With 5G, when it rains, it pours. A few hours after Verizon officially started selling the Samsung Galaxy S10 5G, Sprint announced that it will be offering two 5G devices for its network by the end of the month.
For now, it still feels like manufacturers are putting the cart before the horse here. There’s little question that 5G will become ubiquitous in the next few years, but actual opportunities to access the technology are still pretty scarce.
Among U.S. carriers, Verizon (or parent company’s parent company) has been the most aggressive. Fitting then, that the company is first to market with the Galaxy S10 5G. Of course all of these devices while default to 4G when there’s no 5G to be found, which is going to be the case more often than not for a while.
Verizon’s 5G is currently available in select markets, including Chicago and Minneapolis. That number is set to balloon to 20 before year’s end, including, Atlanta, Boston, Charlotte, Cincinnati, Cleveland, Columbus, Dallas, Des Moines, Denver, Detroit, Houston, Indianapolis, Kansas City, Little Rock, Memphis, Phoenix, Providence, San Diego, Salt Lake City and Washington, DC.
Sprint, meanwhile, has promised to flip on 5G in nine markets “in the coming weeks.” The list includes parts of Atlanta, Dallas, Houston and Kansas City, and then locations in Los Angeles, New York City, Phoenix and Washington D.C.
To celebrate, the network will be offering two 5G devices this month. The LG V50 ThinQ and HTC 5G Hub will hit Sprint stores on May 31.
Facebook is updating the News Feed ranking algorithm to incorporate data from surveys about who you say are your closest friends and which links you find most worthwhile. Today Facebook announced it’s trained new classifiers based on patterns linking these surveys with usage data so it can better predict what to show in the News Feed. The change could hurt Pages that share click-bait and preference those sharing content that makes people feel satisfied afterwards.
For close friends, Facebook surveyed users about which people they were closest too. It then detected how this matches up with who you are tagged in photos with, constantly interact with, like the same post and check in to the same places as, and more. That way if it recognizes those signals about other people’s friendships, it can be confident those are someone’s closest friends they’ll want to see the most of. You won’t see more friend content in total, but more from your best pals instead of distant acquaintances.
For worthwhile content, Facebook conducted surveys via news feed to find out which links people said were good uses of their time. Facebook then detected which types of link posts, which publishers, and how much engagement the posts got and matched that to survey results. This then lets it determine that if a post has a simialr style and engagement level, it’s likely to be worthwhile and should be ranked higher in the feed.
The change aligns with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent comments declaring that Facebook’s goal isn’t total time spent, but time well spent with meaningful content you feel good about. Most recently, that push has been about demoting unsafe content. Last month Facebook changed the algorithm to minimize clickbait and links to crappy ad-filled sites that receive a disproportionately high amount of their traffic from Facebook. It cracked down on unoriginality by hiding videos ripped off from other creators, and began levying harsher demotions to repeat violators of its policies. And it began to decrease the distribution of “borderline content” on Facebook and Instagram that comes close to but doesn’t technically break its rules.
While many assume Facebook just juices News Feed to be as addictive in the short-term as possible to keep us glued to the screen and viewing ads, that would actually be ruinous for its long-term business. If users leave the feed feeling exhausted, confused, and unfulfilled, they won’t come back. Facebook’s already had trouble with users ditching its text-heavy News Feed for more visual apps like Instagram (which it luckily bought) and Snapchat (which it tried to). While demoting click-bait and viral content might decrease total usage time today, it could preserve Facebook’s money-making ability for the future while also helping to rot our brains a little less.
Instagram’s pivot to Stories continues with an overhaul of Explore designed to let users dig deeper into their niche interests. Stories are now eligible to show up in the Explore tab for the first time, giving creators a way to get discovered through their intimate, silly, behind-the-scenes content instead of just their manicured feed posts. Since Stories themselves don’t get Likes, Instagram will personalize which Stories you see on Explore by showing accounts similar to ones you do Like and Follow. We’ve got more tips on how the Explore Stories algorithm works below.
Additionally, Instagram Explore is getting a redesigned navigation bar up to with shortcuts to Shopping and IGTV first, followed by channels for topics like Travel, Food, and Design. In a nod to how central Instagram sees Shopping and IGTV to its future, those categories will also get big square portals inset within the Explore grid. Tapping these squares or shortcuts for Shopping reveals category filters for specific proucts like Clothing, Beauty, and Home Decor. For IGTV, they pull up an new vertical scrolling IGTV discovery grid to contrast with its old horizontal scrolling carousel.
The goal is that “Explore shows you the full breath of content on Instagram that are relevant to your interests” says Instagram product lead for discovery Will Ruben. The more creators you discover through Explore, the more you have to look at on Instagram, and the more ads you end of seeiing. “These changes also signal the future direction we’ll be taking with Explore. We’re really investing in making IGTV and Shopping a big part of Explore experience. A home for Instagram’s big bets like Shopping and IGTV. We want to provide a more immersive experience so people can actively engage with content and be more specific about what they want to discover.” That should quiet questions about whether Instagram will abandon IGTV after a lackluster first year in the market.
How To Get On The Instagram Explore Tab
You’ll now start to see auto-playing Stories clips on the Explore grid. Tapping one will let you watch that Story, and then swipe through more topically similar Stories. For example, if you tap into a Story about dogs on Explore, you’ll likely see more dog Stories queued up. This seamless way to sift through content means there’s a ton of opportunity for influencers and artists to gain followers through Explore.
Instagram tells me that its algorithm is looking for several things when determining what to show on Explore:
The strongest input is what the viewer already follows and Likes in the feed. Instagram will try to show similar Stories in Explore, so if someone Likes and follows a lot of accounts you, it will show Stories from other people they Like and follow but you don’t yet
Videos are ranked higher than photos since videos auto-play in Explore and tend to get more attention
Highly-visual Stories that don’t include too much text will get preference
Stories with content more similar to and representative of a creator’s typical feed posts are more likely to show up on Explore
Certain content types like reposts of other people’s feed posts are demoted by the algorithm
Computer vision that detects what the actual content of a Story is helps Instagram show you ones similar to the content you interact with most, though this is a weaker signal than those above.
So if you’re followed and Liked by people similar to someone, and post visually-compelling video Stories without too much text that are indicative of the topics you typically post, you could earn a spot on the Explore tab.
Facebook is updating the News Feed ranking algorithm to incorporate data from surveys about who you say are your closest friends and which links you find most worthwhile. Today Facebook announced it’s trained new classifiers based on patterns linking these surveys with usage data so it can better predict what to show in the News Feed. The change could hurt Pages that share click-bait and preference those sharing content that makes people feel satisfied afterwards.
For close friends, Facebook surveyed users about which people they were closest too. It then detected how this matches up with who you are tagged in photos with, constantly interact with, like the same post and check in to the same places as, and more. That way if it recognizes those signals about other people’s friendships, it can be confident those are someone’s closest friends they’ll want to see the most of. You won’t see more friend content in total, but more from your best pals instead of distant acquaintances.
For worthwhile content, Facebook conducted surveys via news feed to find out which links people said were good uses of their time. Facebook then detected which types of link posts, which publishers, and how much engagement the posts got and matched that to survey results. This then lets it determine that if a post has a simialr style and engagement level, it’s likely to be worthwhile and should be ranked higher in the feed.
The change aligns with CEO Mark Zuckerberg’s recent comments declaring that Facebook’s goal isn’t total time spent, but time well spent with meaningful content you feel good about. Most recently, that push has been about demoting unsafe content. Last month Facebook changed the algorithm to minimize clickbait and links to crappy ad-filled sites that receive a disproportionately high amount of their traffic from Facebook. It cracked down on unoriginality by hiding videos ripped off from other creators, and began levying harsher demotions to repeat violators of its policies. And it began to decrease the distribution of “borderline content” on Facebook and Instagram that comes close to but doesn’t technically break its rules.
While many assume Facebook just juices News Feed to be as addictive in the short-term as possible to keep us glued to the screen and viewing ads, that would actually be ruinous for its long-term business. If users leave the feed feeling exhausted, confused, and unfulfilled, they won’t come back. Facebook’s already had trouble with users ditching its text-heavy News Feed for more visual apps like Instagram (which it luckily bought) and Snapchat (which it tried to). While demoting click-bait and viral content might decrease total usage time today, it could preserve Facebook’s money-making ability for the future while also helping to rot our brains a little less.
Instagram’s pivot to Stories continues with an overhaul of Explore designed to let users dig deeper into their niche interests. Stories are now eligible to show up in the Explore tab for the first time, giving creators a way to get discovered through their intimate, silly, behind-the-scenes content instead of just their manicured feed posts. Since Stories themselves don’t get Likes, Instagram will personalize which Stories you see on Explore by showing accounts similar to ones you do Like and Follow. We’ve got more tips on how the Explore Stories algorithm works below.
Additionally, Instagram Explore is getting a redesigned navigation bar up to with shortcuts to Shopping and IGTV first, followed by channels for topics like Travel, Food, and Design. In a nod to how central Instagram sees Shopping and IGTV to its future, those categories will also get big square portals inset within the Explore grid. Tapping these squares or shortcuts for Shopping reveals category filters for specific proucts like Clothing, Beauty, and Home Decor. For IGTV, they pull up an new vertical scrolling IGTV discovery grid to contrast with its old horizontal scrolling carousel.
The goal is that “Explore shows you the full breath of content on Instagram that are relevant to your interests” says Instagram product lead for discovery Will Ruben. The more creators you discover through Explore, the more you have to look at on Instagram, and the more ads you end of seeiing. “These changes also signal the future direction we’ll be taking with Explore. We’re really investing in making IGTV and Shopping a big part of Explore experience. A home for Instagram’s big bets like Shopping and IGTV. We want to provide a more immersive experience so people can actively engage with content and be more specific about what they want to discover.” That should quiet questions about whether Instagram will abandon IGTV after a lackluster first year in the market.
How To Get On The Instagram Explore Tab
You’ll now start to see auto-playing Stories clips on the Explore grid. Tapping one will let you watch that Story, and then swipe through more topically similar Stories. For example, if you tap into a Story about dogs on Explore, you’ll likely see more dog Stories queued up. This seamless way to sift through content means there’s a ton of opportunity for influencers and artists to gain followers through Explore.
Instagram tells me that its algorithm is looking for several things when determining what to show on Explore:
The strongest input is what the viewer already follows and Likes in the feed. Instagram will try to show similar Stories in Explore, so if someone Likes and follows a lot of accounts you, it will show Stories from other people they Like and follow but you don’t yet
Videos are ranked higher than photos since videos auto-play in Explore and tend to get more attention
Highly-visual Stories that don’t include too much text will get preference
Stories with content more similar to and representative of a creator’s typical feed posts are more likely to show up on Explore
Certain content types like reposts of other people’s feed posts are demoted by the algorithm
Computer vision that detects what the actual content of a Story is helps Instagram show you ones similar to the content you interact with most, though this is a weaker signal than those above.
So if you’re followed and Liked by people similar to someone, and post visually-compelling video Stories without too much text that are indicative of the topics you typically post, you could earn a spot on the Explore tab.
Update: An Amazon spokesperson told TechCrunch “This afternoon we had an issue that impacted some Alexa customers’ ability to interact with the service. The Alexa service is now operating normally.”
If your requests to Alexa are being met with answers like “I’m having some trouble, please try again later,” you are not alone. Multiple users are reporting connection issues with Amazon’s voice assistant. According to Down Detector’s outage tracker and live outage map, issues are currently being detected around the world, with user reports starting around 7PM EST.
Samsung’s been mostly quiet on the Fold front after recalling review units and indefinitely delaying the phone’s release. Understandably so. It couldn’t have been easy going back to the drawing board with one of buzziest handsets in recent memory. While we’ve been waiting word, the company has been exploring fixes and attempting to determine the magnitude of the issue.
According to reporting from Yonhap News Agency, Samsung is currently testing the handset with mobile carriers in Korea, putting the phone’s official release some time next month. There are a few grains of salt to be taken from these unnamed sources. The release timeframe depends on approval from carriers and will vary country by country.
What is notable, however, is that Samsung has apparently found fixes for the two primary problems. First there’s the issue with the protective laminate, which some reviewers apparently peeled off. I get it. I looks an awful lot like the peel-able screen covers the company’s phones ship with.
The protective cover will remain, but the edges will be tucked away, making it much more difficult to remove. As for the issue with matter falling through cracks in the hinge and getting wedged behind the display, Samsung’s apparently just making the holes in smaller.
Last week, CEO DJ Koh addressed the issue, noting that “news” was coming soon. This isn’t that, but Samsung does appear to still be committed to what could ultimately prove a very pricy mistake. At $1,980, consumers, too, are advised to approach this one with caution.
As Facebook pushes ahead with its strategy to consolidate more of the backend of its various apps on to a single platform, it’s also doing a little simplifying and housekeeping. In the coming month, it will shut down Direct, the standalone Instagram direct messaging app that it was testing to rival Snapchat, on iOS and Android. Instead, Facebook and its Instagram team will channel all developments and activity into the direct messaging feature of the main Instagram app.
We first saw a message about the app closing down by way of a tweet from Direct user Matt Navarra: “In the coming month, we’ll no longer be supporting the Direct app,” Instagram notes in the app itself. “Your conversations will automatically move over to Instagram, so you don’t need to do anything.”
The details were then confirmed to us by Instagram itself:
“We’re rolling back the test of the standalone Direct app,” a spokesperson said in a statement provided to TechCrunch. “We’re focused on continuing to make Instagram Direct the best place for fun conversations with your friends.”
From what we understand, Instagram will continue developing Direct features — they just won’t live in a standalone app. (Tests and rollouts of new features that we’ve reported before include encryption in direct messaging, the ability to watch videos with other people, a web version of the direct messaging feature,
Instagram didn’t give any reason for the decision, but in many ways, the writing was on the wall with this one.
The app first appeared December 2017, when Instagram confirmed it had rolled it out in a select number of markets — Uruguay, Chile, Turkey, Italy, Portugal and Israel — as a test. (Instagram first launched direct messaging within the main app in 2013.)
“We want Instagram to be a place for all of your moments, and private sharing with close friends is a big part of that,” it said at the time. “To make it easier and more fun for people to connect in this way, we are beginning to test Direct – a camera-first app that connects seamlessly back to Instagram.”
But it’s not clear how many markets beyond ultimately have had access to the app, although Instagram did expand it to more. The iOS version currently notes that it is available in a much wider range of languages than Spanish, Turkish, Italian and Portuguese. It also includes English, Croatian, Czech, Danish, Dutch, Finnish, French, German, Greek, Indonesian, Japanese, Korean, Malay, Norwegian Bokmål, Polish, Romanian, Russian, Simplified Chinese, Slovak, Swedish, Tagalog, Thai, Traditional Chinese, Ukrainian and Vietnamese.
But with Instagram doing little to actively promote the app or its expansion to more markets, Direct never really found a lot of traction in the markets where it was active.
The only countries that make it on to AppAnnie’s app rankings for Direct are Uruguay for Android, where it was most recently at number 55 among social networking apps (with no figures for overall rankings, meaning it was too low down to be counted); and Portugal on iOS, where it was number 24 among social apps and a paltry 448 overall.
The Direct app hadn’t been updated on iOS since the end of December, although the Android version was updated as recently as the end of April.
At the time of its original launch as a test, however, Direct looked like an interesting move from Instagram.
The company had already been releasing various other features that cloned popular ones in Snapchat. The explosive growth and traction of one of them, Stories, could have felt like a sign to Facebook that there was more ground to break on creating more Snapchat-like experiences for its audience. More generally, the rise of Snapchat and direct messaging apps like WhatsApp has shown that there is a market demand for more apps based around private conversations among smaller groups, if not one-to-one.
On top of that, building a standalone messaging app takes a page out of Facebook’s own app development book, in which it launched and began to really accelerate development of a standalone Messenger app separate from the Facebook experience on mobile.
The company has not revealed any recent numbers for usage of Direct since 2017, when it said there were 375 million users of the service as it brought together permanent and ephemeral (disappearing) messages within the service.
More recently, Instagram and Facebook itself have been part of the wider scrutiny we have seen over how social platforms police and moderate harmful or offensive content. Facebook itself has faced an additional wave of criticism from some over its plans to bring together its disparate app ecosystem in terms of how they function together, with the issue being that Facebook is not giving apps like WhatsApp and Instagram enough autonomy and becoming an even bigger data monster in the process.
It may have been the depressingly low usage that ultimately killed off Direct, but I’d argue that the optics for promoting an expansion of its app real estate on to another platform weren’t particularly strong, either.
TodayTix, a mobile ticketing company that makes it easy and relatively affordable to go to Broadway shows and other live performances, is announcing a new $73 million round of funding led by private equity firm Great Hill Partners.
The company was founded in 2013, and it served initially as the mobile equivalent of New York’s TKTS booths for discounted, last-minute theater tickets. TodayTix says it’s now sold more than 4 million tickets, representing 8 percent of annual Broadway ticket sales and 4 percent for London’s West End.
Beyond that, co-founder and CEO Brian Fenty said that a little over 10 percent of the tickets sold now fall outside “theater and performing arts, narrowly defined,” covering things like comedy shows and experiential theater.
“I think to the consumer, we will be a holistic ecosystem to engage in the city’s art and experiences,” Fenty predicted. “However culture is defined … we want to be their partner in discovering those things.”
To do that, TodayTix will add more cities to its current list of 15 markets. Fenty said this expansion is driven by existing partnerships (like launching in Australia through its partnership with “Harry Potter and the Cursed Child”) and by seeing where people are already downloading the TodayTix app. His ultimate goal is to be “geographically agnostic.”
Fenty also said the company will continue investing in the TodayTix Presents program, through which the company puts on its puts on its own shows (albeit at a much smaller scale than a Broadway production).
And of course he wants to improve the app itself, introducing more personalization and curation — Fenty pointed to Netflix and Amazon as models. After all, he said TodayTix is currently offering tickets to 297 shows in New York alone, so it needs to ways to “effectively guide people through that.”
“We’re actually a media company, with our own content and perspective — not on the quality of the shows, but to have a point of view on how users should and could engage with this content,” he said.
He added that those improvements will include more basic things, like the process of purchasing a ticket: “The hardest part is to complete the purchase in 30 seconds or less, as compared to the average ticketing platform, which is somewhere between 3 and 7 minutes … How we continue to squish that conversion?”
Fenty is also hoping to work more closely with show producers, providing them with data about which shows are selling, as well as helping them use data to find the most effective ways to promote themselves.
TodayTix says it’s raised a total of $90 million since it announced its Series B back in February 2016. Fenty told me the new round includes a direct investment in the company, as well as secondary purchases of TodayTix shares from previous investors.
“TodayTix is rapidly changing the way millennials and other consumers connect with live cultural experiences,” said Great Hill Managing Partner Michael Kumin in a statement. “We look forward to working with Brian, [co-founder] Merritt [Baer] and their talented management team to expand the Company’s product and service offerings and accelerate its push into new geographies.”
Google is gunning for India’s payment companies. The U.S. search giant entered India’s payment space in 2017, and now it is hatching an initiative that could boost usage of its Google Pay service by tying it tightly into Android apps in the country.
The company has built an in-app engagement rewards platform that promises to help developers and businesses retain users and drive engagement on their apps, two sources familiar with the matter said. It plans to formally launch the project through partners using an SDK later this year, TechCrunch understands.
Sitting at the core of this new play is Google Pay, which will be used for transactions between businesses and users, thereby expanding the reach of Google’s payment service.
Internally dubbed as Project Cruiser, the initiative has been in works since last year and it is led by Google’s Next Billion Users team, sources said. Executives from the company have reached out to several businesses in India in recent months to coax them into coming on board, they added.
The platform, if incorporated by developers into their apps, will allow app developers to incentivize users to perform certain actions in their app in a “scalable” fashion. For example, placing their first order, invite friends or adding a payment method, will all result in users earning a small sum of money. In a pitch, Google executives have described these actions as “north star” metrics — something that the company believes its current products do not currently offer.
A Google spokesperson declined to comment on the specifics of Project Cruiser, but said, “We’re always looking at ways to serve the next billion users better, but we have nothing to share at this point.”
Part of the rationale behind the project is to help businesses retain customers. A growing number of users are deleting new apps not long after installing them, the company executives said to have told prospective partners in pitches.
This cash-laden approach of using incentives to fuel engagement is a departure from how Google has typically urged developers to drive engagement on their apps: by building a high-quality experience that uses triggers like notifications in a responsible manner.
Pushing Google Pay
The company has an additional incentive at play. It has told developers that all rewards on the app will be bandied through Google Pay. That said, one source told TechCrunch that there is a plan to support other payment options from third parties at a later stage, a move that is likely to appease claims of platform abuse. The company has, interestingly, also committed to not take a cut of Google Pay revenue generated from developers through the initiative.
Google has been aggressively pushing the adoption of Google Pay in India, a market where digital payment services have grown exponentially in recent years. The app, initially launched in India as Google Tez in 2017, is the first service from Google to offer users actual money — in the form of cashback — to spur engagement. Late last year, Google ran a promotional campaign that offered Duo video chat users in India up to Rs 1,000 ($14) for inviting friends to the app.
It’s time for double benefits with Google Duo.
Update your app, refer a friend, and both of you could stand a chance to earn upto ₹1000* each on @GooglePayIndiahttps://t.co/gXzrZVDhDJ
India has emerged as a crucial growth market for Google, which is increasingly looking at developing nations to search for new users and revenue. The U.S. firm clocked $1.4 billion in revenue in India in the fiscal year ending in March 2018, filings show, and the wider Asian region recently became its fastest-growing geography for sales.
“We’ve learnt that when we solve for a place like India, we solve for everyone around the world,” Sundar Pichai, CEO of Google, said at an event in New Delhi in 2017.
Google’s user-engagement initiative is potentially a tough development for independent mobile wallets such as Paytm and Mobikwik. Although there’s the potential to add their support later, Project Cruiser promises to give Google Pay a massive boost by tapping into India’s digital cashback culture.
That’s sure to make it an additional concern to those who are increasingly wary of Google’s influence in digital India. Just last month, the Competition Commission of India (CCI) opened an investigation into the alleged abuse of Android’s domination market position.
Conditional formatting in spreadsheets is a terrific feature that makes your data stand out. You simply place conditions around the values in a cell or group of cells. When those conditions are met, you can automatically have the cell highlighted, the text formatted, or both. This makes specific data pop.
If you would like to set up conditional formatting in Numbers on Mac, we’re here to help. As you follow this tutorial, note that in Numbers, the feature is referred to as conditional highlighting, rather than conditional formatting.
Types of Data for Conditional Highlighting
Before adding a rule for conditional highlighting, here is a list of the types of data you can use and the corresponding conditions.
Numbers: Equal to, not equal to, greater than, greater than or equal to, less than, less than or equal to, between, and not between
Text: Is, is not, starts with, ends with, contains, and does not contain
Dates: Yesterday, today, tomorrow, in this, in the next, in the last, exactly, before, after, between, the date, before the date, after the date, and in the range
Set Up a Conditional Highlighting Rule for Numbers
Numbers are the most popular types of data you will use in spreadsheets. Whether a simple number, money, or percentage, numbers are everywhere in spreadsheets.
For setting up conditional highlighting surrounding numbers, we’re going to use a product sheet as an example. This data includes numbers for price, cost, and inventory, but we’ll concentrate on inventory.
Let’s say you want to quickly see when inventory for a product falls below a certain amount. For instance, 50. We’ll have Numbers highlight those cells in red. Here’s how to set this up.
Select the cells in your spreadsheet. You can select a group by clicking the first one and dragging through the rest or select an entire column or row.
Click the Format button on the top right to open the sidebar if it’s closed.
Select Cell from the top of the sidebar.
Click the Conditional Highlighting
Click Add a Rule.
Select Numbers and then Less than.
Now you can customize your rule in the sidebar to apply the formatting. Enter the number (50) in the box under your condition (less than) and then select your formatting from the dropdown box (Red Fill). You should see the changes immediately if you have values that meet the condition. Click Done.
Set Up a Conditional Highlighting Rule for Text
Text is another widely-used data type in spreadsheets. And for teachers or professors who use Numbers for tracking students’ grades, conditional highlighting is super handy.
So, for this example, we’ll use a grade sheet. Let’s say that whenever a student receives an F on a test, we want to highlight that grade in yellow so we can offer them extra credit. Here’s how to set this up.
Select the cells in your spreadsheet.
Click the Format button on the top right to open the sidebar if it’s closed.
Select Cell from the top of the sidebar.
Click the Conditional Highlighting
Click Add a Rule.
Select Text and then Is.
Next, customize your rule in the sidebar. Enter the text (F) in the box under your condition (text is) and then select your formatting in the dropdown box (Yellow Fill). Once again, you’ll see the changes right away for values that meet the condition. Click Done.
Set Up a Conditional Highlighting Rule for Dates
Using dates in spreadsheets is ideal for so many business and personal situations. From employee records to household budgets to project management, you probably have dates in a spreadsheet already.
One of the best ways to use conditional formatting for dates is to make past due dates for bills stand out. So, this is our next example. We’ll set up a rule for all Paid Dates that are past the Due Dates to display in red text.
Here’s how to set up conditional highlighting for dates that come after other dates.
Select the cells in your spreadsheet.
Click the Format button on the top right to open the sidebar if it’s closed.
Select Cell from the top of the sidebar.
Click the Conditional Highlighting
Click Add a Rule.
Select Dates and then After the date.
To set this rule up easily, instead of entering a value in the box under the condition, like a number or text, we are going to select the cells.
Click the button inside of the box where you would enter a condition value. Then, select the cells that contain the dates. Next, click the checkmark. Now you can see that all Paid Dates that are after the Due Dates have red text. Click Done.
Set Up a Conditional Highlighting Rule for Durations
Durations might not be the most popular types of data entries in Numbers, but if you manage projects or track tasks, durations are handy. And highlighting certain durations is even handier.
For this example, we’re going to use a simple project management task sheet. Here, we track the time we spend on tasks each week. Now, we want to see those days where we spent two or more hours on a single task highlighted in green. Here’s how to set this up.
Select the cells in your spreadsheet.
Click the Format button on the top right to open the sidebar if it’s closed.
Select Cell from the top of the sidebar.
Click the Conditional Highlighting
Click Add a Rule.
Select Durations and then Greater than or equal to.
Now, customize your rule. Enter the duration (2h) in the box under your condition (greater than or equal to) and then select your formatting in the dropdown box (Green Fill). Click Done.
Set Up a Conditional Highlighting Rule for Blanks
One more convenient highlighting rule to set up in Numbers is for blank cells. You could use this in each of our examples above like missing inventory counts, student grades, and dates for bills.
To show you how to set up this rule, we’ll use our project management spreadsheet and have all blank durations display in blue.
Select the cells in your spreadsheet.
Click the Format button on the top right to open the sidebar if it’s closed.
Select Cell from the top of the sidebar.
Click the Conditional Highlighting
Click Add a Rule.
Select Blank and then Is blank.
Next, just select the highlighting type from the dropdown box since there is no value to add under the condition. Click Done.
Create Your Own Custom Style for Highlighting
While the basic formatting options are fine, like bold text or colored cells, maybe you want something more specific. Great news, you can make your own custom style!
To create your own style, set up your conditional highlighting rule using the steps above. When you get to the part where you pick the formatting from the dropdown box, go all the way to the bottom of the box and click Custom Style.
You can then format the text with bold, italics, underline, or strikethrough. And you can use color for the text in addition to a color for the cell. So, this lets you combine all sorts of formatting that suits your needs best.
In our example below, for all project costs that are $20 or more, our cells are formatted with yellow highlight and red text that’s also bold.
Take Advantage of Conditional Formatting in Numbers on Mac
Hopefully, this tutorial will get you off to a great start in using conditional highlighting in Numbers on your Mac.
Do you happen to use two different computers and spreadsheet applications? For instance, maybe you use Numbers on Mac in the office and Microsoft Excel on Windows at home. If so, check out our article on how to use conditional formatting in Excel too.
Online threats are dangerous because they are difficult to see. As a result, we tend to discount the risk — just like the unfortunate beach-goers who get eaten alive in Jaws. SaferVPN makes it easy to defend yourself against the online sharks. This service works on all major desktop and mobile platforms, providing bank-level security and fast connections. SaferVPN also lets you bypass local restrictions to enjoy great online content. You can get a lifetime subscription now for just $44.99 at MakeUseOf Deals.
Simple but Effective
Pretty much every cybersecurity expert recommends using a VPN. While some apps are difficult to work with, SaferVPN provides full protection with a couple of clicks.
You can download SaferVPN on Windows, Mac, Android, iOS, and Chrome. There are no confusing menus to work through — one tap and your connection is secure. The VPN masks your IP address and physical location, while your traffic is protected by AES-256 encryption.
As a SaferVPN subscriber, you get unlimited bandwidth and uncapped speed. There are 700 dedicated servers available around the world, spread across 30 countries. This means you can connect to remote locations and stream your favorite shows from anywhere in the world.
SaferVPN works on a strict no-logging policy to protect your data, and friendly customer support is available 24/7.
Lifetime Protection for $44.99
Worth $777, lifetime service is now just $44.99 for a limited time — and use SAVEMAY20 for an extra 20% off!
XPRIZE, the non-profit organization developing and managing competitions to find solutions to social challenges, has named two grand prize winners in the Elon Musk-backed Global Learning XPRIZE.
The companies, KitKit School out of South Korea and the U.S., and onebillion, operating in Kenya and the U.K., were announced at an awards ceremony hosted at the Google Spruce Goose Hangar in Playa Vista, Calif.
XPRIZE set each of the competing teams the task of developing scalable services that could enable children to teach themselves basic reading, writing, and arithmetic skills within 15 months.
Musk himself was on hand to award $5 million checks to each of the winning teams.
Five finalists including: New York-based CCI, which developed lesson plans and a development language so non-coders could create lessons; Chimple, a Bangalore-based, learning platform enabling children to learn reading, writing and math on a tablet; RobotTutor, a Pittsburgh-based company which used Carnegie Mellon research to develop an app for Android tablets that would teach lessons in reading and writing with speech recognition, machine learning, and human computer interactions, and the two grand prize winners all received $1 million to continue developing their projects.
The tests required each product to be field tested in Swahili, reaching nearly 3,000 children in 170 villages across Tanzania.
All of the final solutions from each of the five teams that made it to the final round of competition have been open-sourced so anyone can improve on and develop local solutions using the toolkits developed by each team in competition.
Kitkit School, with a team from Berkeley, Calif. and Seoul, developed a program with a game-based core and flexible learning architecture to help kids learn independently, while onebillion, merged numeracy content with literacy material to provide directed learning and activities alongside monitoring to personalize responses to children’s needs.
Both teams are going home with $5 million to continue their work.
The problem of access to basic education affects more than 250 million children around the world, who can’t read or write and one-in-five children around the world aren’t in school, according to data from UNESCO.
The problem of access is compounded by a shortage of teachers at the primary ad secondary school level. Some research, cited by XPRIZE, indicates that the world needs to recruit another 68.8 million teachers to provide every child with a primary and secondary education by 2040.
Before the Global Learning XPRIZE field test, 74% of the children who participated were reported as never having attended school; 80% were never read to at home; and 90% couldn’t read a single word of Swahili.
After the 15 month program working on donated Google Pixel C tablets and pre-loaded with software, the number was cut in half.
“Education is a fundamental human right, and we are so proud of all the teams and their dedication and hard work to ensure every single child has the opportunity to take learning into their own hands,” said Anousheh Ansari, CEO of XPRIZE, in a statement. “Learning how to read, write and demonstrate basic math are essential building blocks for those who want to live free from poverty and its limitations, and we believe that this competition clearly demonstrated the accelerated learning made possible through the educational applications developed by our teams, and ultimately hope that this movement spurs a revolution in education, worldwide.”
After the grand prize announcement, XPRIZE said it will work to secure and load the software onto tablets; localize the software; and deliver preloaded hardware and charging stations to remote locations so all finalist teams can scale their learning software across the world.
Uber is rolling out a new set of features for users of Uber Black and Uber Black SUV. This means you can personalize your Uber ride so it’s just the way you want it. Options include a Quiet Mode and Temperature Control, all of which can be requested via the app.
What Are Uber Black and Uber Black SUV?
Uber Black and Uber Black SUV are the premium options open to Uber riders. They come with high-end vehicles, more professional drivers, and an overall more luxury experience than you’ll get with Uber X or Uber Pool. However, you’ll pay more as a result.
This is where it all began for Uber, which was launched as a luxury car service available via a smartphone app. However, most people use Uber X or Uber Pool to save money, and Uber is now trying to counter that by upgrading the Uber Black experience.
How to Use Uber’s New Ride Preferences
Spearheading this effort are a new set of Ride Preferences. These are chosen prior to booking your Uber Black or Uber Black SUV ride and can’t be changed once booked. The three new options are a Quiet Mode, Temperature Control, and Help With Luggage.
Quiet Mode means you can request your driver basically stay quiet for the duration of your ride. Alternatively, you can state that you’re happy to chat.
Temperature Control means you can tell your driver whether you want the vehicle to be warm or cool. They can then adjust the heating or air-con accordingly.
Help With Luggage means you can request an extra pair of hands with your luggage. Your driver will also know to pull over somewhere so that they can exit the vehicle.
As well as these Ride Preferences, Uber is offering an extended pickup period and premium support for when things go wrong. It’s also promising professionalism from a commercially-licensed driver and consistent vehicle quality ensuring a comfortable ride.
How to Stay Safe When Using Uber or Lyft
The upgraded Uber Black and Uber Black SUV experience will be available to everyone in the US on May 15, 2019. In the meantime you should read our article pitching Uber vs. Lyft and look over our list of apps that will keep you safe while ridesharing.
You sit down to get some work done on your Windows computer, and that’s when you see it. The dreaded yellow triangle appears over your internet connection icon, annoyingly proclaiming that you have No Internet Access.
How do you fix this frustrating Windows error? Here are the steps you should follow to resolve this problem and get back online.
How to Fix “No Internet Access” Errors
Let’s quickly outline the steps to resolve “connected but no internet access” errors first. We’ll then go into detail on each one.
Confirm other devices can’t connect
Reboot your PC
Reboot your modem and router
Run the Windows network troubleshooter
Check your IP address settings
Check your ISP’s status
Try a few command prompt commands
Disable security software
Update your wireless drivers
Reset your network
What Does This Error Mean?
Before we proceed, we should explain what exactly happens on your network when you see this error. To do so, it’s necessary to explain some basics of home networking.
Wireless devices like a laptop connect to your router. The router is a device that handles the connections between the devices in your home. Your router plugs into a modem, a device that bridges the traffic on your home network and the internet.
When you see the Connected, no internet access, connected but no internet, or similar errors on your computer, it means that your computer is connected to the router correctly but can’t connect to the internet. Conversely, if you see Not connected, no internet or No internet connection messages, it means that your computer is not connected to a router at all.
This gives you some clues about what the issue is, as we’ll see below.
Step 1: Confirm Other Devices Can’t Connect
Before you do any troubleshooting, it’s important to determine whether your PC is the only device with with no internet connection. Grab your phone or another computer that’s connected to Wi-Fi and see if it’s online properly.
On Android, you’ll see an X icon over the Wi-Fi symbol and notice you’re connected to your mobile network for data. iPhone and iPad users can visit Settings > Wi-Fi and check for a No Internet Connection message.
If your computer is the only machine that won’t connect, it’s likely due to a misconfigured setting on just that device. But if you have no internet on every device, the problem lies with your network equipment and you can thus skip some of the PC-only steps below.
Before you proceed, if the problem affects all your devices, you should perform a quick test. Disconnect the Ethernet cable that connects your modem to your router, and use it to connect your PC to the modem directly instead.
If you can get online with this setup, the problem lies with your router. Should you proceed through the following troubleshooting and not fix your issue, your router is likely faulty.
Step 2: Reboot Your PC
This step isn’t necessary if your connection issue is affecting multiple devices.
As with many issues, rebooting your computer is the first troubleshooting step you should try. If you’re lucky, you might clear up some temporary glitch by restarting and then can get back to work.
Most of this advice assumes you’re using a wireless connection. However, if you connect to your router with an Ethernet cable, you should also try another cable at this time to confirm that yours isn’t faulty.
Step 3: Reboot Your Modem and Router
Since most network issues involve your modem and/or router, rebooting them next makes sense. You don’t need to restart them through an interface like you do with your computer, though. Simply pull the power plug from both devices and leave them unplugged for a minute or two.
Plug the modem in first, let it boot up, then plug in your router again. Wait a few minutes for them to start back up. While you’re doing this, confirm that your router and modem are working properly. If you don’t see any lights on one of the devices, you may have a bad piece of hardware.
If your computer says “no internet” even after this, continue on—your issue is more complex than a basic reboot.
Note that you’re rebooting, not resetting your equipment. Resetting means putting the device back to its factory default settings; you don’t need to do that yet!
Step 4: Run the Windows Network Troubleshooter
This step isn’t necessary if your connection issue is affecting multiple devices.
If you’re only having an issue with your Windows PC, something is wrong with your computer’s network settings. While the built-in Windows troubleshooter usually doesn’t fix issues, it’s worth a try before you move on.
To access the network troubleshooter, visit Settings > Network & Internet > Status. Select Network troubleshooter and follow the steps to see if Windows can rectify the problem. On Windows 7, you’ll find this same tool at Start > Control Panel > Troubleshooting > Network and internet > Network Connections.
Step 5: Check Your IP Address Settings
This step isn’t necessary if your connection issue is affecting multiple devices.
Next, you should take one of the key steps to diagnose network issues: making sure your computer has a valid IP address. In most home networks, under normal circumstances, the router hands out an address to devices when they connect. If your computer’s IP settings aren’t correct, it can cause this “no internet access” problem.
On Windows 10, right-click on the network icon in your System Tray and choose Open Network & Internet settings. Click the Change adapter options entry and then double-click the connection you’re using.
On Windows 7, right-click the network icon and choose Open Network and Sharing Center. Click the name of your network next to Connections.
From here, click the Properties button. Find Internet Protocol Version 4 in the list and double-click that. Here, make sure you have Obtain an IP address automatically and Obtain DNS server address automatically both selected. Setting an IP address manually is for advanced users; chances are if you have something entered here, it’s invalid.
Click OK and then try to get online again.
Step 6: Check Your ISP’s Status
At this point, if you can’t get any devices online, it’s worth checking if your internet service provider (ISP) is having an issue. Though this is rare, it could explain why you can’t get online.
Use your phone’s data connection to see if Comcast, Verizon, or whoever provides service in your area has reported outages. DownDetector is a great site for this. A quick Google or Twitter search can reveal whether others are having a problem, too.
Step 7: Try These Command Prompt Commands
This step isn’t necessary if your connection issue is affecting multiple devices.
Windows features several networking commands in the Command Prompt. You should attempt a few of them when you have no internet access in Windows 10. Type cmd into the Start Menu, then right-click on it and choose Run as administrator to open an elevated Command Prompt window.
To reset some of the files Windows keep to access the internet, use these two commands:
netsh winsock reset
netsh int ip reset
If that doesn’t work, try releasing your computer’s IP address and obtaining a fresh one with these two commands, one at a time:
ipconfig /release
ipconfig /renew
Finally, refresh your computer’s DNS settings with this command:
ipconfig /flushdns
It doesn’t hurt to reboot your PC again at this point. If you still have no internet access, there are a few more steps to try.
Step 8: Disable Security Software
This step isn’t necessary if your connection issue is affecting multiple devices.
Another uncommon, but plausible, scenario is that you have some security software on your PC preventing access to the internet. As reported by The Register, in 2017, Avast’s free antivirus prevented many of its users from getting online due to a glitch. Those who manually installed the latest update found that their problems disappeared.
Disable any third-party antivirus apps you may have installed and see if your connection comes back. While we’re on the topic of security, it’s worth running a malware scan with an app like Malwarebytes. A malicious program could have knocked out your internet connection.
Step 9: Update Your Wireless Drivers
This step isn’t necessary if your connection issue is affecting multiple devices.
Normally, you don’t need to update your computer drivers, as doing so often causes more problems than it’s worth. But since you’re still having an issue, you should check for driver updates.
If you have a manufacturer update app (like HP Support Assistant or Lenovo System Update) installed on your PC, open that up and check for wireless driver updates. Otherwise, follow our guide to updating your Windows drivers.
Step 10: Reset Your Network
At this point, if you’ve proceeded through all these steps and still have the “no internet access but connected” problem, there’s not much you can do other than reset your network settings.
If your Windows 10 PC is the only device you can’t connect with, you can reset your network by visiting Settings > Network & Internet > Status. Click the Network reset text at the bottom of the screen, then Reset now. This will completely remove all network adapters and set all your network settings back to the defaults. You’ll have to set everything up again, but it might be the fix you need.
While there’s unfortunately no equivalent of this in Windows 7, you can simulate part of this reset. Right-click on the network icon in your System Tray, choose Open Network and Sharing Center, and click Change adapter settings. Then right-click the adapter you’re using, and choose Disable. Reboot and re-enable it to see if that fixed anything.
When you can’t get online with any devices, your best bet is resetting your router (and modem, if needed). Look for a small pinhole on the back or bottom of your router and hold it in for several seconds to reset it to factory defaults. If there’s no reset button, you’ll need to log in to your router and run the factory reset from there.
With everything reset, you can run through the initial setup with factory defaults. If it still won’t work after that, you likely have faulty equipment.
Don’t Fear “Connected But No Internet” Any Longer
Hopefully, you don’t have to factory reset anything to fix your connection issue. One of the earlier steps should take care of it, but there’s no perfect formula for network issues. If you follow all the steps, you’ve confirmed that your devices are set up correctly and you don’t have anything blocking the connection.
Adobe has added interactive tutorials to the Lightroom app. These tutorials live in the app itself, and let you follow along with the instructions. Which should be a boon to anyone who wants to learn how to edit photos (more effectively) using Adobe Lightroom.
How to Use Adobe’s Lightroom Tutorials
Adobe has updated Lightroom, adding several new features. These include new ways to collaborate, new editing options including a Texture slider, the option to copy and paste settings to multiple images, and a Flat-Field Correction tool.
However, the headline feature are the new in-app tutorials. These come in two flavors: Interactive Tutorials and Inspirational Photos. You can access both via the new “Home” section, with Adobe adding more in the future.
Interactive Tutorials are tutorials where you follow along with the instructions. You’ll have access to the photo featured in the tutorial, and will be taught how to edit it step-by-step. You actually adjust the sliders as you go to enact the required edits.
Remember that special announcement we told you about? Here it is… Introducing brand new, in-app #tutorials created by some of your favorite photographers! Learn all about this Lightroom update and *many* more here: https://t.co/VpxdHsvBQe
Inspirational Photos aren’t as in-depth as the interactive tutorials, but should prove useful nonetheless. All you do is tap on a “Discover” post to view the edits on a photo. And you can scroll through the edits to see exactly what difference each one made.
The new tutorials are initially only available in Lightroom for Android and iOS, and listed as coming soon to Windows and Mac. You can see an overview of everything Adobe has added to Lightroom in May 2019 in this post on the Adobe Blog.
If you’re reading MakeUseOf there’s a good chance you want to learn how to use technology better. Because that’s what we do, whether via details tutorials or lists of things worth checking out. Which is why Adobe’s Lightroom tutorials should interest you.
Is the link in that email legitimate? Whether sent by a friend or a stranger, it’s unwise to click links without knowing where they take you.
One of the quickest-growing security issues these days is ransomware, which is often spread by people unwittingly clicking dangerous links in emails, social networks, messengers, and other collaboration tools. Malware and phishing sites are also major risks.
While you should be vigilant about all your online activities, it doesn’t hurt to have a little help. Here are several tools to check if a link is safe.
What a Link Checker Should Do
There are two types of URLs:
A standard-length URL, starting www, followed by the website name, and ending with .com or some other top-level domain.
It doesn’t matter whether the link you received is a standard-length URL or shortened. If it is dangerous in any way, the link checking tool should alert you to this. If the links are going to take you to a compromised website, the link checker will highlight this immediately. Similarly, direct links to malware, ransomware and other risks should be reported by these tools.
The following sites will help you uncover the truth about those dodgy links. Check more than one at any given time to give you the best results.
If you prefer to get your security recommendations from the world-famous Kaspersky security firm, you should try VirusDesk. This is a dual-purpose tool that not only checks links to potentially dodgy websites, it accepts uploads of suspicious files. Handily, it offers both features via a dedicated link pasting/drag-and-drop field.
To use Kaspersky VirusDesk for link checking, enter the URL and click Scan. You’ll be quickly informed whether the target URL is safe or not. If you have reason to disagree with a “safe” result, you can click the “I disagree with the scan results” button.
This will prompt the Kaspersky researchers to find out more. They’ll let you know of their findings by email if you leave your address.
Another you should look at us ScanURL, an independent website that takes your link queries submissions seriously via a secure HTTPS connection. Although the link submission screen is ad-supported, the results are good.
ScanURL polls Google Safe Browsing, PhishTank, and Web of Trust and provides information about the queried site’s Whois record. The returned results will instantly indicate whether you should visit the site and are accompanied by a ScanURL recommendation.
Avoid the site if the results list it as dangerous.
Several sites (including some in this list) and tools are checked by ScanURL as it collates the results. Once the ScanURL result page has loaded, a permanent URL is applied. You can copy and paste this to share with friends, family, or the otherwise concerned for them to refer to. Handy!
Instead of focusing on malware, PhishTank instead alerts you to phishing sites. But the principle is the same. Once you enter a URL that you suspect of harboring a phishing operation, PhishTank will check it out. If the link is already “in the tank” then you’ll get instant results. Otherwise, you’ll get a tracking number. Sadly, it’s not as simple to check a phishing link as it is to automatically check some malware links…
Concerned about sites that might con you into divulging personal data? If you have any knowledge of identity theft, then you’ll know much of this occurs thanks to phishing operations. PhishTank is always worth a visit when checking concerning links.
Feeling charitable? Anyone can contribute to the site and verify links that have been submitted by other users.
They might not be the world’s most privacy-conscious company, but Google does offer a useful link checking service. Their Transparency Report service offers a standard field into which you can enter the URL you’re concerned about. A few seconds later, the results—captured by Google’s web crawlers—will tell you if the site can be trusted.
Along with malware, Google Transparency Report will alert you to phishing risks. Concerned about accidentally giving your personal information away? Phishing is potentially a greater concern than malware, so it makes sense to be sure that the site you’re planning on visiting isn’t about to steal your identity.
Offering a browser-based multi-function scanning tool, VirusTotal “analyzes suspicious files and URLs to detect types of malware.” The results of the scans are then shared with the online security community.
A simple tool that will give you instant results, VirusTotal also offers an Android and Windows app.
For developers, VirusTotal also offers public and private APIs. While limited to non-commercial projects, these can be used to create your own file and link scanning tool on your website.
Antivirus giant Norton has also produced a safe link checker, which typically scans a site for malware. Using a tool provided by a company with a reputation like Norton’s is a smart move. Better still, Norton Safe Web even offers two further tools.
One is Norton Safe Search Extension, a Chrome extension that adds quick safe search functionality to your browser. Every search you run in the browser will display results that have been checked by Norton. You can also install a Norton home page extension for the complete Norton-safety experience.
Finally, there’s URLVoid, a tool to help you “detect potentially malicious websites.” As with the other tools, simply input the suspect URL and wait for the site to check it. You’ll find information about the URL and its history, any black ticks against it, and where the site is based if that information has been made public.
A list of services that URLVoid uses to generate its results is also displayed, with famous names including Avira, BitDefender, and PhishTank among them.
If you need to scan an IP address, URLVoid offers a companion service, IPVoid.
Which Link Checkers Do You Use?
Each of the link checkers listed here is safe to use and perfect for helping you stay safe online. These sites should deliver the confirmation you need when checking potentially dodgy links:
Kaspersky VirusDesk
ScanURL
PhishTank
Google Transparency Report
VirusTotal
Norton Safe Web
URLVoid
These sites will protect you from all manner of security threats distributed via web links, from malware and ransomware to spoof emails and websites attempting to phish your details.
It isn’t just dodgy links that you’ll find in a phishing email. Here’s how to spot a phishing email and avoid accidentally giving your personal data to cybercriminals.
We first saw a message about the app closing down by way of a 
