Missing the mark would be putting it nicely. Microsoft has shown time and time again that walking the line between innovation, desirability and practicality in consumer electronics is no easy task and, again putting it nicely, they’re not very good at it. Rumors about its upcoming Surface tablet do little to prove otherwise. When it comes to consumer electronics, having to compete with Apple is inevitable. From smartphones and laptops to headphones and smartwatches, the tech giant has its hands (and operating system) in pretty much everything....

Noria has so many practical and enjoyable features that you will be shocked you ever used those big, ugly units at all. From bluetooth connectivity for simple adjustments in bed to a fresh air mode that let’s you feel the breeze without uninstalling, there is no end to the simplicity of this air conditioner. But while all these bells and whistles are attractive and exciting, there is one feature that makes Noria the king of window-mounted air conditioners: it’s small!...

These bite-sized snippets of information are only one minute long, but span hundreds of subjects with the option dig deeper into any one of them you find interesting. The available Learning Library offers users a simple overview of complex topics paired with exercises to put said concepts to use. One Month will be sharing the first 15 topics with new videos and resource pages. After the first 15 have been successfully launched, the team will be releasing ten additional topics each month....

The German social media site, which has remained largely under the radar since its launch in 2016, has gained 230,000 users since Musk’s acquisition of Twitter, and its growth isn’t showing any signs of slowing down. Both platforms share a lot of similarities, but unlike Twitter, Mastodon doesn’t have ads, displays content chronologically, and offers a generous character limit of 500. With a somewhat complex microblogging system and its own internal vernacular, Mastodon can be a little hard for beginners to get their head around though, so if you’re considering joining the #TwitterExodus, here’s everything you need to know about the platform....

In the dinner photo (below) President Barack Obama is seated next to Steve Jobs on his left and Mark Zuckerberg on his right. President Obama is toasting to the group and we wonder what his toast consisted of. Help us ad lib his toast and win a little prize for your efforts. Leave us a comment below and we’ll select the “most creative toasts” and send you a case of Brisk Ice Tea to quench your thirst for rele asing your inner creativity....

Telephone pictionary – the game where you draw something, your neighbor writes down what it is, his neighbor tries to draw it, and on and on until your original idea has been hilariously distorted – is now available online as Doodle or Die. Now with thousands of players, the game was created during a weekend-long programming competition called Node Knockout, where it took home the prize of “most fun.” Cofounders Dylan Greene and Aaron Silverman, who were developers at Opower lacking in the art-skills department, decided to create a game where players would make the art....

Particularly in the past year, tech and government have butted heads over how innovations such as artificial intelligence, social media and data collection are changing the world around us. Between the Congressional Hearings and the technology councils, the scuffle has produced little by way of concrete results, outside of a few scrapped bills and the increasing public fear of a technology-fuelled apocalypse. So what’s the hold up? Is the tech industry too complicated to regulate?...

Specifically, the two companies will integrate AppTap’s proprietary recommendations engine with first-party audience data to deliver targeted app recommendations to gaming consumers who play PCHs mobile products. So far, the AppTap/PCH combo has yielded click-to-install rates of 25 percent+ and increased revenue per click by 55 percent for app ads on PCH mobile products. Famous for its ability to generate customer lists – and infamous for its multi-million dollar sweepstakes – PCH has struggled with targeting players of its casino and casual games with relevant offers that won’t scare them away....

— Rhapsody (@Rhapsody) August 4, 2014 Just last week, Rhapsody announced that its premium subscription music service had reached 2 million subscribers across the globe. In the same post, the company revealed new partnerships with mobile carriers across Latin America and Europe. While the company has not said anything about its plans regarding these two major acquisitions, I think it’s safe to assume that it will attempt to take on Spotify’s dominance in the industry....

At least 50 percent of the cobalt produced in the world is done by the DRC. According to Amnesty, there is a risk of fatal accidents for miners working in the area, not to mention long-term health issues. It claimed that between September 2014 and December 2015, approximately 80 miners had lost their lives in Southern DRC. The human rights organizations also got testimonies of children who work in the mines....

Brano Perkovich is the chief investment officer for the storied NFL team and a managing partner at Aurum Partners LLC, the family office fund affiliated with the owners of the San Francisco 49ers. In this role, Perkovich primarily focuses on early stage and growth equity investment opportunities in sports, technology, and strategically adjacent consumer markets. This allows portfolio companies to leverage the 49ers’ access and network to help drive product adoption and accelerate growth....

According to reports, data – some of which belongs to SevenRoom’s customers and clients – was exfiltrated from the company’s databases and put up for sale on a hacking forum at the tail end of last week. This breach emphasizes the importance of putting security at the forefront of your buying decisions whenever you’re purchasing software for your business. This is especially pertinent with regard to CRM systems due to the large volumes of customer data businesses use them to store....

“This is a great moment in Shark Tank history, and a testament to the message at the heart of the show: the American Dream is alive and well,” said Kevin O’Leary, founder of O’Leary Financial and star of ABC’s Shark Tank. “I’ve worked closely mentoring Brian and Julie, the founders of GrooveBook, and I’ve always believed in their potential as entrepreneurs to grow their business into something remarkable. Today they have done just that – and thanks to their hard work and great innovation, they are going to wake up financially independent and free....

In “How great leaders inspire action,” a talk from TEDxPugetSound, Start with Why author Simon Sinek explains the stupidly simple difference between successful and unsuccessful leadership. Many failed examples of leadership and marketing start with something along the lines of “I have a plan” (including today’s politicians). They start talking about “what” they’re selling, then “how” it’s made or done, then the “why” or purpose or cause. If Apple marketed this way, they would talk about computers, beautifully designed, disrupting the status quo....

Along with project management software tools, the use of business communications apps became widespread during the pandemic and is now a permanent fixture of millions of people’s hybrid working arrangements. The sheer number of users – as well as the companies – that both of these apps cater to make the findings all the more worrying. Major Security Flaws Discovered The study, produced by researchers at the University of Wisconsin-Madison has identified a number of potentially catastrophic gaps in both Slack and Teams’ security models....

And now we’re finding out that that handy sleep tracking tech might not be so great after all. A new study out from the Journal of Clinical Sleep Medicine purports that tech lovers’ focus on sleep trackers is hurting them. It’s Called “Orthosomnia” According to the study, an estimated 10 percent of U.S. adults use a wearable fitness or sleep tracking device regularly, and another 50 percent would consider buying one....

I’ve written about SmartShoot before, and I’m doing so again because the network today launches a new platform that helps enterprises manage and scale their own networks of photographers or videographers. What SmartShoot did was to take its own tools that helped the network manage its own community of more than 10,000 professional filmmakers and photographers, and then make it available to other companies such as HotelTonight. By doing so, HotelTonight was able to create its own network of professional photographers in the places it needed them and managed the team using SmartShoot tools....

Today, Gillenwater has announced that the company has raised $700,000 in funding, both from executives at Samsung and Apple, and from Mato Peric, previously of Rocket Internet and now supporting SpeakUp’s business development efforts. The SpeakUp team is currently made up of “twelve exceptionally bright people,” says Gillenwater, who are distributed all around the globe. To manage their distributed team, “We use Slack to communicate, post new ideas into SpeakUp, and utilize Trello to manage the workflow....

Penelope Gazin and Kate Dwyer were, in so many words, fed up with startup sexism. As the cofounders of Witchsy, an ecommerce marketplace for weird art, dark humor, and culturally aware content, they had received condescension and downright sexism on more than one occasion while trying to launch their business. Nevertheless, they persisted with success. The marketplace, designed to be a less cluttered Etsy that pays creators 80 percent of the profits, allowed the women entrepreneurs to enjoy “a small profit....

Whereas Elance and its brethren have been accused of leading a race to the bottom, Fiverr beat them all there. “For less than $100 a month, I estimate that I receive around $5,000 worth of services,” said Andrew Lock, producer of the Web TV show “Help! My Business Sucks!” Lock used Fiverr freelancers to put together a keyword research report and even design a new mobile version of his website....