Google delays Android 11 by a month

Google today announced that it is extending the preview period of Android 11 by about a month. So instead of launching a beta this month, as it had previously planned, it’ll release a fourth developer preview today instead. The first beta will officially launch on June 3, during an Android-centric online event it’ll hold in lieu of its I/O developer conference.

“When we started planning Android 11, we didn’t expect the kinds of changes that would find their way to all of us, across nearly every region in the world,” Google’s Android team writes today. “These have challenged us to stay flexible and find new ways to work together, especially with our developer community. To help us meet those challenges we’re announcing an update to our release timeline.”

Google notes that it wants to meet the needs of the Android ecosystem, which has obviously started work on early app testing for Android 11 based on the company’s guidance, with the current environment during the coronavirus pandemic and the other priorities that come with that. Delaying the release by a month seems like a reasonable approach in this context.

Google says developers should target the Beta 1 release date of June 3 for releasing a compatible app to gather feedback from the larger group of Android Beta users. And that group will be larger because, like with previous releases, Google will make over-the-air updates available to users who opt in to the beta and have a compatible device. The list of compatible devices for the beta remains to be seen, but it’ll likely include all recent Pixel phones, starting with the Pixel 2.

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Tinder to add video dating next quarter, after slowing user growth due to coronavirus

Tinder will add a video dating feature in the second quarter of this year, parent company Match announced on Tuesday as part of its Q1 2020 earnings report. The company also detailed the coronavirus impact which slowed Tinder user growth in the quarter, as social distancing requirements and government lockdowns went into effect.

Match didn’t go into detail about its plans for video dating, but noted it has been testing the waters with video in its Plenty of Fish app. In the quarter, it accelerated the rollout of a one-to-many live streaming feature that has so far exceeded its expectations, the company said,

“As daters demonstrated strong willingness to video-date, our product and engineering teams around the world mobilized quickly to deploy one-to-one video chat capabilities on many of our platforms,” wrote Match Group CEO Shar Dubey, in the letter to shareholders.

Match-owned Hinge also introduced a video call feature called Date from Home this month.

But the company’s flagship dating service Tinder had not yet embraced video — despite that fact that its direct competitor Bumble has offered video for a year, and Facebook is launching virtual dating via Messenger for its Facebook Dating users.

Match explained the reason for its hesitance on video during its earnings calls with investors, saying that video features had been tried over the years, but never saw much adoption. The company believes that will change now, as “users are being forced to use it.” Users will see the benefits and likely continue to use video when the pandemic is over, the company said.

Overall, Match had a solid Q1 with revenue growth of 17% year-over-year to $545 million, and earnings per share growth of 31% to 55 cents. Both beat Wall St. expectations of $544.9 million and 34 cents per share, respectively.

But there were numerous signs of how the coronavirus took its toll on online dating.

Users’ unwillingness to go on in-person dates — the ultimate goal of online dating —  led to Tinder seeing first-time sequential subscriber declines from February to March, before things started to stabilize in April, Match said.

The majority of Match’s non-Tinder brands saw sequential declines in first-time subscribers in March as well, the company added.

Tinder ended the quarter with 6 million subscribers, up from 5.9 million in December 2019 — meaning it only added 100,000 new subscribers in the quarter. In the year-ago quarter, it had added 384,000 paid users. Tinder’s average revenue per user (ARPU) grew just 2%, mainly due to purchases of a la carte features.

The company also admitted it was “seeing some headwinds to ARPU” on Tinder due to fewer of those a la carte purchases and shifts to lower-priced subscriptions.

Despite these challenges, Tinder grew its direct revenue by 31% year-over-year and saw 28% year-over-year growth in subscribers. Non-Tinder brands saw direct revenue growth of just 2% year-over-year, and flat subscriber growth, by comparison.

“Tinder clearly remains a go-to app for meeting new people, which has become an even more critical service with so many people stuck at home,” noted Dubey, optimistically.

Like many other companies, Match declined to offer a full year financial outlook, saying there were too many unknowns with regard to the pandemic.

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Pinterest rolls out new board features including notes, dates and section suggestions

Pinterest is introducing new features that make it easier for those planning recipes, virtual events and other quarantine activities. These include the ability to add a date or notes to a board as well as automated ways to better organize your pins on a given board, with the aid of machine learning technology.

The company has seen increases in particular types of activities on its platform amid the quarantine. For example, it’s seen a more than 50% increase in people using the site to plan virtual events — like virtual birthday parties, baby showers or virtual educational activities.

Meanwhile, it has also seen people planning ahead for their post-quarantine projects, as well as an overall 60% increase in the number of boards created versus the same time last year. Engagement with boards is also up nearly 75% on a year-over-year basis and up nearly 50% month-over-month.

The addition of board notes will allow Pinterest users to annotate their saves with personal notes — like adding a list of ingredients accompany a pinned recipe, a list of tasks for a project, a to-do list or anything else they want to note.

Also new is the ability to add a date to a board. This can help with project planning or to just keep boards better organized by dates. When projects wrap, it may be easier to find the old boards to archive if they have a date attached.

Finally, Pinterest is upgrading its board technology to suggest sections to add to a board.

For example, if you have a fairly broad topic — like “kids’ activities” — Pinterest may now recommend organizing the pins into sections like “art projects,” “outdoor games” and others. And when you’re starting a new board, Pinterest may suggest sections to add as soon as you save your first pin.

The company says it’s using its data on billions of saved ideas combined with machine learning and Pinterest’s own PinSage technology, in order to determine how pins should be grouped. This problem is challenging, Pinterest notes, because it has to accurately cluster together similar pins and predict how a Pinner may want to organize their board.

These new board features are rolling out globally starting today on web, iOS and Android.

The new features are meant to help Pinterest respond to the changes in consumer behavior since the COVID-19 pandemic, where people had temporarily turned away from planning for travel or in-person events, and instead are using their boards to organize for quarantine-related activities, like a child’s homeschooling or virtual events.

The launches follow Pinterest’s report this week of a solid Q1 amid the COVID-19 pandemic. The company grew its revenue 35% year-over-year to $272 million and grew its user base 26% year-over-year to 367 million, beating projections for both. However, it reported a loss of 10 cents per share, versus the expected loss of 9 cents per share.

But Wall Street wasn’t happy with Pinterest’s user growth, CNBC reported, which was up 6% year-over-year in the U.S., compared with 8% in the fourth quarter. Overall, Pinterest’s growth of 26% was the same annualized growth rate it saw in the fourth quarter — in other words, flat. This was unexpected, given Pinterest’s claims of pandemic-related record usage in March and the gains other social platforms have seen, including Facebook and Snapchat.

Pinterest also warned of a tough road ahead, due to pandemic-related advertising declines.

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Google delays Android 11 by a month

Google today announced that it is extending the preview period of Android 11 by about a month. So instead of launching a beta this month, as it had previously planned, it’ll release a fourth developer preview today instead. The first beta will officially launch on June 3, during an Android-centric online event it’ll hold in lieu of its I/O developer conference.

“When we started planning Android 11, we didn’t expect the kinds of changes that would find their way to all of us, across nearly every region in the world,” Google’s Android team writes today. “These have challenged us to stay flexible and find new ways to work together, especially with our developer community. To help us meet those challenges we’re announcing an update to our release timeline.”

Google notes that it wants to meet the needs of the Android ecosystem, which has obviously started work on early app testing for Android 11 based on the company’s guidance, with the current environment during the coronavirus pandemic and the other priorities that come with that. Delaying the release by a month seems like a reasonable approach in this context.

Google says developers should target the Beta 1 release date of June 3 for releasing a compatible app to gather feedback from the larger group of Android Beta users. And that group will be larger because, like with previous releases, Google will make over-the-air updates available to users who opt in to the beta and have a compatible device. The list of compatible devices for the beta remains to be seen, but it’ll likely include all recent Pixel phones, starting with the Pixel 2.

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The cost of workplace stress -- and how to reduce it | Rob Cooke

The cost of workplace stress -- and how to reduce it | Rob Cooke

By some estimates, work-related stress drains the US economy of nearly 300 billion dollars a year -- and it can hurt your productivity and personal health too, says wellness advocate Rob Cooke. He shares some strategies to help put your mental, physical and emotional well-being back at the forefront.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

New studio Modern Games acquires Beasts of Balance

Modern Games is a new studio working to create games that combine physical and digital play.

The company was founded by husband-and-wife team Justin and Amanda Kifer — serial entrepreneurs who previously launched companies including Citizen Local (acquired by MyLife in 2011) and Fidgetly, a fidget spinner company that also created a motion controller for iOS and Android games.

It sounds like the Kifers have a number of new titles in development, but the company is announcing today that it has acquired and is relaunching an existing game, Beasts of Balance.

The game was first released by Sensible Object in 2016. As demonstrated for me by Justin Kifer (the startup’s CEO), Beasts of Balance involves stacking physical animal pieces, while also scanning them into a companion app that keeps score and brings their fantastical skills to life. The basic game costs $99 (currently on sale for $79), and players can purchase expansion packs to get additional accessories, beasts and other “artefacts.”

The other Modern Games titles released this year will be purely physical board and card games, released under its Modern Games [Analog] brand. Kifer told me that the company’s big “flagship” launch is planned for 2021, with a mobile game that involves augmented reality and connected objects, and that takes place in a rich science fiction/fantasy world. In fact, Kifer’s even writing a series of young adult novels to flesh out the setting.

“I want people to think of Modern Games as a studio that is working hard every day push the boundaries what it is to play a game,” he said.

Image Credits: Modern Games

Kifer suggested that by combining physical and digital gameplay, Modern Games’ titles will have the real-world social component of a traditional tabletop game while taking advantage of gameplay that’s also possible digitally.

Kifer also said that by always starting with a core physical product that players need to buy, the company can avoid having to go the free-to-play route adopted by most mobile games. At the same time, he also emphasized that the company will keep the games relatively affordable, with a sub-$40 price for core products. (There were will be additional monetization through physical and digital add-ons.)

On the other hand, our remote demo made it clear that there’s a downside to relying on a physical products — since we weren’t in the same room (and, given COVID-19, are unlikely to be anytime soon), Kifer and I couldn’t actually play the game together.

“The games that we’re working on right now are also multi-player,” Kifer said when I pointed this out. “They’re games that could be played in proximity to other others, but they don’t have to be. For us, it’s all about bringing people together in ways that are inherently social, but it doesn’t necessarily mean physically co-located.”

We need more video games that are social platforms first, games second

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IRL, the calendar app for virtual events, launches a web product

IRL, the recently pivoted calendar app that aggregates live virtual events, has today launched a web version of the platform.

The company, which has $11 million in funding from Goodwater Capital, Founders Fund and Floodgate, started as a social planning app that helped folks find each other in the real world, based on interest and geography.

Over time, the company realized the power of the calendar itself. No one has successfully made the calendar social, explained cofounder Abe Shafi. Where you can follow someone’s music on SoundCloud or follow their updates on Twitter, how can you follow their events?

Pre-pandemic, those events were physical events, with people communing in a venue. But the coronavirus may have split open a much wider world for the startup, which recently pivoted into virtual events.

Through API partnerships with YouTube, Twitch and Spotify, as well as user-generated content, IRL (which now stands for In Remote Life) wants to aggregate all the virtual events across the globe into a curated, categorized home page. That may include an esports tournament, a virtual concert, a Zoom cocktail party or a webinar.

Critical to this push is a web presence, which launches today. Folks can follow content producers, or simply get alerts on individual events. Importantly, IRL is also launching an ‘add to calendar’ button that content producers can add to their own websites.

For now, that ‘add to calendar’ button embed is only available to select partners, with a waitlist for others interested in adding the button to their website.

Cofounder and CEO Abe Shafi explained the company’s monetization plans with TechCrunch, though warned that the current focus is gaining a critical mass before flipping on the monetization switch.

“The way we think about making money is around monetizable intent,” said Shafi. “When you’re on Facebook or Instagram, your monetizable intent is pretty low because you’re interested in what your friends are up to. Whereas, when you’re on Google your monetizable intent is really high because your intent is to find something and go somewhere else. Our monetizable intent is much closer to a Google search than it is to a Facebook or an Instagram in the sense that people come to IRL to go to other people’s content that they’re monetizing in one way or another.”

Importantly, content producers must use the app to add their own events to the platform, but Shafi told TechCrunch that the company has plans to add that same functionality to the web product.

When asked whether IRL would get into content creation itself, Shafi said that the premise of that “gives him a headache.”

“We want to be the bank,” said Shafi. “So many great people are creating content. Getting into the content business is its own beast. If we can be seen as the best place to discover it all, that’s a huge win.”

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Discover is Facebook’s new effort to help people access websites for free — but with limits

Facebook has a new connectivity app called Discover to help those who can’t afford to get online access information on the web.

The service, available through mobile web and Android app, allows users to visit any website in text format (no video, images, audio and other elements that eat up large amounts of data) and consume a few megabytes of internet data.

For Discover, which is part of the company’s Free Basics initiative, Facebook is working with mobile operators in Bitel, Claro, Entel, and Movistar. Discover is currently available in Peru, where it is in the initial testing phase.

In Peru, Discover is offering 10MB of free data to users each day. A Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch that the partner mobile operator determines the daily data allowance, and it anticipates operators in other countries where Discover would be tested to offer up to 20MB each day.

But nothing is set in stone. “We’ll be assessing how people are using Discover and the amount of daily data more during the trials and may work with our operator partners on adjustments going forward,” the spokesperson said, adding that mobile operators will also determine whether support for photos could be added to Discover.

Eliminating support for videos and images means that Discover users would be able to load dozens of websites in a day without running out of their data allowance.

Discover is the latest of a handful of internet connectivity efforts that Facebook has rolled out in recent years. The company maintains Internet.org, which offers unfettered access to dozens of websites in dozens of markets; and Express WiFi, which allows neighbourhood stores to sell small sachet of internet plans to users, in India. Facebook has partnered with more than 10,000 merchants and stores in the country to sell these data plans.

On the Internet.org website, the company also lists Connectivity Lab, another effort that is part of Free Basics initiative through which it is “exploring a variety of technologies, including high-altitude long-endurance planes, satellites and lasers” to bring more people online. At least one of those tests has been discontinued.

“During the coronavirus public health crisis, we believe it is particularly important to explore ways to help people stay connected and to increase access to health information and other resources on the internet. As part of our ongoing work to connect people to accurate health information, coronavirus health resources will be highlighted on the Discover homepage,” said Yoav Zeevi, a product manager at Facebook.

Facebook’s Free Basics initiative, which has helped tens of millions of people access internet, has also received scrutiny for its approach and some unintended consequences. Internet.org was banned in India after the local authority in the world’s second largest internet market found that the program violated net neutrality principles.

Zeevi said the company has heard the feedback and responded by allowing people to browse all websites. “Our work on Discover has been informed by our broader efforts — including our participation in the Contract for the Web — to expand connectivity and access to the open web while continuing to protect privacy,” he said. Tim Berners-Lee’s Contract for the Web has welcomed the launch of Discover.

Critics have argued that programs such as Internet.org, which has been discontinued in some additional markets, have also fuelled violence in real life.

As Facebook expands its connectivity efforts, some other companies have scaled down their initiatives. Earlier this year, Google discontinued its free Wi-Fi program called Station that offered internet access in more than 400 railway stations in India, and was available at public places in handful of other markets.

In 2018, Wikimedia shut down Wikipedia Zero, a program that allowed more than 800 million people to access the online encyclopaedia in 72 countries for free.

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Start, Taskbar And Action Center Option Is Grayed Out In Windows 10 Settings

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Windows 10 uses black color for Start, taskbar, and action center with default settings. That is, the current accent color is not applied to Start, taskbar and action center by default. Users who would like to have a color other than black on Start, action center, and taskbar can navigate to Settings > Personalization > […]

The post Start, Taskbar And Action Center Option Is Grayed Out In Windows 10 Settings appeared first on Into Windows. Content from IntoWindows website.

Discover is Facebook’s new effort to help people access any website in text format

Facebook has a new connectivity app called Discover to help those who can’t afford to get online access information on the web.

The service, available through mobile web and Android app, allows users to visit any website in text format (no video, images, audio and other elements that eat up large amounts of data) and consume a few megabytes of internet data.

For Discover, which is part of the company’s Free Basics initiative, Facebook is working with mobile operators in Bitel, Claro, Entel, and Movistar. Discover is currently available in Peru, where it is in the initial testing phase.

In Peru, Discover is offering 10MB of free data to users each day. A Facebook spokesperson told TechCrunch that the partner mobile operator determines the daily data allowance, and it anticipates operators in other countries where Discover would be tested to offer up to 20MB each day.

But nothing is set in stone. “We’ll be assessing how people are using Discover and the amount of daily data more during the trials and may work with our operator partners on adjustments going forward,” the spokesperson said, adding that mobile operators will also determine whether support for photos could be added to Discover.

Eliminating support for videos and images means that Discover users would be able to load dozens of websites in a day without running out of their data allowance.

Discover is the latest of a handful of internet connectivity efforts that Facebook has rolled out in recent years. The company maintains Internet.org, which offers unfettered access to dozens of websites in dozens of markets; and Express WiFi, which allows neighbourhood stores to sell small sachet of internet plans to users, in India. Facebook has partnered with more than 10,000 merchants and stores in the country to sell these data plans.

On the Internet.org website, the company also lists Connectivity Lab, another effort that is part of Free Basics initiative through which it is “exploring a variety of technologies, including high-altitude long-endurance planes, satellites and lasers” to bring more people online. At least one of those tests has been discontinued.

“During the coronavirus public health crisis, we believe it is particularly important to explore ways to help people stay connected and to increase access to health information and other resources on the internet. As part of our ongoing work to connect people to accurate health information, coronavirus health resources will be highlighted on the Discover homepage,” said Yoav Zeevi, a product manager at Facebook.

Facebook’s Free Basics initiative, which has helped tens of millions of people access internet, has also received scrutiny for its approach and some unintended consequences. Internet.org was banned in India after the local authority in the world’s second largest internet market found that the program violated net neutrality principles.

Zeevi said the company has heard the feedback and responded by allowing people to browse all websites. “Our work on Discover has been informed by our broader efforts — including our participation in the Contract for the Web — to expand connectivity and access to the open web while continuing to protect privacy,” he said.

Critics have argued that programs such as Internet.org, which has been discontinued in some additional markets, have also fuelled violence in real life.

As Facebook expands its connectivity efforts, some other companies have scaled down their initiatives. Earlier this year, Google discontinued its free Wi-Fi program called Station that offered internet access in more than 400 railway stations in India, and was available at public places in handful of other markets.

In 2018, Wikimedia shut down Wikipedia Zero, a program that allowed more than 800 million people to access the online encyclopaedia in 72 countries for free.

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Intraday Trading Calls for 7-May-2020

Intraday Trading Calls for 7-May-2020

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https://intradayguruji.blogspot.com/2020/05/intraday-trading-calls-for-7-may-2020.html

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Live Intraday Trading on 6-May-2020

Live Intraday Trading on 6-May-2020

Please click on the following link to view full post.

https://intradayguruji.blogspot.com/2020/05/live-intraday-trading-on-6-may-2020.html

Via http://intradayguruji.blogspot.com

Twitter rolls out changes to threaded conversations following tests in its prototype app, twttr

Twitter announced today it’s introducing a new layout for replies that will use lines and indentations to make it easier to understand who you’re replying to and how the conversation is flowing. The company will also test putting engagement actions — including likes, Retweet and reply icons — behind an extra tap to make replies to conversations easier to follow.

These features have been in testing for just over a year in Twitter’s prototype app, twttr, affectionately dubbed “little T” internally at the company.

The app was introduced at the Consumer Electronics Show in January 2019, as a way for Twitter to try out new ideas in space outside its public network. Twitter wanted to understand if an updated user interface would help people to better follow the conversations taking place on its platform — particularly those longer threads where the original poster also participates in the back-and-forth, and users end up replying to the wrong comment.

In its prototype app twttr, Twitter tried out a variety of styles, including, at one time, a design where the individual responses were more rounded — similar to chat bubbles.

The design that’s stuck around the longest, however, is the one that’s now making its public debut on Twitter.com and Twitter’s iOS app.

Your conversations are the of Twitter, so we’re testing ways to make them easier to read and follow.

Some of you on iOS and web will see a new layout for replies with lines and indentations that make it clearer who is talking to whom and to fit more of the convo in one view. pic.twitter.com/sB2y09fG9t

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) May 5, 2020

It involves branching lines that connect the different parts of the conversation threads together. The lines are more subtle than the chat bubbles had been, appearing as a lighter gray when Twitter’s default white theme is applied. Extra replies are also hidden beneath the “Show replies” label, which you have to tap to continue to read through a given thread.

The overall experience is something that’s more akin to a discussion board site, like Reddit.

In addition to the branching lines, the idea to hide Twitter’s engagement buttons was also something originally tested in twttr.

We’re also experimenting with placing like, Retweet, and reply icons behind a tap for replies. We’re trying this with a small group on iOS and web to see how it affects following and engaging with a convo.

We'll keep you updated as the conversation experience evolves!

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) May 5, 2020

The company said in January 2020 that it intended to soon bring twttr’s experiments in threaded conversations to its main app.

“We’re taking all the different branches — all the different parts of the conversation — and we’re making it so it’s all in one global view,” explained Suzanne Xie, Twitter’s head of Conversations, speaking to reporters at CES 2020 earlier this year. “This means you can easily understand, and get a pulse of what’s happening in the conversation,” she added.

Twitter says the features will initially roll out to a portion of Twitter users on iOS and the web.

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Social network for women Peanut raises $12M Series A amid pandemic

Peanut, an app that began as a tool for finding new mom friends, has evolved into a social network now used by 1.6 million women to discuss a range of topics, from pregnancy and parenthood to marriage and menopause, and everything in between. On the heels of significant growth in online networking fueled by the COVID-19 pandemic, the company is today announcing the close of a $12 million Series A round of funding, led by EQT Ventures, a multi-stage VC firm that invests in companies across Europe and the U.S.

Index Ventures and Female Founders Fund also participated, bringing Peanut’s total raise to date to $21.8 million.

The round itself closed just weeks ago — arriving at a time when the coronavirus pandemic is impacting the startup world, often drying up venture capital for emerging companies. Some startups, as a result, have laid off employees to self-sustain, while others have sought exits or even folded.

Peanut, on the other hand, has seen rapid growth for its platform as women looked for a supportive online environment to discuss their own concerns over how COVID-19 was impacting their lives.

Many women participating in Peanut’s newer “Trying to Conceive” group, for example, worried about their canceled IVF rounds and how to plan for the future. Current moms-to-be wanted to hear from others about how COVID-19 would impact their hospital delivery plans. And others stuck working at home with kids looked for advice and coping strategies.

Since the outbreak, Peanut has seen engagement across its app increase by 30% and content consumption increase by 40%. Its total community also grew from 1 million users in December 2019 to now 1.6 million, as of April.

“We’re really lucky in that we’re growing and that we are, for the most part, untouched by what’s happening,” says Peanut founder and CEO Michelle Kennedy. “And actually, if anyone needed community more, it’s now,” she added.

Though the pandemic has sent the app’s usage skyrocketing, it has also readjusted Peanut’s priorities with regard to its roadmap.

Most notably, its friend-finding feature needs a rethink.

Peanut originally worked as a sort of “Tinder for mom friends” — an idea that arose from Kennedy’s personal experience with how difficult it was to forge female friendships after motherhood. As the former deputy CEO at dating app Badoo and an inaugural board member at Bumble, she brought her extensive experience in matchmaking apps to Peanut, which uses a similar swipe-based mechanism.

But COVID-19 has up-ended this side of Peanut’s business. Today, Peanut users are meeting in Zoom chat rooms to hangout or play games, but not in person.

Kennedy says the company will try to meet these users where they are with the development of more video networking features, potentially with technology built in-house. Other plans for the new capital include improvements to the social discovery aspects of its app, the development of a web version of Peanut, and the creation of more groups beyond those focused on fertility and motherhood, which have so far been core to the Peanut experience.

Specifically, the company soon plans to launch a new community focused on women living with menopause, an experience that will reach more than a billion women by 2025. Despite the fact that all women with ovaries will go through menopause, there are relatively few online communities dedicated to it — which Peanut sees as an untapped market.

Peanut’s real strength, however, is not in the types of communities it grows on its platform, but how they’re created.

There has not yet been a social network that focused on “building a platform for women, thinking about women’s needs and built by a women,” explains Kennedy. “So what we end up doing is using things that already exist — trying to twist them and mold them into what we need, and never getting it exactly right,” she says. “We can do better than that.”

One small example of this is the recent launch of Peanut’s “Mute Keywords” feature that allows women to remove certain types of discussions from their feeds and notifications. Some women used this to create a coronavirus-free news feed that focused on other aspects of motherhood. Others who were trying to conceive muted conversations around “pregnancy,” which they found emotionally triggering.

With the Series A’s close, Peanut says Naza Metghalchi from EQT Ventures joins the company’s majority-female board, alongside Hannah Seal from existing investor Index Ventures.

“Peanut’s user engagement metrics are a testament to the app’s ability to act as a true emotional companion throughout women’s journeys,” said Naza Metghalchi, venture lead and investment advisor at EQT Ventures, in a statement. “The EQT Ventures team is excited to partner with Michelle and continue to grow Peanut into a platform that serves all women at different life milestones, exploring topics beyond fertility and motherhood which have already seen such huge traction.”

The additional funding allows London-based Peanut to expand its business and hire more engineers to join its current team of just 16.

“I think having closed a round in this climate is great for the team,” says Kennedy. “It’s also great for the community because it means that we can grow the team, build quicker, build faster and develop the product more quickly,” she adds.

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Tumblr Removes All Reblogs Promoting Hate Speech

Tumblr is removing all reblogs promoting hate speech. With a particular focus on hate speech from white supremacists. Furthermore, the social media platform has committed to continue deleting reblogs found to be in violation of its community guidelines.

Tumblr Was Late Cracking Down on Hate Speech

In August 2018, Tumblr updated its community guidelines. This represented a crackdown on hate speech, violent threats, and non-consensual sexual content. Tumblr was behind the curve on this, with Reddit especially leading the way in this regard.

However, due to the way Tumblr works, lots of hateful content appears to have fallen through the cracks. Essentially, while the original blogs posting hate speech were removed, reblogs of that same content has stayed up on the site. Until now.

Tumblr Deletes Millions of Hateful Reblogs

In a post on the Tumblr Staff Blog, Tumblr explains how it’s further cracking down on hate speech. It has identified almost 1,000 blogs that were previously suspended for violating the rules on hate speech, and sought to delete reblogs from these blogs.

Tumblr has already removed 4.47 million reblogs, and is committed to continue doing so as and when necessary. While there’s a chance that these reblogs offered a counter-point to the hate speech, Tumblr has decided it’s best to just remove it all.

While removing reblogs promoting hate speech would seem to be a wholly sensible thing to do, Tumblr is bound to face charges that it’s limiting free speech. In fact, Tumblr has issued a statement on this issue in an attempt to get ahead of the haters, saying:

“We are, and will always remain, steadfast believers in free speech. Tumblr is a place where you can be yourself and express your opinions. Hate speech is not conducive to that.

When hate speech goes unchecked, it eventually silences the voices that add kindness and value to our society. That’s not the kind of Tumblr any of us want.”

Read Our Beginner’s Guide to Tumblr

While Tumblr has been around for a long time, it’s possible that you’re new to Tumblr. If so, be sure to read our beginner’s guide to Tumblr. Just be sure not to make a Tumblr account in order to spread hate speech, because you’re unlikely to get away with it now.

Image Credit: Steve Baker/Flickr

Read the full article: Tumblr Removes All Reblogs Promoting Hate Speech

The Funniest Stand-Up Comedy Videos on YouTube

Stand-up comedy is a great way to entertain yourself online. Whether you want to watch the best stand-up comedians in their element or just enjoy some laughs during a tough time, there’s plenty of comedy available to watch on YouTube.

In this article, we look at some of the best stand-up comedy videos on YouTube. Of course, comedy is subjective, so you may not agree with our picks. However, we hope everyone will find something to laugh at in this short collection.

1. Kevin James: Sweat the Small Stuff

Kevin James, known for his starring role in The King of Queens and some film acting, picks fun at the little annoyances of everyday life in this special from 2001. Topics include the economics of ordering pizza with friends and people who leave annoying messages on the phone.

With the relatable topics and some enjoyable physical humor, it’s a routine that you can enjoy alone or with family or friends.

2. Brian Regan: I Walked on the Moon

Brian Regan is a great source of clean stand-up that can still make you howl. His caricature impersonations of whoever he’s discussing are enjoyable, and he’s not afraid to be self-deprecating either.

This special is Regan at his best, with observational comedy about shipping packages, the pains of flying, and walkie-talkies. The routine gets its name from the final bit, which is essential viewing.

3. Josh Sneed: Life’s Better When You’re Fat

One of the best routines on the Dry Bar Comedy channel comes from Josh Sneed. This set looks at the ridiculousness of combining Taco Bell and Long John Silver’s restaurants, strange people at garage sales, and lousy family vacations.

All the bits here flow well, and the focus on food makes it relevant to almost everyone.

4. Jim Gaffigan: Hot Pockets!

This clip from Gaffigan’s Beyond the Pale special exemplifies his type of comedy: everyman takes that often focus on food. In this segment he talks about Hot Pockets, the microwaveable food that nobody really enjoys eating.

It’s become one of his signature bits, and serves as a great sample of his work. While you won’t find high-quality full routines of Jim Gaffigan on YouTube, you can find many clips from his various specials on his channel.

5. Dave Burleigh: Dancing With the Stars Is Irrelevant

This special from Dave Burleigh is full of variety. He starts out with some impressions of how celebrities would sound on Dancing With The Stars. After some traditional material, he then goes into a final phase where he plays the piano and tells some great one-liners.

It’s fun to hear something a little different, so give it a look if you enjoy impressions.

6. George Carlin: Soft Language

George Carlin’s comedy routines were known for interesting reflections on life and culture. This bit is a great example of that—Carlin talks about the gradual softening of the English language that happened in America over the years. For instance, “used cars” became “pre-owned vehicles.”

It’s interesting to compare the examples given in this 1990 special and how language has further changed decades later. You’ll laugh at this, but, like all of the best comedy, it will also make you take a closer look at life.

While we’ve mostly tried to stick to clean comedy here, note that this clip contains a few instances of swearing.

7. Sinbad: Brain Damaged

You might know Sinbad from his appearances in comedy movies like Jingle All the Way. Before those, he was known for stand-up comedy. Brain Damaged was his first stand-up special, which appeared on HBO in 1990.

In this video he looks at dealing with frustrating people at McDonald’s, how people change as they go through relationships, and even throws a bit of dancing and signing in too. Sinbad’s cool demeanor makes this a fun routine to watch even today.

8. Jerry Seinfeld: I’m Telling You for the Last Time

If you’re more used to seeing him on TV it’s easy to forget that Jerry Seinfeld is a stand-up comedian. Topics from this routine include the struggles of Halloween as a child, deciding on drugs at the pharmacy, and amateur horseback riding. He moves from one bit to the next smoothly in his element of observational comedy.

For those who’ve finished watching Seinfeld and are looking for more of his humor, this 1998 special is great. Otherwise, you might enjoy the best 90s sitcoms on Hulu.

9. Steven Wright: A Steven Wright Special

If you’re looking for something a little different in your stand-up, give Stephen Wright a listen. His deadpan delivery combined with hundreds of one-liner jokes is quite magnetic. He’s also known for a lot of irony and strange jokes.

This is one of the densest specials here, with very little filler. You’ll have to pay close attention to absorb it all—it’s amazing how much Wright came up with.

10. Dwayne Perkins: Don’t Name Your Kids Something Stupid

While you might not have heard of Dwayne Perkins, we think you’ll enjoy this rapid-fire special regardless. He discusses parents giving their kids weird names, experiences growing up with his grandmother, shopping at the dollar store, and much more.

Perkins is a likable comic, and like everything on Dry Bar, his comedy is family-friendly.

Where to Find the Best Stand-Up Comedy on YouTube

We’ve picked out a sample of mostly clean comedy routines for you to enjoy. While you hopefully enjoyed a few of them, no two people will find the same comics, topics, or styles of comedy funny.

Because of this, we conclude with a few YouTube channels dedicated to stand-up comedy where you can find a lot more material. Note that not all of these are clean, however:

• Dry Bar Comedy: A channel full of clean stand-up comedy that posts new videos every day. You’ll find full specials as well as clips. Not all of them are hilarious, but there’s a lot of good family-friendly material here.
• LOL Network Stand-Up!: On this channel, you’ll find a collection of clips from comedians throughout the years. New videos aren’t uploaded too often, but there’s a good back catalog to enjoy.
• Just For Laughs: The official channel for the Just For Laughs Comedy Festival has tons of clips from a variety of comics and uploads regularly, so there’s always something new to enjoy.

Of course, you can find stand-up comedy content on all over YouTube, so if there’s a specific comedian you’re interested in, just do a quick search. The channels above are great if you don’t know where to start, though.

Cracking Up With Comedians on YouTube

We could all use a laugh every now or then, and YouTube has some of the best comedy routines to enjoy at any time. Once you start watching a few, YouTube will recommend more that you’ll like.

Don’t forget that YouTube is home to lots of other great content too. Check out some of the best trivia YouTube channels to learn something new, or discover the most-relaxing YouTube channels to chill out to.

Read the full article: The Funniest Stand-Up Comedy Videos on YouTube

Where to Watch HD Music Videos: The 5 Best Sites

Music videos are amazingly popular online. Many of the most-watched videos on the web are official music videos. The only other videos that can compete with music for online eyeballs are movie trailers and viral ad campaigns.

The problem is finding these videos, especially if you want to watch HD music videos. And who wouldn’t want to see Lady Gaga strutting her stuff in high-definition? Or watch Beyonce smashing windows with a baseball bat in high-definition?

In order to help you find and watch the latest HD music videos online, we have compiled a list of the best websites to do just that.

1. YouTube

YouTube is, of course, the daddy of online video. Owned by Google, and owning everyone else in the sector, YouTube is the first destination most people will check out when searching for videos of all different kinds.

Once you navigate through the choppy waters filled with cats doing funny things you’ll find a site filled with different sections, one of which, fittingly called the YouTube Music Channel, is wholly dedicated to music.

Here you can browse through countless music videos to watch. You can also build a more personalized recommendation for music videos by logging into the YouTube Music streaming service.

The majority of official music videos on YouTube are available to watch in high-definition. But it’s unlikely to be turned on by default unless you’re signed into the site and have changed the settings.

By clicking Settings > Playback Setup and then ticking “Always play HD when switching to full screen (when available)” you can ensure you get the HD experience (at least when in fullscreen mode).

If you would rather not be signed into YouTube, or would rather pick and choose your settings on a video-by-video basis, just click the Settings button underneath the video and select “720p HD” or above.

2. Vimeo

Vimeo is an online video site with a strong and dedicated community. It’s like the smaller, indie version of YouTube. It has embraced HD video and also provides a platform for content creators to showcase their work. This includes music artists, many of whom share their HD music videos on the site.

The HD Music Video Channel on Vimeo does what it says on the tin. Which means it contains an updating selection of the best HD music videos. These are the cream of high-definition music videos; ones which are deserving of only being watched in HD.

There is also a “Shout Box” which has regular comments added to it, many of which contain links to HD music videos that are often hidden gems.

3. IMVDb

The Internet Music Video Database (IMVDb) is an online host for just music videos. Barely any sites dedicated exclusively to music videos exist (or they’ve become YouTube channels), so IMVDb stands out as a truly unique website. If you miss Vevo prior to its heavy shift over to its YouTube channel, IMVDb will scratches the nostalgia itch.

Of course, it’s nearly impossible to escape YouTube’s hold on music videos. All of IMVDb’s videos are still sourced from YouTube, so you’ll be able to use the same settings to ensure HD playback. However, IMVDb does offer a unique facet: the passion of its singular focus on music videos.

IMVDb offers some of the typical up-to-date music features like other sites. You’ll see the brand new releases and the top new music videos out right now. However, it also loves revisiting past music videos and sharing statistics as well.

You’ll see “best of” playlists from long ago, and IMVDb provides statistics for the top new music videos and top music videos of all time. Plus, IMVDb’s database statistics show the huge amount of music videos, artists, and credits hosted on the site. If you’re craving more, IMVDb provides commentaries and random video options too.

4. MTV UK

Unlike its American equivalent, MTV UK still hosts music videos online. While MTV was originally all about music videos, the network has increasingly departed from them in favor of reality TV.

Thankfully, no region-blocking occurs with these videos. So you won’t have to figure out how to watch region-blocked media, and you can instead enjoy the music videos instantly. With that noted, MTV UK also shows some added love for music videos besides just hosting them on its own video player.

You’ll have the latest music videos, but you’ll also see the likes of the number-one singles of the past year, exclusive music video commentaries, lyric-teaching videos, and music video flashbacks.

Plus, MTV UK also features an exclusive page for its music video playlists. You can then watch all the videos on the week’s rotation for MTV Music, Club MTV, MTV Hits, MTV Base, MTV Rocks, and MTV OMG.

5. Dailymotion

When looking at potential YouTube rivals, Dailymotion tends to top the list. The French video and social site, however, doesn’t spring to mind for music videos as much as YouTube. However, with its huge database of videos, there are many popular music videos on the site.

Plus, if you’re looking for international music, Dailymotion provides many to choose from.

While Dailymotion does boast some music video channels, you’ll have better results searching for official music videos directly via its search function. Once you’ve found the video you want to watch, click the Settings menu in the upper-right of the video. Then click on Quality to adjust playback to HD.

If you’re craving more alternatives to YouTube and Vevo like Dailymotion and MTV, check out how to watch music videos on Apple Music.

A Brief History of Music Videos

Music videos are an artform in their own right, and the best artists and directors work together to forge short slices of genius. Just look at videos such as “This Is America” by Childish Gambino or literally anything by OK Go.

This article provides you with the best websites to watch HD music videos. However, if you’re more interested in the artform itself, check out our brief history of music videos. Which takes us from 1967 right through to today.

Image Credit: David Torcivia/Flickr

Read the full article: Where to Watch HD Music Videos: The 5 Best Sites

A security expert says India’s contact tracing app has flaws. New Delhi says they are ‘by design’

The Indian government has said that its contact tracing app Aarogya Setu “by design” fetches the location data of its 90 million users and allows them to view the concentration of people who have tested positive for the coronavirus in their vicinity.

New Delhi issued the statement after France-based security researcher Baptiste Robert found what he argues are design flaws and privacy issues.

The government said it has always disclosed that it fetches users’ location data, a feature that critics say falls short of the privacy protections offered by similar technologies, including the joint project run by Apple and Google.

Aarogya Setu’s privacy policy says the app — in addition to collecting location data of a user at the time of registration — also “continuously collects your location data and stores securely on your mobile device, a record of all the places you have been at 15-minute intervals.” The app uploads this data to its server along with the user’s digital ID if they test positive for COVID-19, or self-declare seeing symptoms that indicate that they might be infected with the infectious disease, it says.

Collecting location data is a complicated subject, regardless of the good intention of its developers and operators. On Monday, Google and Apple banned the use of location tracking on their coronavirus tracing technology.

While some developers have argued that they need access to location data to track how outbreaks move and identify hotspots, privacy advocates have cautioned that if this data ever gets exposed, it could ostracize those who are affected.

Robert’s other concern is that Aarogya Setu, which was launched early last month, allows anyone to view the concentration of people in 500 meters to up to 10 kilometers who are either suspicious they have coronavirus, or are certain that they have the disease. He told TechCrunch that he was able to develop a script and view similar data for any nook and cranny of the world’s second most populous nation.

He said the government, which introduced a nationwide lockdown in late March, could have kept the radius limited to 500 meters.

In response, New Delhi said that its system is designed in a way that would prevent any script from making bulk requests. Additionally, it said, “getting data for multiple latitude and longitude this way is no different from asking several people of their location’s COVID-19 statistics.”

“All this information is already public for all locations and hence does not compromise on any personal or sensitive data,” the response said.

Some people argued today that at a crisis like this, when thousands of people are dying, these “flaws” were the least of their concerns and that the app served a much greater purpose. But Aarogya Setu, which has amassed 90 million monthly active people in less than 35 days, has also ruffled some feathers for the way it is being scaled up. New Delhi said earlier this month that all government and private sector employees need to have this app installed on their smartphones.

On Tuesday, local authority in Noida city, home to more than 640,000 people, on the outskirts of Delhi, said those who did not have Aarogya Setu app installed on their phone would be fined or sent to prison.

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Understanding the Shape of Large-Scale Data

Posted by Anton Tsitsulin, Research Intern and Bryan Perozzi, Senior Research Scientist, Graph Mining Team, Google Research

Understanding the differences and similarities between complex datasets is an interesting challenge that often arises when working with data. One way to formalize this question is to view each dataset as a graph, a mathematical model for how items relate to each other. Graphs are widely used to model relationships between objects — the Internet graph connects pages referencing each other, social graphs link together friends, and molecule graphs connect atoms bonding with each other.

Graphs are discrete objects that can model the relationships between many different types of data, including web pages (left), social connections (center), or molecules (right).

Once there is a collection of multiple graphs, it is common to want to predict some property of each one as an aggregate (i.e., one label per graph). For example, consider the task of predicting protein function from structure: each dataset here is one protein, and the prediction task is whether the final structure encodes an enzyme or not. Since one wants a model to actually compute the prediction, we need a representation that lets us generalize across different protein structures. Ideally, one would want a way to represent graphs as vectors without costly labelling. The problem becomes harder with increasing graph size — in the molecule case humans possess some knowledge about their properties, however, reasoning about larger, more complex datasets becomes increasingly difficult.

In this post we highlight some recent advances in the area of graph representation learning with “Just SLaQ When You Approximate: Accurate Spectral Distances for Web-Scale Graphs” (published at WWW'20), a publication that improves on the scalability of our earlier research, “DDGK: Learning Graph Representations for Deep Divergence Graph Kernels” (published at WWW’19). SLaQ introduces a way to scale computations to approximate a certain class of graph statistics, allowing one to quickly and efficiently characterize large graphs. We are also happy to announce that we have released the code for both papers in the Google Research GitHub repository for graph embeddings.

Fully Unsupervised Learning of Graph Similarity
In our 2019 paper, we showed that it is possible to learn representations for graph similarity with neither domain knowledge nor supervision. We propose deep divergence graph kernels (DDGK), an unsupervised method for learning representations over graphs that encode mappings of similarities between them. Unlike previous work, our unsupervised method jointly learns node representations, graph representations, and an attention-based alignment between graphs.

Here is a t-SNE visualization of the latent representations learned by DDGK to compare proteins. Blue points indicate proteins that encode enzymes and the red points are for those that do not. We can see that the encoding correlates with a structural property of the protein (whether or not it encodes enzymes), even though this context was not provided during training. (Note that this is a projection of the representations, and so the absolute axis values aren’t meaningful.)

In the example above, we demonstrate how these representations can automatically learn to represent graphs and align them in a way that encodes their latent functional similarity. Experiments on other datasets show we can capture similarities and differences across graphs of different types (language, biology, and social interactions).

The pairwise distance between different datasets encoded and aligned using DDGK. Color indicates distance in the latent space, and the scale of similarity ranges from 0 (identical) to 1.0 (very different). We see that the representations can be clustered to group similar datasets together — for example, the datasets nci1 and ptc are both datasets of chemical compounds.

Fast and Accurate Approximation of Spectral Descriptors
A graph’s spectrum is a powerful representation that encodes its properties, including connectivity patterns between graph nodes and clustering information. The spectrum has been shown to convey rich information about the properties of different objects such as the sound of a drum, 3D shapes, graphs, and general high-dimensional data. Applications of spectral graph descriptors include AutoML systems, anomaly detection in dynamic graphs, and chemical molecule characterization.

Currently, learning-based systems such as DDGK do not scale to either large graphs or large graph collections. Alternatively, one can use the spectral information without the learning component to attain more desirable scaling properties. However, computing spectral descriptors for large graphs is computationally prohibitive. Our more recent paper addresses this problem by proposing SLaQ, a method for approximating a family of graph descriptors. Our approach uses a randomized approximation algorithm for computing traces of spectrum functions that allows us to study several well-known spectral graph characteristics like Von Neumann Graph Entropy, Estrada Index, graph energy, and NetLSD.

For example, we use SLaQ to monitor anomalous changes in the Wikipedia graph structure. SLaQ allows us to discern meaningful changes in the structure of the page graph from trivial ones such as mass page renames. Our experiments show two orders of magnitude improvement in approximation accuracy, on average.

Left: The well-known Karate graph represents the social interactions of two martial arts clubs. Right: The spectral descriptors (NetLSD, VNGE, and Estrada Index) computed for the original graph in blue and the version with removed edges in red.

Conclusions
Unsupervised representation learning for graphs is an important problem, and we believe that the methods we highlight here are exciting steps forward in this area! Specifically, SLaQ allows us to compute principled representations for vast datasets, and DDGK introduces a mechanism for automatically learning alignments between datasets. We hope that our contributions will help advance the analysis of large datasets, and will be useful for understanding changes to time-varying graph datasets, like those used in recommendation systems.

Acknowledgements
We thank Marina Munkhoeva, Rami Al-Rfou, and Dustin Zelle who contributed to these works. For more information on the Graph Mining team (part of Algorithm and Optimization Group) visit our pages.

The mental health benefits of storytelling for health care workers | Laurel Braitman

The mental health benefits of storytelling for health care workers | Laurel Braitman

Health care workers are under more stress than ever before. How can they protect their mental health while handling new and complex pressures? TED Fellow Laurel Braitman shows how writing and sharing personal stories helps physicians, nurses, medical students and other health professionals connect more meaningfully with themselves and others -- and make their emotional well-being a priority.

Click the above link to download the TED talk.