With the gradual phasing out of cash as the primary means of payment for everything other than your grandchild’s birthday card, a void had been left that was dying to be filled. With Venmo, people were finally able to quickly and easily split the cost of a meal without having to send a waitress back to the kitchen with ten credit cards and a gift certificate. Now, Pay With Venmo is bringing the same simplicity to online shopping....

So why haven’t we seen a wave of hackers doing just that? According to one security expert, it’s because phishing scams work just fine without adding the hassle of a deepfake. Scammers just can’t be bothered. It’s another reminder that cyberattacks are all about ease of access. Studies show the rise of remote work has led to a surge in phishing and ransomware attacks, but a few safety measures can do a lot to deter many attackers....

Praditus is a self-discovery platform that uses psychometrics to help people discover their talents, skills, and areas of development. The Praditus meta-model studies the interactions between personality traits and skills which takes them beyond just being a personality test. They test multiple metrics including what drives individuals, what is their emotional intelligence and reaction to stressful events, and even what’s their most optimal working conditions. Praditus’ tests measure over 50 personality dimensions....

In early 2020, the majority of workers were forced to set up their homes for Zoom or other forms of web conferencing software. From built-in web cams to robust video chat hardware, newly remote employees decked out there home with everything needed to stay in touch with their teams. Now, in 2022, video conferencing setups have gotten pretty advanced, but very few compare to the Zoom rig set up in the Oval Office for President Joe Biden....

However, only 27 percent of all inbound leads are actually sales qualified. This means that nearly three out of four leads are the wrong fit for a sales deal. This can happen because most of the people who take initial meetings are not final decision-makers, but are rather influencers in the buying process. There’s also often a gap in the information that influencers need to escalate the sale. These influencers don’t have all the facts, and are simply trying to streamline the process for the end-buyer....

For the purpose of this illustration, when we talk about the viewpoint of the CEO and the CTO, it’s to make it easier to understand that we are basically speaking about the sales/business side and the programming/development side. The idea vs the architecture. For brevity, even if one of these early team members doesn’t have a C stuck to their title, let’s just call them CEO and CTO. Share Your Why One of the biggest sources for miscommunication between the CEO and the CTO is a failure to understand why....

Challenge accepted! Sir Branson wrote a 16-line poem of rhyming couplets, expounding on his views about business. For example, he isn’t one of those “morals don’t belong in the boardroom” tycoons: Make bold moves, but always play fair,Always say please and thank you – it’s cool to care. And he knows that it’s tempting to fret over whether you’ll be successful: Now, stop worrying about whether your business will be a hit,Rise to the challenge and say ‘screw it, let’s do it!...

According to research from Statista, by 2021, Near Field Communication (NFC) or other contactless payment technologies are projected to generate nearly $190bn in sales in the US, up from $113bn this year. For an idea of how quickly contactless payments have changed in-store retail, consider that only four years ago, they generated just $9bn in sales in the US. With smartphone payment technology at the forefront of the change, plus alternative banks emerging from the likes of Apple and Monzo, offline retail equipment is changing to emulate the payment simplicity of the online experience....

According to Reuters, the Kremlin’s comms regulator, Roskomnadzor, said it has asked the VPN companies to join a “state IT system that contains a registry of banned websites.” It marks the latest effort by the Russian government to restrict internet freedoms within the country. It has previously blocked Telegram, an encrypted chat app, and hatched plans to disconnect the country from foreign websites altogether. Which VPNs are at risk? The ten VPNs mentioned by the comms regulator include some of the biggest names in the sector:...

Between filters, portrait mode, and telephoto lenses, mobile photography has evolved tenfold in just a few short years. From the Pixel lineup to the newest iPhone, smartphone cameras have gotten so good that their pictures are borderline indistinguishable from professional photographs, particularly for everyday users. Well, that line between professional and smartphone photography is about to get a whole lot blurrier, thanks to Samsung’s latest announcement. What Did Samsung Announce?...

Limited numbers of the Galaxy Fold phone, which is due to hit the shelves on April 26, have been released to the media. But, some of these handsets have reportedly been experiencing complete failures. This isn’t a good look for Samsung, or the burgeoning foldable phone category as a whole. Concerningly, the faults are related to the folding screen as well as its hinge mechanism. So, what is going on with the Galaxy Fold?...

Today, they are launching a new and very useful service that will allow online shoppers to be protect themselves and their financial information. It works by providing users a new card number for every transaction they make, which is a strong way to protect them from card fraud, data breaches, and identity theft. On top of self-destruciting card numbers, users have the option of keeping their virtual card number or setting it to expire after a certain amount of money has been spent....

Conwell managed to sit down with Tech.Co at this year’s SXSW to share his thoughts on producing on a consumer-first product, as well has some details on the upcoming launch of Flyp. Flyp is a new smartphone app that will give users the ability to use multiple numbers on their smartphone. The impetus for the idea founded on our current use of multiple email address and multiple social accounts to separate various aspects and activities of our lives....

The vital thing is to understand that finance management is mainly connected with allocation, procurement and then control of available financial resources. In order to make sure that the business runs properly, there is a need to always control cash flow. When the business starts, you have to estimate the money that is necessary for business operations and for your personal decent living. Even if you start your business without money, you still have to estimate the income that is needed and how much you will need for operations....

GoodWorld, which launched in early 2014 already has over 200 partner organizations accepting donations through their service. A native of New Zealand, founder and CEO Dale Nirvani Pfeifer came up with the idea after experiencing difficulty in giving a donation to a struggling educator in Afghanistan. She created the platform as a way to enable seamless donations on social media All that’s required to give a donation is a one-time registration on the GoodWorld website....

Being one small company amongst the sea of thousands of startups vying for customers, capital, and talent, the way to get noticed above the crowd, connect with that next big partner, and raise some capital is to throw your hat in the ring to compete at Startup of the Year. Over the past decade, startups that have been part of the Startup of the Year programs have made new partnerships, grown into household names, and collectively raised billions of dollars in funding....

It appears that it’s time to move a “content editor” position away from the only-for-humans pile of jobs and into the rapidly growing “AI” pile. A new study has indicated that AI-edited email newsletters are opened more often, hold more clickable links, and receive a lower bounce rate than those edited by humans. The Study The Donald W. Reynolds Journalism Institute published the findings, which paired metrics from the Austin American-Statesman‘s editor-curated newsletter, Midday Break, with a newsletter powered by news personalization technology Reportory....

To tackle the job, the study’s lead, University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign psychology professor Daniel Simons, alongside his research team, reviewed the 130 studies most commonly cited by brain-training game companies. The study, titled “Do Brain-Training Exercises Work?”, offered this concise summary of their goals: And of their results: Scientists Already Suspected As Much The news isn’t completely unexpected. Scientists have been going back and forth about the benefits of brain games for years, as tech site Gizmodo explains: What’s the impact?...

Tech Cocktail: How does Personal fit in with the future of the web? Tarik Kurspahic: The future of the web will be driven by data, so we are building the tools and rules for individuals to connect with any device, app, or site and leverage their own data — what we call Bring Your Own Data (BYOD). Specifically, we are building Personal to be a trusted platform that individuals use to create secure, personal data vaults to easily store, securely share, and reuse the information in their lives for home and work – from passwords and education information to credit cards and bank information to real-time streaming of all kinds of data from connected devices....

Remember! Apply now to Tech.Co’s Startup of the Year competition, which will give you a chance to join us at Innovate! and Celebrate 2017! Register now and get ready for a fantastic 3-day journey. Here Are This Week’s Tech.Co Top Stories: Stars Wars Day Top Stories In addition to our weekly top stories, Tech.Co release a number of Star Wars stories in honor of May the Fourth. Check them out below, and may the force be with you....