Endeavour's giant rockets will be hoisted by crane next week to sit atop the craft's aft skirts in the first step of assembling a full-stack configuration of the shuttle at the future Samuel Oschin Air and Space Center.

Endeavour assembly at Science Center starts with lifting 52-ton rockets into place. Piece o’ cake

Mann’s latest film, “Ferrari,” starring Adam Driver as the legendary sports-car magnate, world premiered at the Venice Film Festival and will be released in the U.S. by Neon on Dec. 25. “Ferrari’s” likely inclusion in the Oscars race may also affect Mann’s schedule.

Michael Mann Developing Remake of ‘Veteran’ Korean Crime Thriller (EXCLUSIVE)

Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America will host a town hall discussion on gun violence prevention on Thursday, Nov. 2, at Glenview United Methodist Church.

Gun violence prevention forum Nov. 2 in Glenview

Gun violence prevention forum. Moms Demand Action for Gun Sense in America will host a town hall discussion on gun violence prevention from 7 to 8:30 p.m. Thursday at Glenview Uni

Gun violence prevention forum

At times, the attention made him feel a bit self-conscious because he knew it didn't just come from Shandong people's renowned hospitality but also from the fact that Xu and his companions were traveling in wheelchairs. They have spinal muscular atrophy, or SMA.

Putting yourself out there

Todd Pletcher took advantage of the transfer window to enter his 30-1 longshot Dreamlike in the Classic. Here's how that may work now that Arcangelo is scratched.

Breeders’ Cup Classic 2023: With 30-1 Dreamlike, Todd Pletcher Gives A Lesson In How To Read A Field

Halloween night comes with its terrors and joys — but what happens when staying in and cozying up in front of the TV becomes the best plan? From fantastical horror to classic zombie films, this marathon is perfect for the spookiest holiday.

Spooky, Scary Movie Marathon

The venue also hosts open mic nights, and now has comedy on both Mondays and Tuesdays. "It's called the Gong Show," Merritt says. "Every comic gets up to seven minutes, and after two minutes, anyone in the bar can gong you off the stage." On Friday ...

Cheap Drinks and Local Music Live On at Lion's Lair Under New Ownership Team

Collignon had previously worked with Accenture’s data science team to improve collections processes, so she approached Hongrui Gong, the firm’s principal director of data science, about the possibility of building a solution that would more efficiently ...

Forecast for A/R: Dramatic Improvement in Efficiency

In the 1980s the practice of Qi Gong became widespread in China, with more than 60 million practitioners at one point, according to Pew Research Center’s study on religion in the country. Today Qi Gong practitioners can be found all around the world ...

Qi Gong: A Form of Exercise or a Doorway into the Spiritual World?

Gong

gong-io

Cases of artificial intelligence in business are appearing at an unprecedented rate and show no signs of slowing down any time soon. When harnessed correctly, AI can dramatically enhance communication, internally and externally. New forms enhance productivity and free up time for the in-depth elements of information transmission, like generating content and improving accessibility for individuals with disabilities. The responsible use of AI in business communication demands ethical considerations and a balance between automation efficiency and people-centered approaches. Still, successful human-AI collaboration is already well underway and yielding impressive results. The Cost of Poor Communication Effective communication is the foundation of corporate success. When employees struggle to communicate well — whether with one another or with customers — the company suffers from the resulting misunderstandings and lack of alignment. The financial implications are astounding, with poor communication costing enterprises a whopping $1.2 trillion yearly. Written communication has been particularly problematic, especially in today’s changing socio-political landscape. For instance, 71% of knowledge workers find it challenging to choose the appropriate words to avoid sounding offensive. Many also struggle to strike the right balance between sounding too formal and too casual when communicating with colleagues and clients. Improving Sustainable Business Communication Through AI Adopting AI can address existing challenges in the workplace and enhance how people share information in several ways. Team Interaction and Meeting Tools AI meeting assistants are revolutionizing note-taking, leading to more effective communication among team members. Platforms like Otter.ai, ClickUp, Gong.io, and Fireflies.ai have become mainstays in remote meetings, saving valuable time and effort. These AI-enabled tools offer a wide selection of intuitive features, including the ability to transcribe speeches with over 95% accuracy, highlight key points, and even analyze emotional tones. Automated note-taking also frees up personnel to listen more intently during meetings. The generated notes are easier to disseminate, reducing the chances of misunderstandings since everyone has access to the same information. Personalized Communication Many CRM providers are integrating AI into their platforms to enhance customer communications. AI can analyze massive amounts of customer data, providing valuable insights that drive decision-making, especially about how and when to communicate. These systems’ ability to imitate how humans learn based on knowledge and experiences allows them to tailor interactions to suit each client. Personalized communication is crucial to higher response rates and engagement, as people tend to pay closer attention to messages catering to their specific requirements. Language Translation Digital technologies have facilitated borderless working conditions where people across multiple countries can collaborate on the same project simultaneously. However, while that is great for diversity and inclusion, language barriers remain a significant problem, and communication suffers as a result. AI-powered translators help bridge the divide and make it easier for individuals and organizations to communicate effectively. With high accuracy and near-instant results, these tools will be pivotal in shaping how brands interact with employees and clients worldwide. For example, Meta’s multilingual machine translation AI can translate between any pair of 100 languages directly. This unlocks a broader target audience for firms since customers on the other side of the globe can easily understand marketing messages and related content. Enhanced Chatbot Functionality A recent survey shows that 56% of businesses use AI in customer support functions, especially for enhancing chatbot functionality to serve consumers better. Sophisticated bots can now respond intelligently to user inquiries by leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities. These systems also make it easier for customers to communicate with them. For instance, AI-powered bots can analyze user-provided voice input or provided text to make sense of the request and formulate smart responses. Unlike rule-based bots, AI chatbots are context-aware and can learn continuously from prior interactions, making them increasingly intelligent with every interaction. Soon, people will likely not know the difference between chatting with a human CSR agent and a machine. Natural Language Processing (NLP) Algorithms NLP saves employees from spending too much time trying to navigate an ever-expanding field of potentially offensive expressions. They can simply ask the AI tool to create and convey the message correctly. This feature also enables businesses to utilize AI tools to generate relevant, targeted content at scale. Marketing teams can personalize pieces to align with specific audience segments and foster stronger relationships. Leverage AI to Enhance Business Communication. As enterprises continue to adopt data-driven processes, AI will hugely impact how they communicate with their personnel and customers. Automation and ML technologies are powerful tools that can augment and complement human communication. Leaders must recognize this game-changer if they intend to maintain their innovative edge. Sources: https://www.grammarly.com/business/learn/state-of-business-communications-2023/ https://blog.huddles.app/can-ai-ensure-accuracy-in-your-meeting-notes/ https://blog.array.com/how-fintechs-are-balancing-innovation-while-adding-value-for-their-customers-and-to-their-bottom-line https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/first-multilingual-machine-translation-model/ https://rehack.com/ai/artificial-intelligence-business-applications/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050923011158 Cases of artificial intelligence in business are appearing at an unprecedented rate and show no signs of slowing down any time soon. When harnessed correctly, AI can dramatically enhance communication, internally and externally. New forms enhance productivity and free up time for the in-depth elements of information transmission, like generating content and improving accessibility for individuals with disabilities. The responsible use of AI in business communication demands ethical considerations and a balance between automation efficiency and people-centered approaches. Still, successful human-AI collaboration is already well underway and yielding impressive results. The Cost of Poor Communication The Cost of Poor Communication Effective communication is the foundation of corporate success. When employees struggle to communicate well — whether with one another or with customers — the company suffers from the resulting misunderstandings and lack of alignment. The financial implications are astounding, with poor communication costing enterprises a whopping $1.2 trillion yearly. a whopping $1.2 trillion a whopping $1.2 trillion Written communication has been particularly problematic, especially in today’s changing socio-political landscape. For instance, 71% of knowledge workers find it challenging to choose the appropriate words to avoid sounding offensive. Many also struggle to strike the right balance between sounding too formal and too casual when communicating with colleagues and clients. Improving Sustainable Business Communication Through AI Improving Sustainable Business Communication Through AI Adopting AI can address existing challenges in the workplace and enhance how people share information in several ways. Team Interaction and Meeting Tools Team Interaction and Meeting Tools AI meeting assistants are revolutionizing note-taking, leading to more effective communication among team members. Platforms like Otter.ai, ClickUp, Gong.io, and Fireflies.ai have become mainstays in remote meetings, saving valuable time and effort. These AI-enabled tools offer a wide selection of intuitive features, including the ability to transcribe speeches with over 95% accuracy , highlight key points, and even analyze emotional tones. with over 95% accuracy with over 95% accuracy Automated note-taking also frees up personnel to listen more intently during meetings. The generated notes are easier to disseminate, reducing the chances of misunderstandings since everyone has access to the same information. Personalized Communication Personalized Communication Many CRM providers are integrating AI into their platforms to enhance customer communications. AI can analyze massive amounts of customer data, providing valuable insights that drive decision-making, especially about how and when to communicate. These systems’ ability to imitate how humans learn based on knowledge and experiences allows them to tailor interactions to suit each client. Personalized communication is crucial to higher response rates and engagement, as people tend to pay closer attention to messages catering to their specific requirements. to tailor interactions to suit to tailor interactions to suit Language Translation Language Translation Digital technologies have facilitated borderless working conditions where people across multiple countries can collaborate on the same project simultaneously. However, while that is great for diversity and inclusion, language barriers remain a significant problem, and communication suffers as a result. AI-powered translators help bridge the divide and make it easier for individuals and organizations to communicate effectively. With high accuracy and near-instant results, these tools will be pivotal in shaping how brands interact with employees and clients worldwide. For example, Meta’s multilingual machine translation AI can translate between any pair of 100 languages directly. This unlocks a broader target audience for firms since customers on the other side of the globe can easily understand marketing messages and related content. any pair of 100 languages any pair of 100 languages Enhanced Chatbot Functionality Enhanced Chatbot Functionality A recent survey shows that 56% of businesses use AI in customer support functions, especially for enhancing chatbot functionality to serve consumers better. Sophisticated bots can now respond intelligently to user inquiries by leveraging advanced analytics and machine learning capabilities. 56% of businesses use AI 56% of businesses use AI These systems also make it easier for customers to communicate with them. For instance, AI-powered bots can analyze user-provided voice input or provided text to make sense of the request and formulate smart responses. Unlike rule-based bots, AI chatbots are context-aware and can learn continuously from prior interactions, making them increasingly intelligent with every interaction. Soon, people will likely not know the difference between chatting with a human CSR agent and a machine. AI chatbots are context-aware AI chatbots are context-aware Natural Language Processing (NLP) Algorithms Natural Language Processing (NLP) Algorithms NLP saves employees from spending too much time trying to navigate an ever-expanding field of potentially offensive expressions. They can simply ask the AI tool to create and convey the message correctly. This feature also enables businesses to utilize AI tools to generate relevant, targeted content at scale. Marketing teams can personalize pieces to align with specific audience segments and foster stronger relationships. Leverage AI to Enhance Business Communication. Leverage AI to Enhance Business Communication. As enterprises continue to adopt data-driven processes, AI will hugely impact how they communicate with their personnel and customers. Automation and ML technologies are powerful tools that can augment and complement human communication. Leaders must recognize this game-changer if they intend to maintain their innovative edge. Sources: https://www.grammarly.com/business/learn/state-of-business-communications-2023/ https://www.grammarly.com/business/learn/state-of-business-communications-2023/ https://blog.huddles.app/can-ai-ensure-accuracy-in-your-meeting-notes/ https://blog.huddles.app/can-ai-ensure-accuracy-in-your-meeting-notes/ https://blog.array.com/how-fintechs-are-balancing-innovation-while-adding-value-for-their-customers-and-to-their-bottom-line https://blog.array.com/how-fintechs-are-balancing-innovation-while-adding-value-for-their-customers-and-to-their-bottom-line https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/first-multilingual-machine-translation-model/ https://about.fb.com/news/2020/10/first-multilingual-machine-translation-model/ https://rehack.com/ai/artificial-intelligence-business-applications/ https://rehack.com/ai/artificial-intelligence-business-applications/ https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050923011158 https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877050923011158

How Can AI Improve Sustainable Business Communication?

Should you even be focusing on getting a rank on Google? Let’s start here. Take a step back, and look at your own searching habits. If you’re anything like me and prefer unfiltered responses to questions, you’ll go to Reddit and Quora. You’ll go to G2 and scroll through the reviews, good and bad. And when you hop on YouTube, you’ll follow the search to look at product videos and expert analysis. Is Google the only place you search for information? Your customers are no different. Stepping into the Googleverse: The Right Mindset Google Search is a marketing channel, not a strategy. And SEO has always been a game of numbers. What do I mean? Well, if you’re familiar with even a little bit of SEO, you know the standard tactics: Publish a whole bunch of blog posts as fast as possible, build links to improve website authority to rank better, and refresh older posts to boost performance. It’s the classic playbook. Historically, content quality and speedy execution have been advantageous to SEO success. But should you do the same? It makes sense for a company like Zapier and Scribe to publish 50+ blog posts every month. They sell a horizontal product, catering to varying personas. So, Search is one of the best channels to reach their target audience. This, however, would make zero sense for a company like Freshpaint, a healthcare data privacy platform that sells to busy healthcare professionals and organizations. They don’t have time to look up and read blogs on Google, no matter how helpful. So, ask yourself: Or just publishing valuable content your customers will like? Because there are 99 ways to reach your audience and SEO is not the only one. Should you even be focusing on getting a rank on Google? The Key Tenets of Content for the Googleverse The way . My experience with using the . Google has seen more changes in the last year than in the entirety of the last decade. I’ve been ringing the bells around Google’s many changes in the last couple of months. SERPs are killing organic reach Search Generative Experience(SGE) Image Source And if my thesis is correct, the old playbook isn’t going to work for SEO or content. I know someone on the Internet says this exact phrase every two months, but I’m sure. This time, it’s surely happening. Here is why: In the last decade, content at the top of SERPs has been formulaic. If you had the resources, you could (can) hire the right people to “game” the system (read: white hat SEO) and get a top rank. That was usually the end goal. But lately, the focus has been shifted to ROI-driving, valuable content. Nothing off-the-mill copycat content that many brands have been publishing in the name of value. With the rising AI scene, many professionals (often in non-content roles) have been highlighting how “easy” and “quick” AI has been in generating content to speed up marketing operations. But here’s the thing: Is AI-generated content even helpful and factually accurate? AI models still have a long way to go. Do customers want to read 100% AI-generated content? Especially now that Google is offering one of its own in the form of AI overviews. If customers are going to spend time on content, it needs to be high-quality and add to their knowledge well. This means original thinking and creativity from the early years of content marketing will need to make a comeback. This has me excited. I feel like we’re finally going back to the basics. To the days of sharing experience-based and helpful content that’s also interesting to read. And not churning out regurgitated, SEO content. At the same time, I can’t help but wonder if we can do proper SEO for SGE as well. I’m sure you’re brimming with questions too. But it’ll be a waste of time to worry about that right now. SGE is still in the infancy stage, after all. There are going to be many iterations and improvements to the model over time. If anything, you should be using the time to focus on: Building content recall Sourcing original thinking and research Having a documented distribution strategy Executive branding Building a memorable social media presence Experimenting with content formats (video, interactive product tours, webinars, podcasts, and more) Why? Let me explain using Gong’s example before I get into tactics. When you think “language learning”, you think Duolingo. When you think “zero-click search”, you think SparkToro. And when you think “sales intelligence”, you think of Gong, a revenue intelligence platform. In the sales niche, Gong’s content is unbeatable, despite having roughly 1000+ sales tech solutions as competitors. You’ll rarely find their company blog ranking on the SERPs, but ask any sales professional, and they’ll tell you that Gong has the best sales content. How so? That’s because their content is: Based on data sourced from real sales conversations [Source: Gong Blog](https://www.gong.io/blog/how-to-write-a-sales-email/) Crafted by subject matter experts Created for a clearly defined audience: sales leaders, AEs, and managers in tech companies Written in a conversational, non-boring tone and focused on providing actionable advice Promoted across channels where their target audience actively engages with content. Hint: LinkedIn and email. To sum up Gong’s content in one word, it’s customer-centric. Now, there are many brands that will say the same thing about their own content. And then they’ll go and make a list of keywords to understand the type of content their customers want. As ironic as that sounds, it’s the way many brands have been creating content. My hope with the new Googleverse is the shattering of such hollow ideas. And how are we going to achieve that? Let me show you in the second part. Stay tuned!

How to Create and Market Content in the New Googleverse: Part 1

Israeli startups embrace AI across multiple industries with great success – meanwhile investment in these companies exceeded $25 billion in 2021 alone. In recent years, Israel has established itself as a leading tech nation, raising capital and growing more unicorns than any other country (per 100,000 citizens). As a matter of fact, it’s precisely Israel that’s ahead of most other countries, both in terms of the number of successful AI startups, as well as the overall investment these businesses have been able to attract. All that despite the country’s small size by comparison. 2014-2019 The numbers speak for themselves. According to , Israel had around 500 registered AI companies that managed to raise over $500 million in funding in 2014. Over the next 4 years, these figures grew dramatically to the point that Israel counted as many as 1150 AI businesses in 2018. Together these companies raised an impressive $2.25 billion in funding. If we also include Israeli high-tech and deep-tech companies, the investment figures climb to a whopping $6 billion. Quite impressive for a nation of 9 million citizens that’s roughly the size of New Jersey. The Times of Israel In 2018, among the AI go-getters from Israel were those that worked on cybersecurity (Israel’s forte traditionally: around 20% of total funding,), healthcare (around 15% of total funding), followed by law, computer vision, and autonomous vehicles among other areas. What’s more, according to , of the roughly 6,800 tech startups in Israel that year, almost a quarter were involved in AI in one form or another – a baffling figure compared to the much humbler stats coming from other nations. Start-Up Nation Finder 2020-today Today, Israel is showing no signs of stopping or even slowing down – at least so far – regardless of the Pandemic. Israel continues to thrive. According to the , Israeli tech startups raised $10,3 billion in 2020, followed by $25,6 billion through 773 investment rounds last year. The latter figure is a 400% increase from 3 years ago and a 150% increase from 2020, mainly due to “the large number of deals over $100 million.” IVC-Meitar report Predictably, cybersecurity topped the list again with $6.5 billion in investment for all 4 quarters. The last quarter of 2021 was the strongest, having raised $8 billion across multiple industries. It’s important to note that 65% of that funding is foreign, with the US dominating both seed-stage and series A rounds. This comes as no surprise knowing the entrepreneurial spirit of the American businessman, combined with the fact that post-money valuation of the Israeli startups in 2021 rose a staggering 650% from the previous year alone. According to Mike Rimon from Meitar Law Offices, “2021 was the year of the Big Bang” for Israeli IPOs in the US. In addition to that, 13 Israeli companies went for the SPAC option (Special Purpose Acquisition Companies), which is another way for a private company to go public on the NYSE or Nasdaq. They successfully raised just under $3 billion in total. Israeli tech startups up close Among noteworthy tech startups from Israel today are , a B2B payment platform, and , a workforce management platform, that managed to raise $250 million each in their series D rounds in the fall of last year. Both companies are now valued at around $4 billion each. Melio Papaya Global , an Israeli cybersecurity company, managed to raise a record $400 million in funding last December. This is considered to be the biggest investment deal to date within the global cybersecurity sector. SoftBank led the round, a Tokyo-based conglomerate that focuses on investing in emerging technologies. SoftBank also gave $200 million in funding to , an Israeli IoT company backed by Amazon Web Services that utilizes Machine Learning (ML) for cloud intelligence. Claroty Wiliot Another 3 AI startups from Israel received over $350 million each in funding through several investment rounds. One of them is (formerly AnyVision), a platform with 3 flagship products that provides Fortune 500 brands with face-recognition and video-surveillance technology ($352 million). is another example, an AI company that helps businesses with audio, video, and text transcription and captioning ($550 million). And there’s , a conversation intelligence platform for B2B sales that uses ML and Natural Language Processing (NLP) to train and assist sales teams ($583 million). They’re also active in to ML training data. Oosto Verbit Gong.io bringing publicity CES top picks A few AI startups from Israel also made an appearance at the highly regarded (CES) in Las Vegas earlier this year – BioBeat, OrCam, and Cecilia among others. , a health-AI company, is focused on generating clinical data. One of its products that’s popular among doctors in Israel – and now spreading overseas – is an AI-powered patch that takes the patient’s measurements. From blood pressure to oxidation rate, there are 14 vital signs in total. Consumer Electronics Show BioBeat is an extraordinary company that helps visually impaired and legally blind individuals to walk in public and identify various places and items. One of the company’s groundbreaking products is MyEye Pro, an AI-powered navigation device that transforms text into speech for the wearer and whispers to them when a familiar face is recognized. OrCam On a less serious note, is the first AI-driven interactive bartender named after a speakeasy legend, Mary Louise Cecilia Guinan. The eight-foot-tall virtual mixologist uses cutting-edge voice-recognition technology to interact with the customer and offer them suggestions based on their needs, or even their mood. The robolady says: “I’m chattier than most robots you’ll meet. I talk, I listen, and I’m goddamn hilarious.” She can serve up to 120 cocktails per hour. Cecilia Takeaway As we’ve seen, Israel is setting a fine example for other countries to follow. For the past decade, Israeli startups have raised tens of billions of dollars – some of it for the tech sphere in general and some for the AI field in particular. Last year alone, the figures exceeded $25B. This year the numbers promise to reach a new peak, thanks to geo-political changes, Israel promises to be fertile ground for successful products. It will be interesting to see whether new Israeli tech startups will continue to emerge over the next few years. Given the current pace, what’s even more interesting is how the current high-innovation trend will evolve – both in terms of the AI products offered to the public and the amount of capital invested in these solutions.

Israel is Swiftly Becoming the World’s Leading AI Hub as Investments Continue to Surge in 2022

In recent years, remote working has become less of a concept and more of a reality. In lieu of traditional office space, full-time employees and freelancers alike are occupying home-offices, WeWork hot desks, and tables at their local life-source outlets (read: cafés selling coffee). Many progressive thinkers at the forefront of business forecasting, like , are professing that a digitally-facilitated, remote working environment is the next logical step for contemporary businesses looking to up their productivity output. However, is this just optimistic theorizing, or is there an actual basis for the distributed workplace to, well, work in the long-term? Naval Ravikant When we think about it, working remotely isn’t exactly a radical idea. On closer inspection, it’s already being put into practice by progressive, big-name tech companies, like WordPress, duckduckgo, and Zapier, who operate with a mostly-if- not-completely distributed workforce. In fact, Automattic (the company behind WordPress) specifically built their business on the foundation of working remotely – they offer and, last year, actually shut down their Bay Area office due to inactivity. a $250-a-month remittance for employees to work at their own preferred locations This is a rather telling instance of how, when provided with freedom of choice regarding where to work, employees are now taking the new way of working – remote working – over the established model. And, while it’s clear there was a cost-cutting element behind Automattic’s decision-making process, to say the final decision was purely based on saving money is too simplistic. After all, there are evidently real, impactful reasons for giving employees geographic freedom. When thinking about how a distributed workplace is the logical next-step for modern working, it’s best to use current contractors and freelancers as an example. A vast number of contractors and freelancers are working purely remotely – report suggests that, in North America, there are more than 3.9 million remote workers. By using apps like Zoom or WebEx for robust real-time conversations, and text-based programs like Slack for general day-to-day messaging, communication with colleagues is fluid and easy. The State of the Remote Job Marketplace With this in mind, it makes the norm of traipsing to a company office – either on a freelance or full-time basis – a rather archaic process. If full-time employees, freelancers, and contractors alike are happier living where they want to live as opposed to where they should live, and no matter if they’re working in sales, product development, marketing, or the finance department, wouldn’t their productivity increase by a staggering amount? Data has shown that the answer to the above question is yes; remote working lends itself to a more sophisticated way of working, although some companies have yet to realize its inherent benefits. In SurePayroll’s extremely telling , they found that 86% of their sample pool prefer to work alone in order to get into a good working rhythm, 61% of people attribute loud colleagues in the office as their main distraction, and 46% prefer communicating to colleagues through digital means (email, IM, text) anyway. study concerning office-based productivity prohibitors What’s interesting, however, is that 65% of respondents believe remote working would consequently increase their productivity, but only 19% are given the go-ahead by their employers to work away from the office. Employees actively want to work remotely, but aren’t always given the opportunity, even though findings from the same SurePayroll study suggest that “more than 2/3 of employers report increased productivity among their telecommuters.” As a result, the companies already facilitating a distributed workplace are benefiting massively, while those who aren’t are lagging behind. The positives of distributed working don’t end there, either. With employees choosing freely where in the world they work and reside, the company itself can then also choose from a widened pool of talented candidates. As , the co-founder and CTO at Gong.io, : Eilon Reshef says in this informative Forbes listicle “Instead of taking the mediocre candidate in your area, you can hire the superstar who lives on the other side of the country. Limiting yourself to hiring within your locality restricts you to a small talent pool.” Adding to Reshef’s point, companies needn’t find candidates in their own country – they can search for talent across the globe. After all, all that’s needed is a shared language, a decent internet connection, and the personal drive to effectively manage time as a remote worker. With the decentralization of the physical office space – a place that, now, ultimately constrains and restricts – the process of hiring talent is fundamentally changing for the better as well. The HR department (or, whoever is at the helm of recruiting new talent, which varies depending on business size, and especially with start-ups) will have to vet employees to a magnified degree, really analyzing CVs, portfolios, application tasks, and voice call interviews, seeing as a face-to-face meeting isn’t possible. This isn’t a negative, however – it’s exceedingly positive. Prospective employees are assessed on their strengths in relation to a strong pool of other candidates across the globe, meaning that a candidate who will truly excel in the role is chosen. Perhaps the overall process will be longer, sure, but putting in that extra time equates to a correct hire. Employees win. The company wins. Everybody involved, therefore, wins. With each passing day, we’re slowly witnessing the replacement of traditional workplace models with an innovative, fresher alternative: distributed workforces. And although the distributed workplace is, for the moment, not the norm, it’s only a matter of time until entirely remote workforces become standard. : As Naval Ravikant says in this article from AngelList “We’re going to see an era of everyone employing remote tech workers, and it’s not too far away. In fact, now’s the time to prepare for it.” Is your business switching to a remote team? Or are you already operating with a semi or fully distributed workforce? Tell me how remote working culture is changing your business in the comment section below.

Decentralizing the Office Space: Distributed Workplace is a New Norm

Ion 

Handling Smart Contracts with Ioana Frincu on The HackerNoon Podcast

IoT is not a term which has eased down the daily work schedule of our routine, but it is more of the creativity which would help us to experience the technology through the hands of IoT. In this post, some of the essentials which have helped the different businesses, are discussed herewith, which can help them to improve their efficiency, productivity and product reach. It is predicted that by 2020, the Internet of Things IoT solutions will consume more than $6 trillion IoT technologies would help the businesses to improve functions and allow the consumers to share their feedback and other opinions through this new technology, letting the business owners monitor shortcomings, bugs and any other hurdles in the path of successful business path effortlessly. The IoT shall help the business owners to increase the accessibility of the manufacturer to serve the consumers efficiently. With IoT, the overall organizational productivity would get an immense boost. The IoT enabled smarter cities would decrease the traffic and consequently would cause better and faster commuting. If your business picks the within its business mechanism early, then ultimately you receive the edge over your competitors, which would help your products to get the attention of the users. It goes without saying but the very integration of efficient IoT enabled mobile app solution, you would help your business to cross the odds of competition and can help your business to reach the pinnacle of success. I oT services But this can only be feasible once you decide to give a shot of latest technologies to your business through a leading app development company in the USA, which would have the required exposure and the experience to merge your business services with the IoT enabled services. 5 cool examples of Internet Of Things applications: The very mention of the technology to us sparks the chord within the brain, and there is a breakthrough of creativity and innovation in our mind, which only speaks that technology has brought the relief in our lives, which is inexplicable and enigmatic. In this run, the effect of IoT technology only makes the experience much better and it turns out to be satisfactory enough to know that with the help of IoT technology, we can access, manage and control the devices, gadgets and other objects sitting miles away from the destination. What is IoT??? Just to commence with IoT is the abbreviation of the internet of things, which is referred to the network of objects, which has a unique IP address & is connected to the internet. On being connected these objects are further connected to the internet and help the objects to communicate with each other through the internet. The benefit of IoT technology is expanded to a new level of accessibility which reduces the unpleasant gap between the physical and digital world and helps to improve our quality of life. Worth to mention that IoT technology has affected the number of industries, which in return has captured the larger number of audience, and this usage is going to build up in numbers in the near future. Let’s take a look at some of the prominent industries that are getting the IoT applications in their business model, and attaining the huge benefits: 1.) IoT Enabled Healthcare system: With the IoT enabled system and equipment, it is much easier to monitor and capture the patient’s health data. This leads to offer the required  medical services to the users or patients without any delay. So now you can analyze how the IoT enabled services to bring a change in our lives through the services we receive from different industries. Undeniably by using the IoT applications, it is exciting to access the smart parking, traffic congestion, intelligent transportation systems, smart roads, and there is a lot more which is included in to make our lives perfect. The wearable technology comprises of the wearable device, which can be worn on the body and it includes powerful sensor technologies, which provide information about their surroundings. 2.) IoT and Wearable: 3.) IoT enabled Smart Homes: Indeed IoT has affected the residential and commercial space to a large extent. With IoT, users can access the smart home facilities such as smart heating system, refrigerators, connected security cameras, and lighting. It helps the users to conserve the energy and energy can be secured, controlled and monitored in different ways. 4.) IoT in Manufacturing: The Industrial Internet of Things or IoT allows the users to take the benefits from the machine learning, big data technology, sensor data, machine to machine communication and automation technologies for seamless manufacturing services. Worth to mention the IoT lets the manufacturing companies understand the problem and find out the solution through the business intelligence efforts. 5.) IoT Makes Smart Cities: The term technology stands for comfort, convenience, and more productivity in less time, since the inception of IoT the dream of smart cities is able to be conceptualized effortlessly. The common day-to-day issues faced by the laymen can be reduced to the least workload with the help of IoT. For instance: users can access the smart surveillance, smarter energy management system, automated transportation, water distribution, and the security and safety can be resolved which is in highest demand. Although it is also equally important that you get developed the IoT enabled mobile apps through a like Techugo, which has every required technical experience and the exposure to help your IoT enabled the mobile app to grow and your business to receive more revenue. leading mobile app development compan y How IoT would Transform the App World? Indeed the number of the changes technology has brought in our lives is beyond imagination and can never be replaced by any other technology-related benefits offered to us. But as we know the technology is in constant up-gradation mode, in order to serve us better with the best possible services, so expecting a lot from the technology is nothing uncommon. The latest or let’s say most popular technology app technology has also helped us to shape and view our requirements in a unique way, which no other technology has ever done before, but as suggested that  technology is in the constant update mode, which would be bringing the most never expected technologies to come along with the mobile app technology. IoT or Internet of Things is gradually turning into a household name and is gaining a larger number of users to stay attached to it. Surprisingly one of the biggest transformations brought by the IoT technology is the way it shaping up the future of the mobile app industry. Undeniably the number of changes IoT technology is going to bring to the mobile app industry is worth to be noticed and has crafted an ecosystem, wherein a series of new opportunities are created for the humans, such as: Enhanced connectivity, through which a user can operate any device from anywhere with just a tap on his/her Smartphone. Crafting smart cities, where the user can simply tap on a Smartphone app to handle those objects, which earlier required the physical touch to operate. Undeniably the integration of IoT technology would bring the immense comfort to us, where we can operate, manage and handle the different devices of our daily usage with just a tap on our Smartphone, but this is very much possible with a mobile app only. But no prize for guessing, if your mobile app is not developed by one of the top mobile app development companies, then even if you have the best-of-the-world features in your app, it can never gain popularity. How to get an IoT app? It all starts with the product discovery phase, which is the very first step to help you lay a solid foundation for app development. Here you must include the functional specification, UX/UI design, and a visual prototype,  to attain the much clearer vision of the end product. Although, on the other hand,  an average, IoT app consumes around 4-5 months to develop, depending upon the number of features and functionalities included. Essentials you need to consider before development: 1.) Get a full scope of work and create the project road-map 2.) Set a realistic budget as per the MVP 3.) Understand the users’ acceptance using a visual prototype 4.) Hire a team of experts If you’ve decided to craft a reliable and powerful IoT product, then you must know that it never comes into existence with a random team, but you need a team of professionals, who hold the prior experience of developing a successful training technological solution.

5 COOL EXAMPLES OF INTERNET OF THINGS APPLICATIONS AND HOW TO DEVELOP ONE?

Teaching my old iPhone new tricks

Applied game dev math can be tricky, but is really rewarding. Here’s a follow-up to Nevyn’s Twitter thread on his journey from incomprehensible mess to enlightened one-liner. Follow the dev journey and learn the math involved. I studied game programming in 2004, which included linear algebra — matrices, vectors, that sort of thing. It was the most fun I’ve ever had with math, since it’s the basic underpinnings for 3D graphics, physics and many other game development topics, so I was able to immediately try out every new thing we learned in code, and literally play with it. Fast forward sixteen years, past a long iOS career that didn’t really need that much math, to the now where I’m part of a group building the future of VR. Alloverse is 3D, and built on game tech, so all that old knowledge is needed again. I’m kind of a lazy programmer, so it’s rare that I reach a point where I truly understand something; I enjoy the building and the result more. However, in this case that wasn’t an option, and with some help from my friends and colleagues, enlightenment was reached and the satisfaction was supreme. Failing slowly So here’s the project, which I thought would be easy: point your hand at a thing, press the grabby button, and have the thing you’re pointing at move, its position and rotation staying fixed relative to your hand as if you glued it onto the end of a stick. Alloverse’s front-end is Lua, but its shared code and backend is C, so I was doing this math in C and only using transformation matrices. After several days of dead-ends, I ended up on the same VR engine that Alloverse uses, . It took an entire day, but Lovr’s APIs are really stellar, and it was so much fun. You can see the result in the video at the top of the post. Here are the important bits: writing a minimal test case in Lua Lovr You don’t have to understand this code, that’s how wrong it is. My general thinking was: Find the point on the grabbed box which should stay fixed relative to the hand. Save the offset from the box’s origin to that point. Also save how far away it is.Calculate the box’ new position by taking the hand’s new position, adding the distance away from the hand, and adding the offset (from grabbed point to origin on the box). Try to do the same thing for rotation by saving the difference in rotation between the hand and the box, and set the box’ new rotation to the hand’s rotation plus the saved difference. I figured it’d be easier to decompose the problem from matrices (which I know how to work with and are okay proficient with, but which are hard and always do my head in) to positions and rotations (positions are easy, but for rotations I haven’t used quaternions before, so it’s all new territory for me). The problem was, as you can see in the video above, that the rotation was applied in the wrong coordinate system, so it rotated along X when I wanted to rotate around Z, and so on, depending on the camera location when drag started. This is something I conceptually understand how to fix when working with matrices (you usually need to invert the order of multiplication, since matrix multiplication is not commutative), but with Quats I’m lost. Enter: . All that work to switch tools, only to want to switch back, and I didn’t understand anything any better. I had spent over a week full-time on this already (to the point where it would distract me from eating and sleeping outside of work hours). frustration A little help from my friends It was time to ask for help. Luckily, I had the privilege to befriend math prodigy and VR hacker when I lived in San Francisco. When I described the problem over Messenger, he disappeared for a few minutes and then returned with a PDF with some LaTeX formulas. 🤯🤯🤯 Rasmus Apparently, my thinking that I needed to keep track of the point at which the “stick” was touching the box muddled the waters for me, making the problem much more complex than it had to be. All I really needed was to save a single transform — “HandFromBox” above — and everything just falls into place! Still, I was not able to take this theory and apply it to practice on my own. Luckily again, I’m now colleagues with one of my closest friends (who also studied Game Programming at BTH with me): ! We spent two whole afternoons pair programming using . The result is beautiful: 19 lines replaced with 4. Voxar the amazing screen sharing tool screen.so Plus, you know, it works 😅😂 Voxar and I are both working on our collaboration style (at one point, I argued vehemently for a full hour that he was wrong, but of course he was right 😅). We had two big squabbles; but since they were such sticking points for us that we kept arguing our sides vehemently, we ended up teaching ourselves something really valuable when working with matrices. Rasmus’ chosen terminology — “XFromY” — really did our heads in for the longest while, but using it means that the naming itself helps you understand the semantics of matrix multiplication. Again, since matrix multiplication isn’t commutative, this is super valuable. In the past, I would just swap every multiply in my code until it works; but after this exercise, I’m actually able to reason about the order and figure out the correct order without experimenting. This has the advantage that I don’t introduce mistakes that cancel each other out; I’ve done this mistake times, and leads to just writing tons of bad math that all breaks once you fix one load-bearing bug somewhere. two many For example, if you have a transform that represents the position, rotation and scale of your box in the world coordinate space (i e relative to the origin point of the world at 0,0,0), you can call it WorldFromBox. We can multiply a point that is relative to box with this, and get a point that is relative to world — i e it is a transform from the ‘box’ coordinate system to the ‘world’ coordinate system. So say we want handFromBox to get that “offset” we talked about before, converting from the hand’s coordinate space to the box’ coordinate space. We have the hand and the box transformation matrices (representing their position, rotation and scale in a single big box of numbers) called worldFromHand and worldFromBox. We can get handFromWorld by just invert()ing worldFromHand. Thus, Notice how the two “world”s line up, making the line readable! This was a big revelation for me. With code and understanding in place, we ran our virtual victory lap! (I accidentally only recorded Voxar’s mic, not my own) It gets tricker We weren’t quite ready to port it back to Alloverse though, because Alloverse is a scene graph. You know, like on a regular 2D computer: you have a window, and the window has a text field and a button. When you move the window, the button follows the exact movement of the window, keeping its relative position to the title bar. It’s the same thing on web sites. It’s really hard to build user interfaces without a scene graph. You really got to keep things straight with a scene graph. It’s really easy to write math that seems to work, but where you ended up accidentally assuming that one tiny part of the equation is in world coordinates when it isn’t. For example, in my prototype, the hand belongs to the world (see left); but in Alloverse, the hand belongs to the avatar which belongs to the world (see right). Also, the thing you’re moving might belong to a parent object, rather than being in the world. Yeah, I use a Windows PC as my main machine nowadays, so you’re not getting fancy OmniGraffle graphics. Deal with it. Getting a matrix that represents WorldFromTallBox is easy: just recursively multiply tall box’ transform with each of its parent nodes in turn. Converting from any arbitrary node to any arbitrary node is trickier, but again, Rasmus’ nomenclature helped us out. I’m sure there are more efficient solutions, but this works: This is taken from the . same source linked before, but a few commits later And hey presto, that took about a DAY of flailing around in C and an HOUR in Lua. A bad case of the typos Okay! The prototype works! Let’s just port the math over to C and we’re done! … Well. We ported the math over line-by-line. It refused to work. Things would just fly off the screen from a simple hand movement, some matrix being multiplied in the wrong order. We debugged for an entire day, making really really really sure every single detail was correct. clearly When we had read the code so many times we the fault must lie otherwhere… we looked at my home-baked matrix class. … and of course, my multiply_matrix method had a typo, swapping the arguments. So, every single multiplication in the entire project so far had been written in the incorrect order to compensate for this load-bearing bug. knew With absolute zero trust remaining in my skill to copy-paste math from StackOverflow, we moved to , which has all the linear algebra you need for 3D graphics, physics and all that jazz, and nothing less, and nothing more. It’s just lovely. (Its API is very similar to , which is just perfect.) felseva’s mathc library Cirno’s Perfect Math Library clearly This of course broke everything else, so I had to invert every single multiplication in the project before moving on … At long last… Yes. What you’re looking at is me moving the jukebox app with the grabby button. And it moves. Exactly following the hand’s movement and rotation. IT’S PERFECT! IT’S BEAUTIFUL! IT’S TWELVE LINES OF CODE! On the one hand… I feel like such a fraud. I like watching Twitch streams of other game devs, and I feel like this is the sort of thing they’d go like “oh, and then we need to be able to move things, lemme just” and five minutes later it’s there. For me, it was several full days of work a few months ago before we were incorporated and I was working in my free time; and now followed by two additional full weeks of work. On the other hand, I’ve only been on this job full time a single month now, and I’ve learned so very very very much so far. This is just one of the frankly quite amazing things we’ve accomplished in this short time, and there’s much more to come. In conclusion: Using the XFromY naming convention for matrices is really handy. Understanding your code can be better than just writing something that seems to work. Figure out when that’s the case and spend the time to get there. ‘s just great. Lovr Maybe don’t write your own math primitives unless you really know what you’re doing or you can’t avoid it. You can . Actually, you can (warning: C), because Alloverse is Open Source! check out our sample code on GitHub check out our product’s final state on GitHub too If you enjoyed this post, do (or just , , ) to get notified of new posts, or maybe even ? 🤗 follow @alloverse on Twitter @nevyn @voxar @rasasmus come join us on Discord Nevyn, founder of Alloverse.

VR Math: The Difficulties of Moving Objects in Virtual Reality

The emergence of technology is majorly bent towards mobile apps, and a significant part of the world's population is focused on iOS devices. This opens an opportunity for many iOS mobile app development agencies to showcase their talent and win the market. iOS is an imperative and a huge part of the mobile revolution. With the companies continuously incorporating iOS mobile app development services into their offerings, iOS development has become crucial and competitive in the mobile industry. When creating an iOS application, you need to essentially have the correct collection of iOS development tools. There was a time when iOS development was a challenging job due to some of Apple's limitations. However, it is an undeniable fact that using the correct iOS development tools can help you achieve the desired outcomes. Tools help make the app development process easier and help in simplifying the integration process with the backend services. Now let's look at some of the top tools that you can use while developing iOS apps. We have mentioned the best 5. Efficient Mobile App Development Tools for iOS. Let's pay attention to some of the most popular iOS app development tools. These tools help iOS app developers create the most scalable, reliable, well-functioning, and efficient mobile applications with stunning UI/UX designs. This post will give you knowledge about the most popular iOS development tools with their advantages and disadvantages. Read further to get yourself infused with the knowledge. AppCode AppCode - An IDE (Integrated Development Environment) for Swift, Objective-C, C, and C++ development created on JetBrains IntelliJ IDEA platform. Its very first public preview version was launched in April 2011, after which it rapidly started gaining popularity in the market. Its latest available version is AppCode 2021.3 and is available on JetBrains' official website. Built on the IntelliJ IDEA platform, AppCode is written in Java and Kotlin. If you want to extend its abilities, you can do it by installing plugins that are developed for the IntelliJ platform, or you can also build your own plugins. AppCode is a smart editor with efficient project navigation, thorough code analysis, smart completion, and reliable refactorings. Let's now look at why you should choose AppCode for iOS App Development. Why Choose AppCode for App Development? A Smart IDE AppCode is an intelligent integrated development environment with the ability to smartly and thoroughly analyze the code structure built by the users. This will enable developers to identify the issues and problems in their codes, thus accelerating their development process. Seamless and Reliable Code Refactorings One among so many remarkable capabilities of AppCode is Code Refactoring. This is a technique of changing the structure of the code without altering its external behavior. With AppCode, you can seamlessly use this technique to enhance the code’s design and structure. Created with a Customizable UI that Adapts to your Work Process AppCode is built with a customizable user interface. Users can configure the tools and the layouts found in their UI to perform their tasks more efficiently and conveniently. AppCode Features Unit Testing XCode Support Editor Customization Integrations Navigation and Search Run & Debug Smart Editor Refactoring and Code Generation XCode XCode is Apple's IDE for macOS, which is used to develop software for macOS, iOS, watchOS, iPadOS, and tvOS. Initially released in 2003, its latest stable version is 13.1, launched on 25th October 2021. It is available on the Mac App Store free of cost for macOS Monterey users. This platform includes Command Line tools that enable Unix-style development through macOS's terminal app. XCode 13 has recently brought some powerful team development features that are considered the best for working with XCode cloud, GitHub, GitLab, and Bitbucket collaboration features. Read further to know more about why you should use XCode for iOS App Development. Why XCode for iOS App Development? Helpful Interface XCode helps users develop mobile applications for iOS devices while providing them with the assistant editor. In addition, XCode automatically shows resources that it considers useful in the ongoing coding process without interfering with the development and editing in the main window. This lets developers easily find data that could help them in completing the project faster. Schemes feature XCode is an iOS app development tool with various working schemes that are launched depending on the tasks currently performed by the developers. Its interface launches the debug mode automatically, but you can also customize it to execute the other operations. Smooth Navigation When the users need to find specific data, they can turn to the Assistant Editor. The development workflow is not affected, even when the users need to discover particular data, thanks to the Jump bar that presents the search result where users can immediately examine the code in question. XCode Features Testing Source Control Split Window View Coding Assistant Configurations Code Filter Schemes Management Quick Access User Interface Prototyping Version Editor Transporter You can find the current release of the transporter developer application on the Mac App Store. The Transporter is an easy tool to deliver content to Apple. You can easily send music, movies, apps, tv shows, or books for distribution on the iTunes Store, Apple TV app, App Store, Apple Music, and Apple Books. Back then, it was available on command-line tools, but now it easily lets users drag and drop to seamlessly upload the binaries to App Store Connect. This allows developers to see the details like a warning, delivery history, errors, and progress. With the transporter app, you can upload your .pkg and .ipa files to App Store Connect and see the track record of previous deliveries with the date and time. Transporter for iOS Mobile App Development. Why? You can simply drag and drop content to upload into Transporter to create an iOS application. You can upload multiple files at a time for fast delivery. Also, you can keep track of the past deliveries with the date and time. You can also see the delivery progress, including errors, delivery logs, and validation warnings so that you can fix the issues if any. Features of Transporter Drag and drop Upload Multiple Files simultaneously Track Progress Previous delivery track Code Runner Code Runner is a robust iOS development tool known for its excellent strong compilation capabilities. The tool's feature-rich components make it easier for any developer to write an iOS app code. Code Runner is one of the most preferred choices for iOS app developers because it is simple to use, lightweight, and smooth. Code Runner supports all the popular coding languages. With the 25 programming languages supported, personal license and site license are the two types of licenses offered. Why Use Code Runner for iOS Development? It is a seamless tool with strong compilation capabilities. Code Runner has feature-rich components for comprehensive iOS app development It is lightweight and easy to use. The greatest advantage of Code Runner is that it has multi-language support, i.e., almost 25 languages are supported. Code Runner Features Advanced Code Completion Debugging with Breakpoints Run Code in any Language Customized key binding Built-in console Live Errors CocoaPods Cocoapod - It is a dependency manager for XCode projects. Since it has an abundance of libraries and is used in many mobile applications, you can use it for third-party library integration. It is distributed as a Ruby library that can be installed through RubyGem. It is one of the most extensive Objective-C and swift Cocoa-dependent resources. In this tool, the dependencies of any particular project are defined in a single text file which is known as a Podfile. Cocoapod will help you resolve the dependencies between the libraries and fetch the output source code. Later, it will link them together in an XCode workspace to develop an iOS application. Advantages of CocoaPods CocoaPods is a project management tool that makes things a lot easier. It can save you a lot of time and work when dealing with dependencies in your project because it simplifies the process of adding, removing, and upgrading libraries. Features of CocoaPod Incremental Installation Dynamic Screen launch Arguments Define AppSec Multiple Swift and Pod Projects Auto-generation of .xcfilelist Wrapping Up The mobile app development for iOS has given developers the ability and opportunity to write high-quality source code in order to create new apps for Apple's millions of customers. There is a plentitude of apps in the mobile market, each with its own set of features and an excellent reason to use. There are various effective tools for developing these apps, and it is critical to choose the proper tool based on the development stage and usefulness. If you are looking for iOS mobile app development for your business and are confused about which tool to choose, I recommend you take help from a professional and experienced iOS App Development Agency. This would really help you succeed in your business in the long term.

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