, where naledi means “star” in Sesotho, a local South African language. But other experts on human origins say the claim is unjustified, at least on the evidence gathered so far. The bones, they argue, look strikingly similar to those of early Homo erectus, a forerunner of modern humans who wandered southern Africa 1.5m years ago.

“We’ve found a new species that we are placing in the genus Homo, which is really quite remarkable,” said Lee Berger, a paleoanthropologist who led the work at the University of Witwatersrand in Johannesburg. He described the slender, small-brained creatures as “long-legged”, “pinheaded” and “gangly”. The males stood about 5ft, with females a little shorter.

Measurements of the bones show that the creature has a curious blend of ancient ape and modern human-like features. Its brain is tiny, the size of a gorilla’s. Its teeth are small and simple. The thorax is primitive and ape-like, but its hands more modern, their shape well-suited to making basic tools. The feet and ankles are built for walking upright, but its fingers are curved, a feature seen in apes that spend much of their time in the trees. The findings are reported in two papers published in the online journal eLife.

The Dinaledi chamber has been visited by explorers in the past, and the soft sediments in which the bones were found have been badly disturbed. Because the remains were not encased in rock, Berger’s team has not been able to date them. They could be 3m years old, or far more modern. No other animals were found in the chamber that might hint at when the human relative got there.

John Hawks, a researcher on the team, said that despite some of its modern features, Homo naledi probably belonged at the origins of our genus, Homo. “It’s telling us that evolutionary history was probably different to what we had imagined,” he said. Paul Dirks, another scientist involved, said that work was ongoing to establish the age of the bones. Some tests, such as carbon dating, will destroy the material, and will only be tried once the bones have been studied more closely.

Without knowing the age of the bones, some researchers see the fossils as little more than novelties. “If they are as old as two million years, then they might be early South African versions of Homo erectus, a species already known from that region. If much more recent, they could be a relic species that persisted in isolation. In other words, they are more curiosities than game-changers for now,” said William Jungers, an anthropologist at Stony Brook School of Medicine in New York.

The conclusion is not widely accepted by others. “Intentional disposal of rotting corpses by fellow pinheads makes a nice headline, but seems like a stretch to me,” said Jungers. Zollikofer agrees. “The ‘new species’ and ‘dump-the-dead’ claims are clearly for the media. None of them is substantiated by the data presented in the publications,” he said. Hawks is open to other explanations, but said that disposal made sense. “The evidence really tends to exclude the idea that they entered the chamber one at a time, alive, over some time, because we have infants, small children, and very old adults who would almost certainly not have managed to get into this chamber without being deposited there.”

Chris Stringer, head of human origins at the Natural History Museum in London, said that how the creatures reached their final resting place was a “big puzzle”.

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Startup Battlefield judges announced

TechCrunch has announced the judges of the next round of Startup Battlefield. These are kind folks tasked with picking the finalists and winner of the startup competition held at Disrupt SF. It’s a big task, but these judges are up to the challenge.

This year the competition will feature 24 young companies vying for attention and funding. At stake is the Disrupt Cup and $50,000.

The judges come from all walks of life. Some are venture capitalists and some are engineers. Some are product managers and some are technologists. But they all know what they’re talking about and are experts in their fields.

Niko Bonatsos (General Catalyst Partners)
Roelof Botha (Sequoia Capital)
Alexandra Chong (Lulu)
Jeff Clavier (SoftTech VC)
Rob Coneybeer (Shasta Ventures)
Topher Conway (SV Angel)
Cyril Ebersweiler (Chinaccelerator)
Brady Forrest (Highway1)
Pat Gallagher (CrunchFund)
Parker Harris (Salesforce)
Rob Hayes (First Round Capital)
Sarah Leary (Nextdoor)
Jess Lee (Polyvore)
Aileen Lee (Cowboy Ventures)
John Lilly (Greylock Partners)
Susan Lyne (BBG Ventures)
Komal Mangtani (Uber)
Matthew Panzarino (TechCrunch)
Peter Pham (Science)
Brian Pokorny (SV Angel)
David Prager (The Assembly)
Julie Sandler (Madrona Ventures Group)
Beth Seidenberg (Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers)
M.G. Siegler (Google Ventures)
Debbie Sterling (GoldieBlox)
Sarah Tavel (Greylock Partners)
Halle Tecco (Rock Health)
Hans Tung (GGV Capital)
Matt Turck (FirstMark Capital)
Michelle Zatlyn (CloudFlare)

What is Battlefield?

Startup Battlefield brings the world’s top early stage startups together on one stage to compete for the coveted Disrupt Cup, a $50,000 prize, and the attention of media and investors. The judges include TechCrunch editors as well as top VCs and entrepreneurs, and past winners include names like Dropbox, Mint, Yammer and many more. Participation is entirely free and open.

Sponsors help make Disrupt happen. If you are interested in learning more about sponsorship opportunities, please contact the sponsorship team at sponsors@techcrunch.com.

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Fender Goes Digital So You Don’t Quit Guitar

Ninety percent of people trying to learn guitar quit in the first year. That’s a big problem for the musical instrument industry, but also a big opportunity for one of the top guitar makers — Fender. If Fender can use digital tools like a new tuner app it’s building to keep musicians engaged, it stands to sell them a lot more guitars, amplifiers and more over their lifetime.

That’s why today Fender is announcing the hiring of one of the smartest people in music tech, Ethan Kaplan, as its new Chief Digital Products Officer.

Kaplan was a long-time SVP of technology for Warner Bros. Records before helping start Live Nation Labs, a tech arm for the concert ticket giant. He spent the last seven months as the general manager of audio fingerprinting pioneer Gracenote.

I’ve seen Kaplan speak at music tech conferences, and his no B.S. attitude about what will and won’t work is refreshing in an industry of pipe dreamers. Few have Kaplan’s historical context mixed with modern understanding that’s necessary to see how music will evolve in the face of technology.

Kaplan tells me he’s aiming to build a complement to Fender’s big instrument sales business by using technology to ease “the journey from being a beginner to intermediate to being an advanced player.” To do that, Kaplan says “we’ve got to listen to players” to find out what they need.

Fender’s recently hired CEO Andy Mooney explains that “We have a problem getting the consumers who buy their first guitar to commit for life.” If Fender succeeds in keeping up a musician’s momentum, they’ll end up earning a ton of money buying multiple guitars and amps. “We just need to reduce abandonment of first-time players by 10% to double the industry,” Mooney believes.

I tried learning guitar when I was 15, but got frustrated because I couldn’t find super easy songs to play with the few chords I knew. Without the satisfaction of hearing real songs come out of my instrument, I quit. It was almost 10 years before I picked up the axe again, and I only stuck with it because I stumbled upon some exceedingly easy tabs for tunes by a singer I love, Bright Eyes.

Mooney had a similar experience. Growing up he was “struggling” because he couldn’t figure out how to play his favorite song. It was 20 years before he figured out it was in a different tuning. Fender wants to deconstruct these obstacles.

Eventually, the company wants to build apps for guitar tablature (basic instructions for how to play songs), track downloads, and deeper music education. But the first step in Fender’s digital transformation will be a new guitar tuning app Kaplan is building.

Breaking out in this crowded vertical won’t be easy. There are already slews of popular indepedently developed tuning apps, as well as ones from music powerhouses like Gibson. Fender will have to work hard to differentiate itself.

That’s where Kaplan’s knowledge of software and networks comes in. He’s working on an identity layer to link the tuning app with future Fender digital products. This way, Fender can learn about a musician and then personalize each experience.

For example, if the tuner knows what kind of music you like, it could recommend different tuning configurations to try. Or if it knows what you’re tuned to or what chords you know how to play, it could suggest tabs for songs you’ll be able to quickly learn. If Fender’s apps can hear your play or at least know how frequently you do, it could recommend you buy new guitar strings or one of its effects pedals. Shortcuts from app to app to products could keep players in the Fender ecosystem.

“It’s not just about making a tuning app, then another app, and another,” Kaplan says. “It’s about how do we build a product that does something more and enables the overall journey, not just the utility. It looks like the ties that bind a bunch of products together.”

Outside of tuners, the landscape becomes more chaotic and rife with potential for Fender. Most tabs online aren’t verified as accurate, and musicians spend hours coming through mediocre tutorial videos on YouTube looking for assistance. They’re eager to learn all the skills necessary, and Mooney says “We think we’re uniquely suited to connect those dots.”

You might expect the rise of DJing and Electronic Dance Music to be causing hard times for analog instrument makers like Fender. But it turns out traditional instrument sales are still growing, albeit slowly. Mooney says Taylor Swift is inspiring a new generation of young women to pick up a Fender Stratocaster. If Kaplan’s tools can make Swift’s songs easier to learn, those fans might put more guitars in the “Blank Space” on their wish list.

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Camera+, The Third-Party Camera App With 14 Million Users, Goes Free

Tap tap tap, the company behind the popular third-party camera app Camera+, is making its flagship application free today. The app, which has grown over the years to reach 14 million users and $18 million in sales, has capitalized on Apple iPhone users’ demand for an expanded set of photography-related features that take advantage of the high-quality cameras found on their device. But until now, Camera+ has only been available to users as a paid download.

That changes today as tap tap tap is introducing a free version of the app that includes most of the functions offered by the paid app, which will continue to be available for those who want immediate access to the complete Camera+ feature set. This includes things like the stabilizer, tools for setting exposure and focus, digital zoom, timer, front flash, a clarity feature, lightbox, scene modes, effects and other editing and sharing features.

14 million users and Camera+ goes free

Meanwhile, the free version will make a select number of the advanced features available via in-app purchase, including manual shooting, advanced editing, and lossless TIFF quality, for example.

Alongside the launch of the free app, paid app users will receive a number of smaller improvements via an update, including the ability to take a macro pic via the app’s Today Widget.

Both apps will also soon support the new iPhone 6s and 6s Plus from the day they’re available.

Many app makers believe that offering a free version of their app will hamper sales of their paid version, which is why they’ll often roll out stripped-down, “lite” versions of the app as a way to encourage users to upgrade to the full experience.

In fact, explains tap tap tap founder John Casasanta, that was the company’s original plan when they first started experimenting with a free version of Camera+ around three years ago. But the project was never a top priority, and little progress was made.

Then last year, tap tap tap ran a big promotion with Apple which made the app – the full version – available for free on the App Store. And what the company discovered was surprising.

 14 million users and Camera+ goes free

“With the Apple promotion, we definitely were concerned that giving away the full version for free could potentially hurt sales,” explains Casasanta. “We still decided that it would’ve been worth the risk to try it out and when we did, we were pleasantly surprised to find out that it actually helped sales as we got a significant spike during the promotion and afterward.”

That experience then prompted the company to refocus on developing the free version of Camera+, which is available today.

The change to the Camera+ business model comes at a time when paid apps are on the decline, and more developers are monetizing their apps using advertising or in-app purchases. This trend was spotted back in 2013, in fact, when Flurry noted that developers had been experimenting with various price points over the past few months, but most finally made the shift to free apps supported by in-app purchases.

14 million users and Camera+ goes free

A subsequent 2014 report by Millennial Media [disclosure: also owned by TechCrunch parentAOL/Verizon] noted that paid app downloads fell to 34% from 45% last year, while in-app purchases grew from 33 percent to 40 percent.

In other words, the paid app market has been undergoing a shift for some time, and this is one of the early movers’ attempts to adapt to the more popular business models that consumers have since embraced.

The free version of Camera+ is live here on iTunes, while the paid, feature-complete version is here ($2.99 iPhone).

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Facebook Gives Verified Profiles Its Mentions App With “Live” Streaming And Posts Just To Followers

Journalists might start sharing a lot more of their links to Facebook, as now they can finally opt out of spamming their friends and instead only post to their public followers.

Today, journalists and other Verified Profiles on Facebook are getting access to theMentions iOS app previously reserved for Verified Pages, as we reported they would. It includes Periscope-esque Live streaming and Reddit AMA-style Q&A features normal users don’t have. But it’s the newfound ability to only post to followers, not friends, that could have the biggest impact on Facebook.

Making Self-Promotion Less Awkward

Facebook launched its Twitterish Subscribe feature in late 2011, allowing average users to rack up followers who aren’t their friends, but would see their public posts. The problem was that to share to your followers, you also had to share to your friends. I railed against Facebook to change this.

For many journalists like me, this was uncomfortable. People didn’t necessarily become our friends because they wanted to blasted with all our articles and videos. But that is why people follow us. Only being able to share public posts to all of them at once made it look like we were trying to use our friends just to gain traffic.

This created a serious chilling effect on journalists sharing what they’ve created. While on Twitter, most feel no remorse about posting links to their work. But on Facebook, some like me would only share their most important or widely accessible work.

Facebook, The Direct News Source

Now journalists with Verified Profiles and anyone else with the distinction will be free to share as much of their work as they want just to their followers without thrusting it on their friends. In the Mentions app when composing a status update, Verified Profiles can use an audience privacy selector to post publicly and be visible to everyone, but only appear in the News Feeds of followers, not friends. They can also still use the standard public posting to everyone’s News Feed.

I know that I plan to share a lot more of my TechCrunch articles to my Facebook followers now. As a whole, this could make news on Facebook seem much more personal. Rather than primarily coming from Pages representing the outlets, the journalists themselves will be better able to transmit current events.

Facebook Mention manager Vadim Lavrusik concurs, telling me “You probably have content that only your followers will be interested in, and one of the things we really hope this will enable is…to actually nurture that audience by being able to target content specifically to them…actually speak to that audience.”

This could help Facebook in its quest to compete with Twitter as a social news hub. The more readership it can drive with the News Feed, the more that news outlets become reliant on Facebook. That makes them more likely to adopt programs like fast-loading Instant Articles, or buy Facebook ads.

 

Mentions For More (Not All)

Facebook launched Mentions in July 2014, but only made it available to Verified Pages like news outlets and popular bands. It allowed for more nimble monitoring of mentions, comments, and wall posts, plus made it easy to jump in to the discussion of big trending topics. The only truly unique feature was Q&A. But without much more, it wasn’t exactly critical.

But with last month’s launch of Facebook’s mobile live stream broadcasting feature “Live” that competes with Periscope and Meerkat, Mentions became a lot more important. The feature is only available in Mentions.

Live lets VIPs start a live stream broadcast that appears in the News Feed of their followers and triggers a notification for fans who’ve recently interacted with them. Viewers can respond in real-time with comments that appear overlaid on the broadcaster’s screen.

Afterwards, the streams turn into saved videos that people can watch on Facebook unless the broadcaster deletes them, unlike Meerkat where streams disappear immediately and Periscope where they’re only replayable for 24 hours. Broadcasters also get analytics on their streams.

Lavrusik tells me “Live’s been going really well. Particularly, why we wanted to make this available as quickly as possible is because we have a lot of demand from journalists.” The company even published some tips for live streaming. [If you want to check out my first Live stream where I discuss the impact of these changes on Facebook, click here.]

While it’s still only on iOS, now Verified Profiles will be allowed to log in to Mentions. Lavrusik says Facebook is constantly adding more accounts to the Verified Profiles program and there are currently “thousands”. Journalists, celebrities, and public figures can apply to be verified here.

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NASA Created A Self-Healing Material that Heals in less than One Second

NASA has Created a Healing-Wonder… I didn’t believe it myself. Thought it could only be found in the movie, ‘The Terminator‘ but researchers at NASA’s Langley Research Center are considering new materials that can self-recuperate in seconds under compelling temperatures and from flying space junk. Yes! It really does.

NASA has Created a Healing-Wonder

The exploration is a blend of work from an understudy on cooperation at NASA from the University of Michigan and almost 10 years and-an a large portion of study on self-mending materials for both flying machines and shuttles.

NASA researchers said it meets expectations much like a cut recuperating in the body, yet speedier. The naturally planned polymers react to fiery occasions, for example, space debris – or bullets – quickly hitting the material. The material’s science actuates on effect to help plug a gap or break to repair the craft possibly inside not as much as a second. NASA has Created a Healing-Wonder

Testing really includes shooting a bullet through the material to perceive how it responds after penetration. The little particles of the polymer substance the material is made of streams around the bullet when it hits the matter, yet the basic respectability of the material stays in place.

NASA has Created a Healing-Wonder

This is on the grounds that the polymer responds to warming. As the shot goes in it really raises the temperature around the district, NASA researchers Mia Siochi clarified in a feature about the venture. It was satisfying to see as we really test this material on the field it really lives up to expectations.

This substance has life-sparing applications for space travelers, as well as future utilization in buyer items also. Envision getting an imprint in your auto and it instantly popping back to its unique structure.

Here is a video clip for your viewing pleasure

Technology is really growing at the speed of light… NASA has Created a Healing-Wonder

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Rep Your Cause with Facebook Temporary Profile Pics

Your profile picture is the message you send most. There’s no easier, more ubiquitous way to raise awareness for a cause then splashing your pic rainbow for gay rights or green to promote the Arab Spring.

Now Facebook is giving people a tool to leverage this tiny billboard. With its new Temporary Profile Picture feature that’s slated for a broader rollout, you can change your pic but have it revert to your old one after a set number of hours, days or weeks.

While it could prevent stale memes from squatting in people’s profile pics, the feature could also encourage pics that don’t show people’s faces, making them harder to identify at a glance. You can argue it’s a shallow way to support a cause, but it’s better than total apathy. Still, people who really want to make a difference might consider sharing links to donate time or money to related charities instead of just this clicktivism.

Facebook admitted it’s testing the feature with a small number of users, and hopes to roll it out more broadly in the coming months; the company explains:

“We often see people use their profile pictures to support a cause, root for a team, and commemorate milestones like birthdays and anniversaries. Today, we’re testing a new feature that allows you to set a temporary profile picture for a specified period of time. Temporary profile pictures make it easier to to express who you are and how you’re feeling at a given moment, without having to worry about changing your profile picture back later.”

 

Those with the feature will see the option to set an expiration date when they select a new profile picture. When the expiration date hits, their profile pic reverts back to their old one without publishing a News Feed story announcing the change. Their temporary one will still be visible in their album of profile pics.

Rep Your Cause with Facebook Temporary Profile Pics

Facebook is wise to inform its product roadmap with the emergent behaviors of its users. At least 26 million users turned their profiles rainbow to support the right to gay marriage. In some ways, the feature could help prevent awkward situations where people end up with a profile photo related to a passed campaign or expired meme.

But the feature also has the potential to make Facebook tougher to use. Profile pictures appear all over the app, and being able to quickly recognize a friend from their familiar headshot makes the app less cognitively taxing. If everyone uses temporary profile pics that don’t show their faces, it makes their friends’ feeds feel more foreign, and it forces them to read their name to know who they are.

It’s a double-edged sword, but Facebook clearly thinks it will make the social network more current than chaotic.

Source: TechCrunch

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Alan Purwin Prominent Stunt Pilot Dead

The crew members had just wrapped up work on the new film “Mena,” Universal Pictures said in a statement.

“On behalf of the production, our hearts and prayers go out to the crew members and their families at this difficult time,” the statement said.

Killed were Hollywood stunt pilot Alan D. Purwin and Carlos Brel, according to Colombia’s Civil Aviation Authority.

Purwin wrote about working with Cruise two weeks ago, saying on his Instagram page that he was “pushing the envelope in every way. Working on a super interesting, true story film with Tom Cruise.”

Purwin and the other person killed in the crash were listed as pilots aboard the twin-propeller plane, the aviation authority said.

The only person to survive the crash was Jimmy Lee Garland, who suffered injuries to his legs, arms, face and chest, according to the authority and San Pedro de los Milagros Fire Department.

Garland was taken to Pablo Tobón Uribe Hospital in Medellin and was in stable condition, according to fire and aviation officials.

Cruise and his representatives weren’t immediately available for comment.

A ‘pioneer’ and ‘committed philanthropist’

As a stunt pilot, Purwin provided dramatic aerial footage for TV and for films such as “Transformers,” “Pearl Harbor,” and “Pirates of the Caribbean,” his company said.

His Hollywood credits began in 1984 with the TV series “Airwolf,” his company said.

“Alan was both a pioneer in the film industry and committed philanthropist,” said CEO Steve Gatena of Shotover, where Purwin was chairman. The firm provides gyro-stabilized camera systems.

“His legacy includes many feats such as, conducting the first vital organ transplant mission in Los Angeles, supporting the first response rescue efforts in the wake of Hurricane Katrina, and being the only American Hollywood movie pilot to fly throughout the People’s Republic of China,” Gatena said in a statement.

Purwin also appeared in cameo roles as a pilot in many productions, including the films “Jurassic World,” “Zero Dark Thirty” and “Indecent Proposal.”

The plane was owned by Heliblack LLC, which lists Purwin as an officer and registered agent, according to FAA and California records.

“There are no words that can express our heartache for we have lost one of the world’s greatest helicopter pilots and one of aviation’s greatest leaders,” Gatena added in a statement.

Purwin’s plane, an Aerostar Piper 60, crashed in the town of San Pedro de los Milagros in the region of Antioquia, the aviation authority said.

The plane departed the Olaya Herrera Airport in Medellin, and the last contact was 3:22 p.m. local time Friday, the authority said.

The crash occurred between 5 p.m. and 5:15 p.m. Friday, said Carolina Sanchez Marin with the San Pedro de los Milagros Fire Department.

The plane could fit up to eight passengers, she said.

The cause of the crash is under investigation, the authority said.

Starring Cruise, “Mena” is based on the life of drug pilot Adler Berriman “Barry” Seal, who’s recruited by the CIA and “soon finds himself in charge of one the biggest covert CIA operations in the history of the United States that spawned the birth of the Medellin cartel and eventually almost brought down the Reagan White House with the Iran-Contra scandal,” Cross Creek Pictures said.

As a drug smuggler turned informant, Barry Seal was eventually killed in Baton Rouge, Louisiana, and a federal report said his killing was carried out on behalf of the Medellin cartel. Three Colombian nationals were convicted in his killing and were sentenced to life without parole, according to news accounts.

Source: CNN

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Ten Years Later, This Is How Techmeme Has Avoided Click-Bait, Auto-Play Ads, And More

Techmeme launched on September 12, 2005 amid a flurry of blog posts from Robert Scoble, Richard MacManus, and several others. In the marking of this anniversary, Gabe Rivera, CEO at Techmeme wrote the following listicle of surprising facts about Techmeme.

1. Techmeme didn’t launch with the name “Techmeme”, or even its own top level domain. Instead, it launched as tech.memeorandum, the technology offshoot of memeorandum, an automated aggregator of news and commentary mainly around US politics. (memeorandum launched in January 2004 and still lives on today, but could probably use a redesign, rebranding, and editors.) On the day memeorandum’s improved automated engine and redesign were announced, its sister site for tech news, tech.memeorandum went live on the subdomain tech.memeorandum.com. After tech.memeorandum quickly eclipsed memeorandum in traffic, it became clear it deserved its own domain, and moved to Techmeme.com the following May.
2. Techmeme’s original mission statement still holds up nicely today, allowing for a few addendums. The goals outlined here in 2005 (1. Recognize the web as editor, 2. Rapidly uncover new sources, and 3. Relate the conversation) endure even to this day. However, as Techmeme became the first stop for tech news for a growing and influential segment of the tech industry, other goals became imperative too. In particular: strive for comprehensive coverage of the day’s most significant tech stories, and post big, breaking news story quickly.
3. Although it has almost no direct competition today, Techmeme was reportedly beset by a legion of competitors for years. In the months after it launched, Techmeme was considered to be an exemplar among discovery and search services in the blogging space, a purportedly burgeoning industry. Moreover, its fully automated implementation at the time appeared on the surface to rely on a simple technological process (Step 1: Scan feeds … Step 2. Sort posts by inbound links.) Inevitably, an assortment of Techmeme-like sites was soon competing for attention. While a few sites were clearly imitators, others were, like Techmeme, iterations on ideas bubbling up at the time.And so we would see TechCrunch comparing Techmeme (née tech.memeorandum) to services with names like Blogniscient, Megite, and Chuquet. Later the phrase “Techmeme Killer” would appear fairly regularly in headlines, most notably when Google itself introduced a would-be “Techmeme Killer”. Even after Techmeme survived Google’s Techmeme-killer, services like ePlatform and TechFuga would still elicit comparisons to Techmeme, while TechCrunch would later say of Tweetmeme, a Techmeme-like aggregator of tweets “If I were Gabe Rivera, I’d start worrying now”.As you can probably guess, each of the above services mentioned above (Google Blogsearch included) no longer exists.Today, it’s rare for a new service to come along that is considered to be direct competition for Techmeme, for a couple reasons. First, in the proceeding years, Techmeme introduced elements like human editing and rewritten headlines that made cloning more than just a problem of deploying code. Second, most media entrepreneurs now see more potential through other avenues. Unicorn valuations in media today are thought to be won through BuzzFeed-like strategies to attain BuzzFeed-level scale, not building another industry news aggregator.
4. Techmeme has lots of indirect competition, including Twitter, Facebook, and blogs. Like all media sites, Techmeme’s real competition comes from whatever is best at diverting attention that it might otherwise draw. So foremost among Techmeme’s “competitors” are Twitter, Facebook, blogs that function as news aggregators, and, in fact, media of all forms (not to mention sunshine, children, and puppies). A person who is content to gather technology news through what friends share on Facebook, or by scanning thousands of tweets each day, may be less likely to rely on Techmeme. On the other hand, because this competition exists, those that do rely on Techmeme happen to be the most demanding and informed readers, the ones who know they can’t stay current on actionable news by merely consuming social media feeds. So while competition may curtail Techmeme’s readership somewhat, it has the effect of making our average reader more valuable.
5. Lately we’ve been more about building team and process than technology. While Techmeme’s foundation is a suite of technologies that continues to evolve, the bulk of our work in recent years has been directed at hiring and training editors, and perfecting the processes that strengthen our editorial product. In this way, we have more in common with news organizations than, say, Google News or Nuzzel. While it’s possible the balance may shift again in the years ahead, our reliance on human editors will not wane (until such time as AI has progressed to the point where robots write hit songs and screenplays.)
6. Techmeme usually has only one editor working at a time. In 2008 we announced we were coupling our algorithmic engine with our first human editor. Since then, we’ve hired several more editors to provide near-24/7 coverage. Even with those additional editors, we still follow a model in which usually just one editor works on Techmeme at a time. Mediagazer, Techmeme’s sister site for media news, employs editors as well, but again, mainly just one at a time. While there are moments throughout the day when a second Techmeme editor assists the first, facilitated by an editing system designed for collaboration, more often than not, it’s just one human editor alongside our automation.
7. Our editing model leads to a highly distributed and international team, and no offices. Covering news 24/7, but with only one editor working a site at a time leads to an organization built around working from home, so long as those home offices span many time zones. The flexibility that comes with working from home has enabled us to tap talent pools unavailable to other kinds of organizations, particularly stay-at-home parents and full time college students. One result of this is a fairly broad range of ages among our editors, a form of diversity emphasized not very frequently in commentary on inclusion in Techmeme stories, but nonetheless a real asset for many organizations.
8. Opting not to host articles profoundly affects the way news can be conveyed for non-obvious reasons. Because Techmeme doesn’t host its own stories, we’re never tempted to publish more articles than our readers want just to goose traffic. Also, when we do publish new links, we’re never tempted to use headlines designed to force you to click to collect very basic details, which would only make our homepage less valuable, and wouldn’t improve our stats in any way. The end result is a homepage that’s highly informative, scannable, and devoid of gimmicky news, an outcome that runs counter to major trends in media.
9. Techmeme has never run interstitials, page takeovers, mouse-over ads, auto-playing anything, or even banners. Arriving at a sustainable ad model for Techmeme was never going to be easy. When you don’t host articles, you don’t rack up as many page views, and moreover, you don’t have very sharable content, the kind that attracts monthly unique visitors (i.e. entices bored people to leave Facebook for a few seconds). In 2015, supporting an online news operation with advertising when your page view and unique visitor numbers aren’t massive is always an uphill battle. Media sites in this predicament are often tempted to run ads units that pay more but repel and infuriate readers.Fortunately what Techmeme does have is the attention of the people who lead the tech industry. (Ask your CEO “where do you get your tech news?”) When a news destination is a hub for industry decision-makers, companies will want to reach its readers, making it possible to sell the far more welcome form of “ads” that Techmeme does include. These include posts from sponsors’ blogs, catchy taglines from companies that want you to check out their job openings, and events that companies want you to consider attending. While not all companies are used to making these sorts of marketing buys, many are learning how, and Techmeme is here to serve them.
10. Techmeme has never taken VC: a lesson for some, but a model for none. I always hoped it would be possible to build and sustain Techmeme without the aid of venture capital or debt. Not so much because of real or perceived issues around independence or autonomy, not because “bootstrapped” is an impressive badge of honor, and not because I disliked investors (some of my best friends are VCs!) But rather because the media business we envisioned by its nature was just not destined to become the “unicorn” VCs always want, at least in its first of several possible iterations. So proving sustainability always seemed necessarily part of the plan. Moreover, in casual conversations with investors over the years most ideas for expansion suggested to me seemed destined to fail in my estimation (a fate borne out in a few cases by actual companies that carried out such plans).As Techmeme never did raise VC nor even attempted to, my initial hope of course became a reality.And yet I don’t want Techmeme to be any kind of flag-bearer for bootstrapped startups, because the lessons we learned are not so widely applicable, especially in 2015. While there are lessons to learn from what we’ve built, it’s hard to imagine a business starting today for which Techmeme’s experience can serve as a direct model. Furthermore, I wouldn’t even claim with certainty that forgoing VC was the best decision for Techmeme. Just because most ideas for rapidly expanding Techmeme are flawed doesn’t mean all of them are, and as we’ve found after some consideration, there may be some good ones out there!

Source: Techmeme

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Dell is building its own Microsoft Surface clone

Dell already makes one of the best Windows laptops you can buy, and now it seems the company is working up its own rival for Microsoft’s Surface tablet. Leaked slides show a new PC that Dell apparently plans to call the XPS 12. It’s a tablet that magnetically latches onto a standalone keyboard, creating a setup that looks very similar to Microsoft’s. Lenovo also recently unveiled its own Surface-like PC. Dell’s keyboard for the XPS12 will feature an illuminated keyboard and what the company promises is a touchpad that “works flawlessly.” That’s always been the weak point of Surface keyboards, so it’ll be interesting to see if Dell can jump out ahead of Microsoft.

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Facebook Introduces Signal To Help Journalists Source And Discover Social Content

Facebook assist Writers Find Social Content… Facebook has dependably been charmed by the 24-hour news cycle. They’ve tried endeavors through attempts like Facebook Stories to demonstrate the feasibility of Facebook installs as a genuinely dynamic essential source, while later moves, for example, their Trending segment and Instant Articles have demonstrated that they’re not kidding about driving clients to news content without having them ever leave the site.

Facebook assist Writers Find Social Content

Today, Facebook presented another stage called Signal to allure writers to find and insert their substance. The instrument, which pulls from both Facebook and Instagram, permits columnists the open door “to make Facebook a more imperative piece of their news gathering with access to applicable patterns, photographs, features, and posts on Facebook and Instagram for utilization in their narrating and reporting” as indicated by an organization blog entry from Andy Mitchell, Director of Media Partnerships at Facebook.

Facebook assist Writers Find Social Content

This is only the most recent move from Facebook focusing on expert substance inventors. A week ago Facebook acquainted its Mentions application with the greater part of its checked profiles, permitting writers and famous people the chance to show live feature streams and make posts that just go out to their adherents. Facebook assist Writers Find Social Content

A handiness’ piece of Signal is that it gives columnists access to various exceptionally sorted news feeds of open substance. At this moment, things like the Trending subjects highlight are impacted by a clients individual profile intrigues including what pages they’ve loved and what content they draw in with.

Facebook assist Writers Find Social Content

Signal gives writers a more general spread of what’s really inclining no matter how you look at it through Trending Now. The stage additionally assists writers with recognizing things that are simply starting to spike in their viral-ness through another component called Emerging Trends.

Facebook assist Writers Find Social Content

In both look and capacity, Signal seems to have taken some motivation from applications like Tweet deck. Writers can now gather pages and profiles to show up in particular nourishes so on the off-chance that they need to screen open responses from U.S. Congresspersons, they can manufacture a devoted news feed, called a “gathering,” only for those sure profiles. The same goes for Instagram posts, where Signal clients can enter in particular Instagram handles and be given a curated news feed.

Facebook assist Writers Find Social Content

This is truly a noteworthy stride forward in Facebook’s proceeded with endeavors to turn into a noteworthy center for news disclosure. By giving writers more powerful devices to utilize the site to find content and insert it in their stories, Facebook is building up an advantageous association with productions that may develop to see a greater amount of the real articles being distributed totally on Facebook through activities like Instant Articles and those that tail it.

Facebook assist Writers Find Social Content

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Shelfie Is Shazam For Your Bookshelf

Shelfie, Your very own Bookshelf Shazam… In case you’re similar to John Biggs of Techcrunch, you have a great deal of Mad Magazine books from the 1970s, an exemplary duplicate of Oui from 1979, and three Hungarian cookbooks. At the end of the day, you’re a well-perused person. Be that as it may, how would you get those books onto your perusing gadget? Shelfie, that is the manner by which.

Shelfie, Your very own Bookshelf Shazam…

Made by Peter Hudson and Marius Muja, Shelfie permits you to take a photo of your bookshelf and return a rundown of marked down or free ebooks for download. Muja and Hudson examined together at UBC and Hudson initially assembled programming for hydrologists. Marius is a PhD in PC vision. Together they settled the “huge information” issue of transforming paper books into computerized books. Shelfie, Your very own Bookshelf Shazam…

The idea for Shelfie came from a drunken argument between me and my friend Dan, said Hudson. We were discussing whether or not D-Wave’s quantum computer could be used to disprove the phenomenon of human free will. Dan had just read Stephen Wolfram’s A New Kind of Science and remembered a part that would prove his point. Frustrated that he couldn’t produce his trump-card citation Dan said ‘I wish there was a way I could get digital versions of all my paper books on my phone.’

Shelfie, Your very own Bookshelf Shazam…

Hudson self-financed the startup and now can distinguish around 45 million titles. They raised a little Angel round in 2014 with Michael Serbinis, originator of Kobo. The group is right now chipping away at substance bargains and have become 150,000 titles accessible for download.

For an average Shelfie user this means that about 10-20% of the books on their shelves will be eligible for free or highly discounted bundled eBooks, said Hudson.

Shelfie, Your very own Bookshelf Shazam…

The main other packaging administration accessible to perusers is a system called Kindle Matchbook. Matchbook just has around 80,000 titles accessible (albeit most are independently published books from Kindle Direct Publishing), and just works in the event that you obtained the print release through Amazon.com utilizing the same email address that you have enlisted on your Kindle, said Hudson. Shelfie meets expectations for any book you claim, regardless of in the event that you purchased it new at B&N, utilized at The Strand, or got it as a blessing.

Shelfie, Your very own Bookshelf Shazam…

Book distributors, as far as it matters for them, are gradually moving on board the Shelfie train. Since they are ignorant occupants staffed by Philistines who don’t see genuine workmanship, then again, they are somewhat ease back to comprehend what Shelfie conveys to the table. On the off chance that enough individuals begin asking for e-duplicates of The Vintage Mad and The Rip Off Mad, on the other hand, I’m certain they’ll come around.

Shelfie, Your very own Bookshelf Shazam…

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15 Ways to Be a Happier, More Upbeat Person

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness; Individuals who are upbeat have less strokes, heart assaults, and even colds, as indicated by U.S. News and World Report. More satisfied individuals additionally live more than adverse individuals. In any case, constructive individuals aren’t fundamentally conceived that way. Abraham Lincoln broadly said,

People are just as happy as they make up their minds to be.

Will it truly be that straightforward? Yes, with a couple of supportive strides along the way.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

1. Make a mystery, internal “Positive Password”

When you feel yourself being judgmental, pointlessly chafed, or additional blue, make your own minimal custom to check things. Say something to yourself that will take your brain off its descending way. I have a companion who says “Taylor Swift” to herself in light of the fact that she cherishes Swift’s music and can’t be irate when she ponders her. In case you’re religious, it could be a bit of a supplication to God, or it could be as straightforward as quietly droning “om.” Interrupting the negative example with even a little activity that has positive essences can leave antagonism speechless.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

2. If all else fails, SMILE

A recent report at the University of Kansas exhibited that the very demonstration of grinning can be gainful, bringing down the heart rate after an unpleasant scene, and raising the levels of endorphin in your body. That is a really capable device you have, in that spot all over! Attempt it whenever you’re stuck and baffled in movement. Grin and check whether you don’t really feel better.

3. Take a tip from the intelligence of A.A.

AA tells its most current individuals: “Fake it till you make it.” at the end of the day, demonstrate like you are calm, and really soon you will really begin feeling that it is the right approach to go. It’s an extraordinary maxim that can assist you with overcoming feeling harsh, suspicious, pessimistic, or downbeat. In the event that only throughout today you act like somebody with an uplifting state of mind, expect great aim with respect to individuals you connect with, and act eager to get out and face the day, you will be astounded at two things: How excitedly individuals will react, and how simple it will be after some time to truly turned into that constructive individual.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

4. Prune your Negative Companions

You may even need to make a rundown of those alleged companions who are negative and basic, and after that gradually dispose of them from your life. You don’t have to un-friend them on Facebook, yet rather hinder their grumbling posts. At that point attempt to develop your constructive companionship, and through them, meet more energetic individuals to incorporate in your circles. Despairing people tend to be desperate for kindred spirits, however so does bliss.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

5. Volunteer

Here and there you simply need to escape from your own particular sad head to get point of view on your issues. Volunteer at a destitute haven, a soup kitchen or a drop-in place for destitute adolescents. Not just will you slowly see your own particular issues shrink in examination to those of others, yet your cooperation with individuals who really acknowledge what you are doing will give you an awesome support as well. You may discover you anticipate this movement more than most others in your week. That will genuinely lift your spirits.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

6. Take a “Laughter Yoga” class

Made in the 1990s by Dr. Madan Kataria of Mumbai, India, Laughter Yoga is a genuine yogic practice that spotlights on giggling for reasons unknown. On the off chance that that sounds senseless, well it is. But then its specialists swear by the flavorful alleviation they feel in the wake of going to even one class, which is part reflection and part giggling ensemble. Oprah Winfrey has attempted it and adored it; so have a huge number of others. Check whether there are classes in your general vicinity and attempt one. What have you got the chance to lose with the exception of your pity?

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

7. Reconnect with an old companion

It truly is as simple as getting the telephone or dropping an “I’ve been thinking about you” email. Possibly her birthday is coming up and you can welcome her to lunch. On the other hand express the desire for peace to an offended relative. Reconnecting with friends and family is one of the key things that keep our hearts and souls upbeat.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

8. Get your Vitamin D level checked

Sufficiently getting Vitamin D, particularly in the corner of winter, is critical to your physical and emotional well-being. Study after study has demonstrated that low Vitamin D levels can bring about mellow discouragement like manifestations. On the off chance that your levels are low, take additional Vitamin D and also omega-3 unsaturated fat supplements to support your levels. A great many people notification feeling better in an obscure however distinguishable path in just a couple of weeks of sufficiently getting of the supplements.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

9. Listen up

Make inquiries. Now and then getting another point of view is as simple as staying calm sufficiently long to draw another person out. The other individual will be thankful you sufficiently minded to focus, and you will be ensured to learn something. What’s more, staying calm all the more regularly assists you with bettering pick on what you need to say. At the point when what you say is thoroughly considered, you’re more prone to not cry, grumble, or kvetch.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

10. Take out negative words from your vocabulary.

Notice when you say words like “can’t, never, won’t” and particularly “ought to.” Articulate what you need and work on saying “I pick” or “I need.” It doesn’t mean you will dependably (or even for the most part) get what you need, yet it does mean you are more prone to accomplish your objectives, orderly, than if you close yourself down from the earliest starting point. Best of all, you and the general population around you, will begin to see the distinction. Try not to be excessively astonished when things truly do begin to go your direction.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

11. Do something you’ve for the longest time been itching to do

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

When you put resources into yourself, you will feel positive. Period. On the off chance that you’ve for the longest time been itching to take a canvas class, rearrange your lounge room, discover 10 awesome climbs in your city or town, well, when is a superior time than at this time? You can likewise begin arranging some of your most loved can list thoughts for get-away or for better climate times, so you generally have something truly wonderful to anticipate. Skydive, ride a zip line, figure out how to paddleboard, take ballet classes, take that excursion to the Bahamas. Obviously, don’t you feel better?

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

12. Attempt the “Rubber band” Solution

Slip an elastic or rubber band (or adorable versatile wrist trinket on the off chance that you favor) around your wrist. When you feel those negative, acrimonious musings inching in, give yourself a little snap. It will assist you with building mindfulness about what triggers those musings. Does it happen amid gatherings? In the morning when you’re attempting to deal with your assignments for the day? In movement? When you can begin to pinpoint what enacts those sentiments, you can alter your calendar and assignment rundown concurring. Furthermore, that little snap aides occupy you sufficiently long to concentrate on something else.

13. Turn off the TV and PC

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

Actually no, not until the end of time. In any case, attempt to divide the time you spend sitting in front of the TV or in non-business related PC movement amid nighttimes and weekends. This yields a considerable measure of rewards: More available time to cooperate with loved ones, more chance to be up and moving around (which is ensured to improve you feel), and above all, it will assist you with breaking out of your trench. Diminishing your introduction to a zillions’ portion of negative posts on Facebook is without a doubt an or more. Let’s face honest: is best lived, in actuality.

14. Be cool

You can’t control how other individuals will act — and some will carry on horribly. They’ll cut you off in activity, intrude on you in discussion, or more terrible. Be that as it may, never forget: You are the manager of you. On the off chance that you can take a full breath and think,

Amazing, that individual must be having a truly awful day,

you’ll in a split second feel more settled. All the more significantly, you won’t aggravate an awful circumstance, or approve it by giving it life past the few moments it which it happened. Could it be any more obvious? Back to ordinary, no genuine damage done.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

15. Begin an gratitude diary

Set aside the opportunity to record the straightforward delights throughout your life. No satisfaction is too little to ever be taken note. A stroll in a calm street, the folded Naira note you found on the walkway, the sweet telephone call from your 8-year-old niece, the way you played drums on your controlling wheel when your most loved oldie went ahead the radio… Make a point to see the little (and enormous) things that make you glad and after that record them.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

Reward: When you read over them again later — you’ll be upbeat once more.

15 Ways People Upgrade their Happiness

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Apple releases watchOS 2

Apple just released the final version of watchOS 2. The updated operating system is now available to download for everyone. It is available as an over-the-air update. You may not see the update right away as it takes a few minutes to hit all the servers. Apple may also be using a queue system to ensure speedy downloads.

As a reminder, Apple initially planned to release watchOS 2 on September 16 2015. But the company had to delay the release at the last minute due to an unexpected bug.

“We have discovered a bug in development of watchOS 2 that is taking a bit longer to fix than we expected,” an Apple spokesperson told TechCrunch at the time. “We will not release watchOS 2 today but will shortly.” But now everything is fixed.

The updated operating system adds a handful of features just five months after Apple launched the Apple Watch. In particular, app developers can now build native apps and take advantage of all the sensors with watchOS 2. Other features include transit directions, expanded Siri support, a few new watch faces, third-party complications, a night stand mode, the ability to go forward in time to check the weather, appointments and more. You can read more in the full review.

 Apple releases watchOS 2

Here’s how you can update to watchOS 2. Open the Watch app on your iPhone, go to ‘General’ then ‘Software Update.’ Apple should then prompt you to update.

There’s no reason why you shouldn’t update to watchOS 2. In many ways, it feels like the Apple Watch was in beta, and watchOS 2 is the final version of Apple’s vision. Things load faster, developers are surely going to take advantage of the new features and everything is more reliable.

Source: TechCrunch

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2015 Startup Battlefield of Disrupt SF

TechCrunch is pleased to announce the 25 startups selected to participate in the Startup Battlefield of Disrupt SF 2015. Over the next three days, these companies will compete on tech’s biggest stage for $50,000 and the coveted Disrupt Cup.

The Battlefield represent the crème de la crème; the startups onstage represent just over 2.5 percent of those that applied. Startup Battlefield serves to showcase the most promising early-stage and, dare we say, disruptive startups in the industry.

These companies will be helping small businesses manage everything from finance to staffing, increasing communication in healthcare, teaching through VR, using machines to create artwork, hot-patching your mobile apps, making kids’ lunches easier and enabling athletes to get trained smarter. And we’re just getting started.

2015 Startup Battlefield of Disrupt SF

Battlefield startups hail from right here in the Bay Area and across the country – Boulder, New York and Cambridge – and around the world. Teams traveled from Austria, Canada, France, Ireland, Israel, Japan, Spain and Switzerland to participate. Eleven female founders across 10 companies will take the stage this batch, setting a Battlefield record.

Over the past month, these startups have been working tirelessly to prepare to launch, rushing to finalize designs, and produce that final prototype. They spent time with TechCrunch staff to hone their pitches to a crisp six minutes. All this work pays off when each startup faces off against an impressive lineup of judges during their live Q&A session.

Only a few selected finalists will have a chance to present once more Wednesday this time, with $50,000 and the Disrupt Cup on the line.

The Startup Battlefield hub contains all the details of the event, including the schedule, bios of the judges and more details on the companies. The pitches will begin, and be streamed live, starting at 2:25 p.m. PDT today and tomorrow.

Battlefield companies will also be showcasing in the Startup Alley both days of the conference. Stop by and see what all the fuss is about.

Monday

Session One:  Leap Financial, Staffly, Stitch, Scrumpt, Humon
Session Two: Discovr Labs, EasyPaint, Agriylst, Aircall, Robo Technologies
Session Three:  CoheroHealth, Artomatix, Unlimited Hand, Wild Card*

Tuesday

Session Four: Wellthy, GreenBits, Filter.ly, Ava Ag
Session Five: Leaf, Rollout.io, Emburse, Stampery, Preemadonna
Session Six: WakaTime, Money Intel, Separate.us, Wild Card*

*Wild Card companies are selected by audience vote and TechCrunch editorial staff from the Startup Alley.

Cast your vote at startupalleyny15.techcrunch.com.

Source: TechCrunch

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Udacity Expands Services And Announces Scholarships In India

Online computer programming educator Udacity announced on Monday it would expand on the ground in India, the country where the service is growing the fastest.

Udacity’s free and nanodegree services are available worldwide, but with Monday’s announcement, the company will begin accepting rupees for the service and expanding its staff in the country. Nanodegrees are credentials recognized by many companies, such as Google and Salesforce.

Courses will cost 9,800 rupees a month, which is about $50 less than the price in the United States of $200 per month.

“Udacity’s mission is to democratize education, and India is one of the world’s fastest growing economies,” said Udacity CEO Sebastian Thrun in an interview with TechCrunch.

Google and Tata Trust will each offer 500 full Android nanodegree scholarships to students in India. Google will also host a job fair in India for standout nanodegree graduates and potential employers next year. Udacity said it is seeking to increase partnerships with more companies based in India.

Udacity’s foray into India is a logical step as the number of programmers in the country continues to surge. Currently India is home to the second largest programmer population in the world, a Udacity spokeswoman said. In general Udacity nanodegree students tend to be college graduates with some programming experience.

Thrun said Udacity plans to use the same “recipe” it has to achieve growth that it used in the United States.

“One of the big questions is can we get the same growth in India?” Thrun told TechCrunch. “We’re very optimistic we can.”

Brief Overview of Udacity

We are building “University by Silicon Valley”, a new type of online university that: – teaches the actual programming skills that industry employers need today – delivers credentials endorsed by employers, because they built them – provides education at a fraction of the cost and time of traditional schools with industry giants – Google, AT&T, Facebook, Salesforce, Cloudera, etc.

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Bitcoin Governance Problem Solved

A key aspect of Bitcoin’s value proposition is that it’s an open source protocol independent of any particular corporation or government.

Similar to other open source initiatives, the software that runs the Bitcoin network is managed and improved upon by a group of volunteer developers.

In theory, the developers answer to Bitcoin users who choose whether or not to run a particular version of the Bitcoin software.  In reality, majority mining power is what drives adoption of new versions of the Bitcoin software, taking the approval mechanism out of the hands of Bitcoin users and putting into the hands of the mining pools.

This Bitcoin development consensus mechanism provides lose oversight over the developers, but ultimately they have final control over what features they choose to add to the protocol.

“If you go back in history, it was really simple. It was whatever Satoshi decided at the beginning. That’s really where we started. We had one source code. We had one [pseudonymous] person who made all the decisions about what should Bitcoin be, how should it evolve, and what should it do,” says Bitcoin Chief Scientist, Gavin Andresen.

“As soon as Satoshi stepped back and threw the project onto my shoulders, one of the first things I did was try to decentralize that. So, if I get hit by a bus, it would be clear that the project would go on. That’s why, at this point, there are five people who have commit access to the GitHub Bitcoin source tree. And there’s kind of this consensus process for what changes are made to the code — and even what consensus-level, low-level changes to the Bitcoin rules should happen,” Andresen continued.

With other types of open source software, such as Linux, if users disagree with the path the developers take, they can take the code and fork it, adding whatever features they desire into their version. Then users can choose which version of the software they would rather run. This forking mechanism is possible with Bitcoin as well, but since it is a financial network worth Billions, forking is a much riskier endeavor than with other open source projects.

Forking the network can result in financial loss for those sending/receiving transactions when it occurs, as well as splitting the network into two weaker competing networks that may be more susceptible to attack. A two network situation would most likely not last long, as one network should take over the other relatively quickly, but it is a less than ideal situation. Put simply, if a Bitcoin fork can be avoided, then it should be.

Currently, the Bitcoin community is at a crossroads, many users wish to raise the capacity of the network, while the main developers want to keep it at it’s current capacity of 1MB every 10 minutes until they can all agree on a solution. As a result of perceived developer inaction, two main developers have chosen to create a fork of the Bitcoin software that implements an increase against the wishes of the majority of developers.

Users now have the choice of running Bitcoin Core or the new forked version, Bitcoin XT. Bitcoin XT is designed to require a threshold of users before it’s forking capacity increase is implemented. If 75% of miners choose to run XT, then 2 weeks later the capacity increases will begin, resulting at that point in an incompatibility with Bitcoin Core.

“I think a lot of the strife and conflict comes with — we’re starting to grow beyond even that to there are a lot more stakeholders, there are a lot more people involved, there are a lot more projects,” Andresen says. “How do we evolve from — it used to just be Satoshi making decisions to it was this small group making decisions to suddenly there’s a much larger set of people who are interested in decisions and how they’re made.”

All the developers agree that the strategy of forking the main software is less than ideal, but where they disagree is that both sets of developers feel that they are acting in the best interests of Bitcoin users. As a result, the solution to this disagreement lies in the same principles that govern corporations, a vote by stakeholders weighted by their respective stakes.

CryptoVoter is an open-source block chain voting client that enables Bitcoin users to place votes transparently based on how much bitcoin they own. CryptoVoter requires no changes to the existing Bitcoin codebase and can be implemented immediately.

Voting requires no trusted third parties and is completely decentralized, allowing anybody to audit the voting results using a block chain explorer. Vote results are non-binding so devs still have the ultimate say, but now everyone would objectively know coinholder sentiment. Furthermore, throughout the entire process a user’s bitcoin remains fully under their own control, with their private keys never leaving their local computer.

CryptoVoter enables Bitcoin users to vote on any topic based on the amount of bitcoin they own. Specifically, the software will enable bitcoin owners to express their opinion on what course of action the developers should take regarding the current block size debate.

This is comparable to shareholder voting in public companies, where shareholder votes are based on the number of shares owned by a particular individual. If the concept works for thousands of corporations worldwide then it should work for Bitcoin’s governance.

“The current Bitcoin and cryptocoin governance model emphasizes developer and mining pool consensus, while leaving Bitcoin holders out with no real say,” says Jim Joseph, chief executive of Blockchain Innovation Labs. “We developed CryptoVoter to change that by giving bitcoin holders a public voice in the development debates  and provide the mandate developers need to implement controversial changes.  By shifting the concentration of power away from developers and mining pools, CryptoVoter hopes to empower Bitcoin holders and strengthen the blockchain along the way.”

CryptoVoter’s voting client and code launched on September 14th and will go through approximately a one month test period holding development votes on a smaller cryptocurrency’s block chain before hosting the first Bitcoin block size-related vote on October 23.

The company hopes that by releasing the voting client as open-source the community will join in testing and evaluating the voting client before the first Bitcoin vote is conducted to address any issues that may have slipped past them during alpha-testing.

CryptoVoter will enable truly decentralized Bitcoin governance that will allow the network to grow over time and integrate new features. Bitcoin strives to be a global independent currency and store of value, for it to succeed it will need a decentralized governance system where all stakeholders have a voice.

The post Bitcoin Governance Problem Solved appeared first on TalksFriendite.

Facebook Is Building An Empathy Button, Not “Dislike”. Here’s How It Could Work

The Dislike button has long been the most requested feature from Facebook users. So when Mark Zuckerberg today said in a public Q&A that the company was working on a way to show empathy for victims of tragedies and other things that are inappropriate to Like, news outlets around the world sprung into action saying the masses would soon get their wish.

But don’t hold your breath for a button called “Dislike”. Zuck explicitly said that’s not what Facebook is building.

Facebook is building a new button

“I think people have asked about the Dislike button for many years…today is the day where I actually get to say that we’re working on it, and are very close to shipping a test of it.”

But it’s not a Dislike button

“We didn’t want to just build a Dislike button because we don’t want to turn Facebook into a forum where people are voting up or down on people’s posts. That doesn’t seem like the kind of community we want to create.”

There’s a gap in Facebook’s feedback mechanisms

“People aren’t looking for an ability to downvote other people’s posts. What they really want is to be able to express empathy. Not every moment is a good moment, right? And if you are sharing something that is sad, whether it’s something in current events like the refugee crisis that touches you or if a family member passed away, then it might not feel comfortable to Like that post.”

So Facebook’s building a solution

“But your friends and people want to be able to express that they understand and that they relate to you.”

Really, this makes total sense. If Facebook built a Dislike button, it would just cause confusion. If I share a post about victims of a natural disaster, and you Dislike it, does that mean you Dislike that the tragedy happened? That you Dislike the victims? That you Dislike that I posted it? It’s extraordinarily ambiguous in a way that directly conflicts with how Facebook builds products.

How Facebook Might Build A “Sorry” Button

What makes much more sense is a button that conveys that you empathize or sympathize with a post’s author and/or those affected by the tough situation.

In fact, Facebook already has a version of this called “Recommend”. Websites can use it instead of the Like button to help people share stories that are tragic. But now Facebook is building something new to express condolences.

Whatever wording Facebook picks, it has to be widely understandable, translateable across languages, succinct and unambiguous.

One possibility for the name of the button could be “Sorry” or something of that nature. A word that when you read it, you know the sender understands the sadness of a story and feels for you and the victims.

To implement this, Facebook might give people posting stories the option to replace the Like button with this empathy button, or add one beside it. Facebook could potentially recommend the presence of the empathy button depending on the content of your post. For example, if it detected that what you’re saying is sad because you included the terms “died,” “passed away,” “hurt,” “fired” or “broke up,” or that you’re linking to a news story flagged as tragic.

This way, if you share something sad, people don’t have to be apprehensive about Liking it because they might give the wrong impression. This apprehension can fool Facebook’s News Feed sorting algorithm into thinking a post isn’t interesting. An empathy button will clue the algorithm in to when a post isn’t Likeable, but it’s still important for people to see.

The post Facebook might build a ‘Dislike’ Button soon appeared first on TalksFriendite.