911 emergency services go down across the US after CenturyLink outage

911 emergency services in several states across the U.S. remain down after a massive outage at a CenturyLink datacenter.

The outage began after 12pm ET on Thursday, according to CenturyLink’s status page, and continues to cause disruption across 911 call centers. Some states have seen their services restored. CenturyLink has not said what caused the outage beyond an issue with a “network element,” but said in its latest update — around 11am ET on Friday — that the company said that it was “seeing good progress, but our service restoration work is not complete.”

In a tweet, CenturyLink added that it was “working tirelessly” until it gets its affected systems back up and running.

CenturyLink, one of the largest telecommunications providers in the U.S., provides internet and phone backbone services to major cell carriers, including AT&T and Verizon. Datacenter or fiber issues can have a knock-on effect to other companies, cutting out service and causing cell site blackouts.

In this case, the outage affected only cellular calls to 911, and not landline calls.

Some residents of affected areas were sent emergency warnings to their cell phones, warning of the outage.

Who is #CRESA and what does this mean? How is 911 down. I don’t need to call but this is alarming pic.twitter.com/MB7f6iZTnn

— its_lady_kc (@its_lady_kc) December 28, 2018

Among the areas affected include Seattle, Washington and Salt Lake City, Utah. Several other states, including Idaho, Oregon, Arizona and Missouri, are also affected, local news has reported.

Many other police departments tweeted out alternative numbers for 911 in the event of an emergency.

Police in Boston, Massachusetts tweeted that their service was restored this morning.

UPDATE: Technical issues with the 911 system, and the resulting wireless capability outages, have been resolved. Massachusetts callers may resume using 911 from their cell phones for public safety emergencies. https://t.co/6AAeRdVxeN

— Mass State Police (@MassStatePolice) December 28, 2018

Ajit Pai, chairman of the Federal Communications Commission, which regulates and monitors 911 services, said the commission is investigating the outage.

“When an emergency strikes, it’s critical that Americans are able to use 911 to reach those who can help,” said Pai in a statement. “The CenturyLink service outage is therefore completely unacceptable, and its breadth and duration are particularly troubling.”

“I’ve directed the Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau to immediately launch an investigation into the cause and impact of this outage. This inquiry will include an examination of the effect that CenturyLink’s outage appears to have had on other providers’ 911 services,” he said.

TechCrunch will have more when it comes in.

Senate wants emergency alerts to go out through Netflix, Spotify, etc.

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Indonesia unblocks Tumblr following its ban on adult content

Indonesia, the world’s fourth largest country by population, has unblocked Tumblr nine months after it blocked the social networking site over pornographic content.

Tumblr — which, disclaimer, is owned by Oath Verizon Media Group just like TechCrunch — announced earlier this month that it would remove all “adult content” from its platform. That decision, which angered many in the adult entertainment industry who valued the platform as an increasingly rare outlet that supported erotica, was a response to Apple removing Tumblr’s app from the iOS Store after child pornography was found within the service.

The impact of this new policy has made its way to Indonesia, where KrAsia reports that the service was unblocked earlier this week. The service had been blocked in March after falling foul of the country’s anti-pornography laws.

“Tumblr sent an official statement regarding the commitment to clean the platform from pornographic content,” Ferdinandus Setu, acting head of the Ministry of Communication and Informatics Bureau, is reported to have said in a press statement.

Messaging apps WhatsApp and Line are among the other services that have been forced to comply with the government’s ban on “unsuitable” content in order to keep their services open in the country. Telegram, meanwhile, removed suspected terrorist content last year after its service was partially blocked.

While perhaps not widely acknowledged in the West, Indonesia is a huge market, with a population of more than 260 million people. The world’s largest Muslim country, it is the largest economy in Southeast Asia and its growth is tipped to help triple the region’s digital economy to $240 billion by 2025.

In other words, Indonesia is a huge market for internet companies.

The country’s anti-porn laws have been used to block as many as 800,000 websites as of 2017 — so potentially over a million by now — but they have also been used to take aim at gay dating apps, some of which have been removed from the Google Play Store. As Vice notes, “while homosexuality is not illegal in Indonesia, it’s no secret that the country has become a hostile place for the LGBTQ community.”

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Smart speakers hit critical mass in 2018

We already know Alexa had a good Christmas – the app shot to the top of the App Store over the holidays, and the Alexa service even briefly crashed from all the new users. But Alexa, along with other smart speaker devices like Google Home, didn’t just have a good holiday — they had a great year, too. The smart speaker market reached critical mass in 2018, with around 41 percent of U.S. consumers now owning a voice-activated speaker, up from 21.5 percent in 2017.

According to a series of reports from RBC Capital Markets analysts released in December, the near doubling of the adoption rate for smart speakers in the U.S. was driven by growth in both Alexa and Google Home devices, while Apple’s HomePod played only a small role.

The firm found that U.S. penetration of Alexa-enabled devices reached 31 percent this year, compared with 41 percent overall for smart speakers.

It also forecast that Alexa would generate $18 billion to $19 billion in total revenue by 2021 – or ~5 percent of Amazon’s revenue –  through a combination of device sales, incremental voice shopping sales, and other platform revenues. In the U.S., there are now over 100 million Alexa-enabled devices installed – a key milestone for Alexa to become a “critical mass platform,” the report noted.

RBC additionally called out Amazon’s progress with Alexa’s development, with launches like Alexa Guard, which listens for break-ins and smoke detector alarms; plus new features like local voice control for when the internet is down; location-based reminders; advanced routines; email integrations; expanded calling options; and many others.

Alexa’s third-party app ecosystem also grew in 2018, with 150 percent year-over-year growth in skills to reach over 60,000 total Alexa skills by year-end. That’s up from 40,000 skills in May; 25,000 in Q3 2017; and just 5,000 two years ago.

Google Home also gained traction in 2018, with U.S. penetration for Google devices growing to 23 percent, up from 8 percent in 2017. Each household owns around 1.7 devices, which leads a Google Home install base of around 43 million in the U.S., and around 9 million in other Google Home markets, the forecast said.

However, the report doesn’t see as much revenue coming in from Google Home over the next few years, compared with Alexa. Instead, it estimates that Google Home generated $3.4 billion in revenue this year, and will grow that to $8.2 billion by 2021.

But combined with Google’s other hardware products like Pixel, Nest, and Chromecast, the hardware suite will have generated approximately $8.8 billion in 2018, and will grow to $19.6 billion in 2021.

This is the first year the analysts asked about Apple’s HomePod in the consumer survey, and they found its share of the U.S. smart speaker market remains small. Amazon has a 66 percent share to Google’s 29 percent. HomePod had 5 percent, it said.

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Put down your phone if you want to innovate

We are living in an interstitial period. In the early 1980s we entered an era of desktop computing that culminated in the dot-com crash – a financial bubble that we bolstered with Y2K consulting fees and hardware expenditures alongside irrational exuberance over Pets.com. That last interstitial era, an era during which computers got smaller, weirder, thinner, and more powerful, ushered us, after a long period of boredom, into the mobile era in which we now exist. If you want to help innovate in the next decade, it’s time to admit that phones, like desktop PCs before them, are a dead end.

We create and then brush up against the edges of our creation every decade. The speed at which we improve – but not innovate – is increasing and so the difference between a 2007 iPhone and a modern Pixel 3 is incredible. But what can the Pixel do that the original iPhone or Android phones can’t? Not much.

We are limited by the use cases afforded by our current technology. In 1903, a bike was a bike and could not fly. Until the Wright Brothers and others turned forward mechanical motion into lift were we able to lift off. In 2019 a phone is a phone and cannot truly interact with us as long as it remains a separate part of our bodies. Until someone looks beyond these limitations will we be able to take flight.

While I won’t posit on the future of mobile tech I will note that until we put our phones away and look at the world anew we will do nothing of note. We can take better photos and FaceTime each other but until we see the limitations of these technologies we will be unable to see a world outside of them.

We’re heading into a new year (and a new CES) and we can expect more of the same. It is safe and comfortable to remain in the screen-hand-eye nexus, creating VR devices that are essentially phones slapped to our faces and big computers that now masquerade as TVs. What, however, is the next step? Where do these devices go? How do they change? How to user interfaces compress and morph? Until we actively think about this we will remain stuck.

Perhaps you are. You’d better hurry. If this period ends as swiftly and decisively as the other ones before it, the opportunity available will be limited at best. Why hasn’t VR taken off? Because it is still on the fringes, being explored by people stuck in mobile thinking. Why is machine learning and AI so slow? Because the use cases are aimed at chatbots and better customer interaction. Until we start looking beyond the black mirror (see what I did?) of our phones innovation will fail.

Every app launched, every pictured scrolled, every tap, every hunched-over moment davening to some dumb Facebook improvement, is a brick in bulwark against an unexpected and better future. So put your phone down this year and build something. Soon it might be too late.

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This wristband detects an opiate overdose

A project by students at Carnegie Mellon could save lives. Called the HopeBand, the wristband senses low blood oxygen levels and sends a text message and sounds an alarm if danger is imminent.

“Imagine having a friend who is always watching for signs of overdose; someone who understands your usage pattern and knows when to contact [someone] for help and make sure you get help,” student Rashmi Kalkunte told IEEE. “That’s what the HopeBand is designed to do.”

The team won third place in the Robert Wood Johnson Foundation’s Opioid Challenge at the Health 2.0 conference in September and they are planning to send the band to a needle exchange program in Pittsburgh. They hope to sell it for less than $20.

Given the more than 72,000 overdose deaths in America this year a device like this could definitely keep folks a little safer.

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Grab raises fundraising target to $5B as Southeast Asia’s ride-hailing war heats up

Southeast Asian ride-hailing firm Grab is aiming to start the new year with a bang and an awful load of bucks. The company, which acquired Uber’s local business earlier this year, is planning to raise as much as $5 billion from its ongoing Series H round, up from an original target of $3 billion, a source with knowledge of the plan told TechCrunch.

Grab declined to comment for this story.

That Series H round has been open since June. Already, it has seen participation from the likes of Toyota, Microsoft, Booking Holdings and Yamaha Motors who have pushed it close to the original $3 billion target. Prior to raising $150 million from Yamaha, Grab said the round stood at $2.7 billion. While it is true that the company first announced that it was “on track to raise over $3 billion by the end of 2018,” it is not public knowledge that it has set its sights as high as $5 billion.

A big part of that expansion is a planned investment from SoftBank’s Vision Fund which, as TechCrunch reported last week, is aiming to pump up to $1.5 billion into the business. Adding that to the $3 billion total appears to leave a further $500 million allocation for other investors to take up.

Grab is already the most capitalized startup in Southeast Asia’s history having raised around $6.8 billion to date from investors, according to data from Crunchbase. The company was last valued at $11 billion — when Toyota invested the initial $1 billion in this Series H six months ago — and it is unclear how much that valuation will increase when the round is completed.

The company is also one of the widest reaching consumer internet companies in Southeast Asia, a region of 650 million consumers. Grab claims over 130 million downloads and more than 2.5 billion completed rides to date, while it has expanded into fintech and it is going beyond ride-hailing app to offer Southeast Asia a ‘super app’ in the mold of Meituan in China. On the financial side, Grab is assumed to not yet be profitable. But it has said that it made $1 billion in revenue and that it projects that the figure will double in 2019.

Buying Uber’s business made it the dominant ride-sharing operator in the region — a position that saw it pay fines in Singapore and the Philippines — but Uber’s exit also saw Go-Jek, a rival in Indonesia, step up and expand its business into new markets. Go-Jek — which is backed by the likes of Tencent, Meituan and Google — entered Vietnam in August and it has recently launched in Thailand and Singapore as it bids to step into Uber’s shadow.

With Go-Jek aiming to raise $2 billion of its own, it certainly looks like Grab’s extension of its already-enormous Series H round is aimed at increasing its war chest as the competition intensifies in post-Uber Southeast Asia.

Southeast Asia exit deal is a win, not a defeat, for Uber

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Million, Billion, Trillion

Million, Billion, Trillion

LG Shows Off New Soundbars With Dolby Atmos and Google Assistant

One of the coolest inventions in the home theater space is the soundbar. They allow you to get high-quality sound without the wires and space needed for a traditional surround sound system.

LG is one of the companies that consistently push the envelope in terms of what home theater systems can offer, and its latest line of soundbars is no exception.

The company has just unveiled a new line of devices that feature Dolby Atmos and Google Assistant built-in.

LG’s SL10YG, SL9YG, and SL8YG Soundbars

LG’s new soundbar line will come in three different flavors—the SL10YG, SL9YG, and SL8YG. All three models are made in collaboration with Meridian Audio, and they all feature support for Dolby Atmos and DTS:X built-in.

According to Dolby, Atmos offers sounds that “moves around you in three-dimensional space, so you feel like you’re inside the action.” Basically, it offers a more detailed level of sound than you’d get from speakers without Atmos.

The Google Assistant features sound very promising, as they’ll allow you to control the volume, ask what song is playing, skip tracks, and all kinds of other things with your voice. Additionally, the soundbar can be used as a hub for smart home devices, which adds another layer to its usefulness. If you want to tell it to turn off the lights, it’ll do that while you’re watching your favorite shows or movies.

Another cool feature that starts on the SL9YG model is a gyroscope that actually senses the position of the speaker and adjusts the sound accordingly.

As far as the look goes, all of the speakers feature a very minimalist design that looks like it’ll blend right into pretty much any living room.

“LG’s 2019 sound bars deliver amazing performance tuned in close partnership with Meridian Audio with the convenience of smart AI connectivity,” said Kim Dae-chul, head of LG Home Entertainment Company’s audio and video business. “The high-quality sound and versatility of our newest lineup takes home entertainment to a whole new level and satisfies a growing demand for premium soundbar solutions that provide impressive listening experiences, greater convenience, and stylish, modern aesthetics.”

There will also be a wireless rear speaker kit available to expand the sound options.

How Much Will the SL10YG, SL9YG, and SL8YG Cost?

Unfortunately, while LG was more than happy to tout some details of its new soundbars, it didn’t mention how much any of them would be. The company also didn’t reveal exactly when it would unleash the new devices on the market.

However, LG did promise to exhibit the new soundbars at CES in January, so we shouldn’t have to wait too long to find out more information, and more importantly, hear how these gorgeous new speakers sound.

Can’t wait? Check out these soundbars with Dolby Atmos that are available right now.

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You Can Now Play Lemmings on Mobile

Anyone old enough to remember Lemmings will be delighted to know it’s now available to play on your smartphone. Unfortunately, the classic puzzle game has been somewhat ruined by in-app purchases designed to wring money out of nostalgic gamers.

Lemmings was a massive hit on the Amiga in the 1990s, and ended up being ported to countless other platforms. It has since been remade for Sony consoles including the PSP and PS3. And now a new mobile-friendly version has been released for Android and iOS.

Lemmings Find a Home on Mobile

On the PlayStation Blog, Serkan Hassan of developer Sad Puppy explains the thinking behind Lemmings. The Lemmings have ventured out into the universe looking for a new home, but invariably end up settling on hostile planets with hazards galore.

This is where you come in, as it’s your job to guide the Lemmings to safety. As with the original game, you do this by instructing them what to do and where to go. In this case that means helping them “dig, climb, build, block and fall through levels”.

Everything has been designed with smartphones and tablets in mind. So Lemmings can be played in portrait mode, allowing you to hold your device in one hand and touch the screen with the other. Unlike the original you don’t need to worry about controlling the camera.

Download: Lemmings on Android and iOS

Ruined By In-App Purchases

The mobile version of Lemmings is free-to-play, but quite limited unless you make use of the in-app purchases. Essentially you get a certain amount of “energy” to expend, and when it’s gone you either need to wait for hours or pay real money to unlock more.

This isn’t cheap, with $7 buying you unlimited energy for two hours. Seeing as there are great mobile games with no in-app purchases this is expensive. Especially when you still see ads. Lemmings is a decent game ruined by the need to make money at all costs.

Read the full article: You Can Now Play Lemmings on Mobile

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An Introduction to GIMP Photo Editing: 9 Things You Need to Know

GIMP is the best free photo editor available. 

If you’re new to the app, it’s easy and intuitive to pick up; you can get excellent results in no time at all. If you’ve used Photoshop before, you’ll find GIMP familiar. There are some different features, and the tools often have different names, but the basic principles are the same.

Here’s everything you need to learn how to use GIMP for photo editing.

Before You Start With GIMP

Before we get started, there are a few things you need to know:

• Images tend to open in a zoomed out view. To set the image to a more appropriate size go to View > Zoom > Fit Image in Window.
• GIMP does not support non-destructive editing. Any edits you make to a file will be permanent. For this reason, always work on a duplicate copy of the file with the untouched original stored safely.
• Also, consider applying all your edits to duplicate layers within the image (right-click the layer in the Layers panel on the right and select Duplicate Layer). You can then delete the layer if you want to remove that edit later on.

1. How to Straighten the Horizon in GIMP

Getting the horizon askew is one of the most common mistakes in photography, and also the easiest to fix. And unless you’ve deliberately shot your image that way for artistic reasons, it’s the one thing you should always correct.

GIMP 2.10 has a dedicated horizon straightening tool. Select the Measure Tool from the Toolbox in the left hand column.

Click on a point on the horizon in your image, drag along the horizon line, then release the mouse button. Now, under Tool Options, set Clipping to Crop to result, then click Straighten.

Your image will now be cropped and straightened. If you’re happy with the result, finish the job going to Image > Crop to Content to remove any blank areas around the corners of the canvas. If you aren’t, hit Undo and try again.

2. How to Crop Photos in GIMP

Cropping is an effective way of tightening up a photo’s composition or removing unwanted objects around the edges.

Select the Crop tool (Shift + C). Now click and drag inside the image to draw the outline of your new crop. Hold the Shift key to maintain the photo’s original aspect ratio.

To adjust your selection, hold your mouse in the corners or edges of the frame and then drag in or out to correct. Alternatively, click in the middle of the frame and drag to reposition the cropped area. Hit Enter to confirm.

If you’re cropping to improve composition, experiment with the composition guides in the Tool options. This enables you to overlay a rule-of-thirds grid (learn more about the rules of composition in photography) to aid with your crop.

3. How to Improve Exposure in GIMP

When your photo is too light or dark, or contains blown highlights where the brightest parts of the frame are rendered as pure white with no detail, you need to fix the exposure.

Go to Colors > Exposure. In the dialog box that opens, drag the Black level slider to the right to darken the blacks in your image. Drag the Exposure slider right to brighten the image, and left to darken it.

Make sure Preview is checked to show the real time effect of your changes, and select Split view to see the before and after effects in the same image. When you’re happy, click OK to apply the change.

When you’re working with JPEG files, you should try and keep the exposure tweaks fairly subtle or you’ll risk introducing noise or otherwise degrading the image.

4. How to Correct White Balance in GIMP

White balance is used to remove an unrealistic color cast from an image. While it may seem obvious that a white area within an image should look white, sometimes the camera can be thrown off by ambient lighting conditions. Under certain artificial lights, for instance, the image may get an orange hue—or under cloudy skies it may look blue.

To fix this, go to Colors > Auto > White Balance, and it should be instantly corrected.

If you aren’t happy with the automatic results, there’s a manual option you can try. Go to Colors > Levels, and toward the bottom of the window that opens click on the middle eyedropper icon. This will enable you to set a gray point in your image, an area of neutral color off which all the other colors will be based.

With the eyedropper selected, find an area of gray in the photo and click on it. The color of the photo will update in real time. You can experiment with different grays in different parts of the picture until you find one that you’re happy with.

5. How to Tweak Photo Colors in GIMP

Most photos can benefit from tweaking the colors. Photos with bright, vivid colors often get a strong reaction on social media, but you can also create more subdued colors if that suits the effect you’re going for with your photo.

Start by heading to Colors > Hue-Saturation. You can boost the colors across the entire image with the Saturation slider. Beware that it’s very easy to oversaturate your images, so take it slowly. A good rule is to set the saturation to a level that looks okay, then just drop it back a little.

To get even more control you can adjust the red, magenta, blue, cyan, green, and yellow parts of your image separately. Here, the Lightness slider becomes more important than the Saturation slider.

For example, to make a sky look bolder and bluer focus on the blue and cyan colors, and set the Lightness slider to a darker level. Or to make grass and foliage look greener and more vivid, increase the Lightness level for green.

If you’re left with harsh edges around the areas of color that you’ve adjusted, drag the Overlap slider to the right to help blend them better.

6. How to Add Photo Contrast in GIMP

The simplest way to add impact to a photo is to boost the contrast. It can often turn an otherwise flat image into something packed with drama. The best way to do this is with the Levels tool, which you can open at Colors > Levels.

This opens the Levels dialog box, with a histogram (labelled Input Levels) in the top half. This graph shows the tonal range of your image: black on the left, white on the right, and all the shades of gray in between.

All you need to do is drag the handles below the histogram inwards until they’re in line with the first clump of pixels on the left and right edges of the chart. This sets the darkest point of the image to 100 percent black, and the lightest point to 100 percent white, and maximizes the contrast in the process.

7. How to Remove Dust From Photos in GIMP

GIMP has a quick and easy tool for removing specs from an image caused by dust on your camera’s lens or sensor.

First, zoom into your image by going to View > Zoom > 1:1, or by hitting 1 on your keyboard. You can scroll around the image by holding the spacebar and then clicking and dragging with your mouse.

Next, select the Healing Tool (H). Use the square bracket keys ([ and ]) to adjust the size of the healing brush so that it matches the size of the speck you want to remove.

Hold down Ctrl on Windows, or Cmd on Mac, and then click an area of the same color right next to the spot you want to remove. Then release the Ctrl or Cmd key and click the spot. It should now disappear, or you can paint over it a little more until it’s gone.

What you’re doing is telling GIMP to copy the pixels from the first click and paste them on top of the second (the speck of dust). It then blends them seamlessly and naturally.

Repeat this for all the unwanted spots on your image.

8. How to Remove the Background in GIMP

You can’t always control the conditions you’re shooting in. One of the biggest annoyances is when you’re shooting on a cloudy day, and you end up with large expanses of flat, white sky in your shots. Fortunately, you can remove the background in GIMP, which enables you to replace the sky with something a lot more interesting.

To start, go to Layer > Transparency > Add Alpha Channel. This will let you make the background transparent in GIMP, so you can drop in a new one behind in.

Next, pick the Foreground Select Tool from the Toolbox. Draw a rough selection around the foreground object in your image and hit Enter.

This splits the image into rough foreground and background regions. Now, paint over the background, making sure to include all areas of different color or texture. Hit Enter when you’re done.

Finally, press Delete. This deletes the selection and makes the background transparent. To finish, just copy another image—such as a blue sky—onto a new layer and place it below this foreground layer.

This is only one way of doing the job. Take a look at our guide on how to remove a background in GIMP for even more amazing ideas and techniques.

9. How to Resize Images in GIMP

The last job in editing your photos is to resize them correctly. This is simple. Go to Image > Scale Image, then under Image Size enter a new width for your image, in pixels. Set Interpolation to Cubic, which is the slowest but also the best quality.

Ideally, you should only ever make your images smaller. If you do need to make them bigger, it’s better to do it in multiple increments of 10 percent, rather than all at once.

If you’re resizing your photos with the plan to print them, use Image > Print Size instead. make sure you know all about DPI and how it affects the size of your printed images before you do that.

How to Do More With GIMP

It’s so easy to learn how to use GIMP to edit your pictures. The steps above will take your photos from their rough, straight-out-of-the-camera state, to something that you’ll be proud to print or share online.

Once you’ve mastered that, you should install some of the best GIMP plugins. These help to make GIMP an even more powerful photo editor, and will let you edit RAW photos, apply filters, retouch skin, and a whole lot more besides.

Read the full article: An Introduction to GIMP Photo Editing: 9 Things You Need to Know

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Why Women Are Flocking to the Bumble Dating App: 7 Reasons

Tinder is in danger of being unseated as the king of dating apps. More and more people are downloading the female-friendly Bumble for their matchmaking needs, loosening Tinder’s grasp on the online dating world.

Why? There are many reasons, and each one is a reason why you should be using Bumble to find your next match made in Heaven.

1. Bumble Dating Is Made for Girls

Unlike Tinder, Bumble prides itself on being an app in which girls are required to make the first move. And that reason alone has gotten women from all over the world excited, evident by the millions of active users and growing support. The buzz around Bumble is positive, and it intends to stay that way.

By allowing girls to make the first interaction, women can more easily decide who they want to talk to. Which is important, because women often have weird experiences on dating sites, including getting bombarded with demeaning messages and sexist comments. Not sure if you’re being 100 percent respectful to your matches? Check out our quick guide on how to avoid being “that guy” on Tinder.

2. How Bumble Is Great for Guys

Should men or women make the first move in a relationship? Consider this: https://t.co/xlEm5ctzUk @swhitbo

— Psychology Today (@PsychToday) May 7, 2016

Although Bumble is made for girls, it’s also great for guys. How so? By pushing aside gender dating norms and allowing women to essentially command the conversation.

A person who makes the first move, according to studies, is often in control. And research shows that people feel more positive when in control. When a woman on Bumble matches with a guy, she has 24 hours to start the conversation. If she doesn’t want to say anything, she won’t. She has all the power, and while correlation doesn’t always mean causation, she should be more positive about chatting. Or at least that’s what the studies suggest.

Keep that in mind that if you want to make a good impression and get more matches on Bumble.

Tip: If a guy matches with a girl who doesn’t start the conversation, a guy can extend one match per day for an additional 24 hours. Make note, though, that girls still have to start the conversation.

3. Bumble Dating Is Gay Friendly

If it’s not a heterosexual relationship you’re after, don’t worry. Bumble is an attractive option for anyone looking for love.

In fact, with same-sex matches there are no restrictions on who starts the chat, as the app explained in an update:

“If you connect with someone of the same sex for dating or just match with a friend, these rules don’t apply. Connect with anyone you want and either one of you can send the first message. Just make sure it’s within the first 24 hours!”

4. Bumble Is Great for Finding Friends

See the bromance that happened when Krispy Shorts and F*ck Jerry matched on BumbleBFF ? #BumbleBFF #findyourbromance pic.twitter.com/I1XDN25h4y

— Bumble (@bumble) March 4, 2016

Bumble is also good for finding friends, which isn’t even an option on Tinder.

If you’re done with trying to find a bro/chick-friend at the bars, Bumble might be a worthwhile option. It’s just as easy as swiping right and could be a solution for finding friends if you’ve moved to a new city, state, or country, or just want to find someone who shares the same interests as you.

Tip: Finding friends is easy. Just change your settings to show BFF, (Bumble’s official friend zone) swipe right on a person of interest and start chatting.

5. Bumble’s Ban on “Ghosting”

If you all are sick of tinder like me try this @bumble_app. I get it that it's ironic with the nickname and all ? pic.twitter.com/EaazPSWNqx

— Sarah Bee Black (@BeeBlackBumble) April 2, 2016

Bumble has also been tackling the problem of ghosting, which is when a person drops the conversation for no reason at all. That sucks. And many people, and I’m sure you’re one of them (I know I am), have been ghosted for no obvious reason.

To deal with this online dating phenomenon, which originated on Tinder, Bumble updated its app, saying “every chat that is started now requires a reply within the following 24 hours, or that chat expires. No ghosting allowed!”

Bumble’s recent update is an attempt to put an end to the often dreadful online dating outcome—null conversations. If you’ve matched with a person of the opposite sex, Bumble only allows the woman to start the conversation and only within 24 hours (though, paid updates allow for longer response times). The update has been described as mostly positive.

6. Fewer Spam Bots on Bumble

This is why I use @bumble_app and not @Tinder no spam bots plus I save ten dollars a month pic.twitter.com/BAPsWjI3ns

— Zac Strohmeyer (@zacstroh) November 1, 2015

Also, and this one is very important, Bumble has seemingly decreased the number of spam bots. You know, those pesky profiles of people who’d rather link you to a sex site instead of a having an actual conversation.

On that note, be careful when swiping right on Tinder, as you just don’t know who or what you’ll encounter.

7. Bumble Is Creating a Movement in Online Dating

We stand behind @MissAlexisJones. As a company and platform, we have zero tolerance for sexual harassment. pic.twitter.com/c0PbKhXi4r

— Bumble (@bumble) March 22, 2016

After Bumble CEO Whitney Wolfe was ousted from Tinder, Wolfe wanted to make serious changes to the online dating world. In an interview with Time, Wolfe explained that Bumble is about igniting change, creating a movement:

“It’s not a dating app, it’s a movement. This could change the way women and men treat each other, women and men date, and [how] women feel about themselves.”

And it seems that her vision has made progress. Bumble and Wolfe continue to voice their concerns about the problems of online and real-life dating and relationships. They continually support and rally behind both men and women who may have been a subject of sexual harassment, bullying, or sexual coercion.

Wolfe, who later sued Tinder for sexual harassment, thinks Bumble could help bring about respect among men and women. A tall order, especially in the online dating world.

Try Bumble for Yourself

While Bumble still uses the “swipe right for hot, left for not” approach, it’s making a big change to the online dating world. It’s redefining dating and how men and women see each other. It’s also creating a more user friendly experience, with less spam and more conversations.

What else? Bumble is still evolving and getting new modes to provide you with a better online dating experience. Check out our quick Bumble app guide with every Bumble mode explained.

Read the full article: Why Women Are Flocking to the Bumble Dating App: 7 Reasons

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7 Ways to View Google Calendar on Your Windows Desktop

Thankfully, the “calendar wars” of Windows 8 are in the past. It’s once again possible to operate your diary using built-in Windows tools.

But just because you can use the Windows app, it doesn’t mean you should. You have options! Depending on your workflow, some of them might even be preferable to using the default Windows 10 Calendar app.

Here’s a look at seven ways to view Google Calendar on your Windows desktop. Unfortunately, there’s no official Google Calendar app for Windows

1. Windows Calendar App

Before we discuss alternative methods, let’s quickly recap how to add your Google Calendar to the Windows Calendar app.

You’ll find the Calendar app in your Start menu. To add your Google account, click Settings (gear icon, bottom left-hand corner) > Manage Accounts > Add Account.

The app will prompt you to select your account provider. Google is listed as one of the options. Click Google and fill in your credentials. Windows will take care of the rest.

You should now see all your Google Calendars listed under “Gmail” in the left-hand panel of the app’s main screen. You can edit appointments and add new entries in the standard way.

Note: The calendar app is bundled with the mail app in the Microsoft Store.

2. Create a Browser Bookmark

Another obvious method is to add a bookmark to your browser.

If you’re using Microsoft Edge, navigate to your Google Calendar, click the Star icon in the address bar, select where you want to save the link, and hit Add.

For easy access, you can make your Favorites Bar visible at all times. Go to Settings > View Favorites Settings > Show Favorites Bar and toggle the switch to On.

If you’re on Chrome, the process is even better. Head to the Chrome Web Store and install the Calendar app. It will let you access your calendar from the Apps link within the browser or the Chrome App Launcher in your taskbar.

3. Create a Shortcut Using Chrome

If you’ve followed the previous steps and installed the Calendar app from the Chrome Web Store, it’s easy to add a link to your Windows desktop or taskbar.

Open Chrome’s app menu by clicking Apps in the Bookmark Bar or typing chrome://apps/ into the address bar. Locate the app, right-click on the icon, and choose Create Shortcuts.

A new window will ask you to confirm your decision. Click Create and return to your desktop. You should now see a shortcut.

If you don’t like a cluttered desktop, you can right-click on the shortcut and select either Pin to Taskbar or Pin to Start. You can then delete the desktop shortcut.

4. Add Your Google Calendar to Outlook

If you have a copy of Outlook installed on your machine, you can import your Google Calendars into the app. If done correctly, you’ll never need to use the Google web app.

Note: You need to repeat this process for each individual calendar in your Google account.

Firstly, you need to grab your Google Calendar’s private ICAL web address (it’s one of the ways you can share your Google Calendar with anyone). Log into your Google Calendar and navigate to My Calendars > [Calendar Name] > More > Settings and Sharing.

Scroll down to Integrate calendar and copy the Secret address in ICAL format address.

Next, fire up Outlook and go to File > Account Settings > Account Settings. In the new window, follow internet Calendars > New and paste the ICAL address from Google.

You’ll now see some subscription options. Give the calendar a suitable name, customize the other choices to suit your requirements, and click OK.

You can find your freshly-added agenda by clicking on the Calendar icon in the bottom left-hand corner of Outlook’s main window.

5. Use the Outlook Web App

If you don’t have the Outlook desktop app and rely on the web app instead, don’t worry. It’s still possible to add your Google Calendar.

Repeat the above steps until you get your calendar’s secret ICAL address. Next, open the web app and go to App Menu (top left-hand corner) > Calendar.

To add your Google Calendar, click on Discover Calendars in the left-hand pane. In the new window, select From Web in the bottom right-hand corner.

Finally, paste the copied ICAL address and give the calendar a name.

6. Mailbird

Mailbird is one of the best desktop email clients. You can easily use it as a Google Calendar app for Windows,

The free version of the app can sync with any IMAP or POP email service and can integrate with several other productivity services like Dropbox and Google Drive. On the downside, it can only support three accounts.

If you pay the one-off fee of $59, you can add unlimited email accounts and will unlock new features such as a unified inbox, an email snooze button, and support for a quick preview of attachments.

7. Calendar Sync

The previous approaches all leave your Google Calendar and your Outlook calendar as separate entities, even if they’re both accessible via the same app. The free Calendar Sync tool can merge your Outlook and Google Calendars together, thus giving you one unified agenda.

You choose a one-way sync or a two-way sync and determine how often you want the sync process to run.

The free version will only keep events for 30 days. The $10 pro version will keep your appointments forever and adds extra features such as multiple profiles, a way to skip reminders, multi-calendar syncing, and synchronized categories.

How Do You Access Google Calendar?

We’ve shown you seven ways to access your Google Calendar from your Windows desktop, but the list is not exhaustive. If you have an alternative approach you can share with your fellow readers, share it in the comments box below.

And remember, you can also sync Google Calendar with the Windows taskbar. The process is easier than you might think.

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The 5 Best Sites to Read Manga Online for Free

When it comes to Japanese manga comics, it’s difficult to distinguish official English translations from fan-made translations. For that, you need to know the best sites to read manga online for free.

For a long time, manga comics weren’t officially translated into English, nor available digitally. This led to the rise of “scanlations,” where the original Japanese comics were scanned, and then fans translated them in the speech bubbles.

Things have changed for the better since then. There are some brilliant apps for reading comics. And you don’t need to rely on these unofficial sites and scanlations either. Here are the best ways to read manga online. All entirely legal.

1. Shonen Jump: The Best Manga Magazine Ever

• Platforms: Web, Android, iOS
• Cost: Free, $1.99/month
• Notable Titles: Hunter x Hunter, World Trigger, Gin Tama, One Piece, My Hero Academia, Boruto

In the world of manga, “WSJ” doesn’t stand for Wall Street Journal, it stands for Weekly Shonen Jump. It’s one of the oldest, most popular (and arguably the best) weekly manga magazines available today. And it has a whole new digital avatar you should know about.

Called only “Shonen Jump” in the digital version, you will get three chapters of any ongoing series. As with the classic WSJ, new chapters of several manga (usually over 20) will be delivered every week.

The subscription of $1.99/month unlocks the Shonen Jump vault of over 10,000 chapters across a range of titles. WSJ was the origin of several iconic manga, like Death Note, Naruto and Bleach. It still publishes some classic titles, like Hunter x Hunter, and you’ll discover plenty of new gems.

Shonen Jump has also announced that English translations will be made available at the same time as Japanese chapters.

Download: Shonen Jump for Android | iOS (Free)

2. ComicWalker: Free Manga, Legally

• Platforms: Web
• Cost: Free
• Notable Titles: Mobile Suit Gundam, Sgt Frog, Cross Ange

Kadokawa is among the biggest manga publishers in Japan. Fed up with the scanlations, the company launched its own official service to read comics online for free. Yup, completely free.

Not all of Kadokawa’s popular titles are available here, but many are. You can actually use the app without signing up, although registering adds some cool features like creating a library of favorites, and getting notifications when a new issue is published.

ComicWalker is notable for its no-nonsense, no-strings-attached approach. This is the place to go if all you want to do is read manga without any hassles. And since it works from the browser, you can read it from your office too.

3. BookWalker: The Kindle Shop for Manga

• Platforms: Web, Android, iOS
• Cost: Per Book
• Notable Titles: Overlord, Attack on Titan, No Game No Life, To All The Corners Of The World

BookWalker is a one-stop shop for legal and official digital comics from Japan. Started by Kadokawa, the service now includes all of the popular publishers, including Viz, Kodansha, and Yen. Basically, this is like shopping on the Kindle store.

Download the BookWalker app on your mobile device or go to the website on your PC browser. You can browse by categories, genres, publishers, or authors. Pick what you want, pay the amount, and it’s added to your BookWalker catalog for eternity.

It’s an app made for manga, making it better than a one-size-fits-all app like ComiXology. Plus, a library of those original covers looks pretty neat.

Download: BookWalker for Android | iOS (Free)

4. Crunchyroll: Netflix for Anime and Manga

• Platforms: Web, Android, iOS
• Cost: $6.95/month, 14 Day Free Trial
• Notable Titles: Attack on Titan, Fairy Tail, The Seven Deadly Sins

Anime and manga often go hand in hand. Now, there are websites to watch anime legally and for free. But how about getting both mediums in the same package? As an overall deal for a Japanophile, Crunchyroll is amazing.

Apart from several of the major anime series, you get plenty of manga titles too. All for a pretty good deal at $7/month. It’s completely ad-free, and the manga chapters are available as soon as they are published in Japan.

Crunchyroll is among the most widely recommended “all-you-can-eat” services for manga lovers. The collection has some major titles, and as with buffets of this kind, you’ll discover new comics to fall in love with.

Download: Crunchyroll for Android | iOS (Free)

5. ComiXology and ComiXology Unlimited

• Platforms: Web, Android, iOS, Windows, macOS
• Cost: $5.99/month, or pay per issue
• Notable Titles: Lone Wolf and Cub, Attack on Titan, Fairy Tail, The Seven Deadly Sins, Love Hina, Sherlock Bones

ComiXology is now the best source to read digital comics on any platform. And the ComiXology Unlimited subscription service gives you access to a large collection of comics for a one-time flat fee, much like Crunchyroll.

As a one-stop shop for all your manga needs, comiXology is perhaps the best option. It offers both a subscription model, as well as the ability to purchase individual issues that aren’t in the subscription. Plus, since Amazon bought ComiXology, you can rest assured that your subscription isn’t going to die without notice.

So should you get ComiXology Unlimited, or buy individual issues separately? Check the full list of ComiXology Unlimited titles and see if it’s worth $6-per-month to you. And remember, you also get access to a large collection of other comics from DC, Marvel, and so on.

• Full list of manga eligible for ComiXology Unlimited
• Full list of manga titles on ComiXology

Download: ComiXology for Android | iOS (Free)

Now Try Making Your Own Manga!

These websites are the best places to read manga online today. But it’s worth considering how you want to consume your favorite books. Manga is generally black and white, so you don’t need a color screen to get the most out of the artform. This makes the Kindle an ideal device, but the low storage may prove to be a problem.

If reading these comics inspires you to do a bit of your own, you can. There are some excellent online tutorials teaching you how to draw anime and manga comics, which might be just what you need to express your creativity. And who knows, maybe someday, your manga might be a part of Shonen Jump.

Read the full article: The 5 Best Sites to Read Manga Online for Free

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6 Reasons Why Snapchat Is the Best Social Media App

Snapchat has been popular among teenagers for years, and it’s not hard to see why. It’s a convenient app that’s very easy to use. Snapchat has hundreds of millions of users, but some changes haven’t been well received by the passionate and dedicated userbase.

Snapchat has mostly been seen as a fun and silly app. And with all the negative things being said about Snapchat, it can be hard to see what’s so great about Snapchat. However, there are solid reasons why we think Snapchat is the best social media app out there…

1. You Don’t Need a Phone Number to Use Snapchat

This is a big advantage for Snapchat, especially because it’s an app-only platform. There aren’t many mainstream app-only social media platforms. Even Instagram has a web version, although its functionality is limited.

Despite being an app-only platform, Snapchat doesn’t require a phone number to sign up. While some users don’t mind using their phone numbers to sign up, many aren’t comfortable with the idea. It’s not necessarily a bad thing for an app to require a phone number, but it gives Snapchat a certain “ease of access” appeal.

Snapchat does ask for your phone number as the primary sign up option, but that can be bypassed by choosing to use an e-mail address instead.

2. You Can Sign up With a Disposable Email Address

Not only does Snapchat let you bypass having to enter your phone number, but it also lets you sign up with disposable temporary email services. Most social networks will require an email address from a reputable and recognizable service like Gmail or Yahoo. Some of them even block disposable email services entirely.

Snapchat, however, will accept almost any email service out there. You could even provide it a non-existent email, and Snapchat will still let you in. Most importantly, you’re not required to verify your email to be able to use Snapchat, and you can change the email address later, in case you want to verify it.

3. Snapchat Adds Very Little to Your Digital Footprint

Social media platforms have been taking a lot of heat lately because of how much data they collect, and the potential misuse of that data. Snapchat, on the other hand, has a casual approach to social networking.

The pictures you send as snaps vanish after a maximum of two views, the first view and the replay, and chat messages do as well, unless you save them. Even your Snapchat Stories last for just 24 hours and aren’t saved automatically after that, unlike Instagram. You can, however, choose to save your Stories to Snapchat Memories.

The amount of data Snapchat will accumulate as you use it is small when compared to other social media apps. Thus, Snapchat contributes very little to your digital footprint. You also have the option to download your data.

4. Snapchat Works With Minimal Permissions

These days, most apps require a lot of permissions to work, which can raise suspicions. When it comes to social media apps, the list of permissions needed is usually even longer. However, you can actually use Snapchat with minimal permissions.

Like most social media apps, Snapchat does ASK for a lot of permissions, including camera, contacts, location, microphone, phone, SMS, and storage. However, only two of these are absolutely required to use the app—camera and storage. The microphone permission isn’t required unless you want to make a call or record a video.

5. Snapchat Is Not Owned by Facebook (Yet)

As the old adage goes, “Don’t put all your eggs in one basket”. Most people now agree that Facebook has way too much control over the social media space. Not only is it the world’s largest social network with over 2.2 billion active users in its own right, Zuckerberg and co. also own Instagram, which has over 1.5 billion users, and Whatsapp, which has over 1 billion users.

Facebook is running low on trust lately, especially after the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Many people are realizing just how much of their social media activity is accessible to Facebook. And the fact that the social network’s extensive data mining is now a matter of public record hasn’t helped either.

Snapchat, on the other hand, is one of the few top mainstream social media platforms not owned by Facebook. Snapchat successfully defended itself against Facebook’s attempts to buy it out in the early days. Facebook later responded by replicating most of Snapchat’s features on Instagram.

6. Snapchat Has the Least Intrusive Advertising

Intrusive advertising is a huge annoyance for social media users. In recent years, ads have become more and more intrusive, especially with Facebook and Instagram. Ads on these platforms are poorly placed, and often too dry and straightforward.

Snapchat joined the advertising game quite late, and it doesn’t take as aggressive an approach as the others. Ads are seamlessly integrated with the Discover area of the app, and users can avoid them if they want.

Snapchat has done a brilliant job with the branded content as well. There are various big new media outlets making content specifically for Snapchat, and now with Snap Originals, Snapchat is even hosting original content in the form of web miniseries.

This makes Snapchat a competitor to not only Facebook and Instagram, but also to YouTube. It has taken what seems like the best approach to content and advertising, which is likely to challenge a lot of other platforms in the future.

Is Snapchat the Social Media App for You?

Snapchat is a versatile social media app. This means that whatever way you choose to use social media apps, Snapchat delivers.

Snapchat has a ton of great features, like the wildly popular face filters, Bitmoji, Snap Map, and more. It might be an app-only social network, but it is by no means an incomplete one. Snapchat has evolved to become one of the best social media apps out there. And, crucially, it can adapt to your needs, which isn’t an approach we have seen from its competitors.

If you want to know more about why we think Snapchat is the best social media app, take a look at our article explaining why Snapchat is the new Facebook.

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