28 May 2019

Upsie nabs $5M to build a direct-to-consumer warranty service


Warranties for purchased products is a $40 billion annual market. But in in their current form, they are considered by some to be one of the bigger scams in the world of retail because they cost so much and often return too little.

Now there is an alternative emerging. A startup out of Minneapolis, Minnesota, called Upsie has decided to wage war on the old warranty, with more reasonable pricing (typically 70 percent lower than what the retailer offers) and a much more modern approach to selling and managing the warranty.

Its bet is that lower prices, and more flexible options for ordering, tracking and claiming against warranties, will drive more users to its service and take some business away from the retailers that largely dominate the market today. Today it’s announcing that it has raised $5 million led by True Ventures to build out that busines in the US. Techstars Ventures, Matchstick Ventures, Syndicate Fund, M25, and angel investor Marc Belton also participated.

If you’ve ever purchased an expensive consumer electronics product, you’ll know the problem that Upsie is tackling: warranties can cost a lot, and in many cases you’re not sure what you might even be getting out of it. And if you do find yourself in the unfortunate predicament of needing to claim, you may find the process a little less than efficient but hopefully not as bad as this:

“If you buy a product worth $900 dollars, a warranty might cost an extra $130, but that warranty might cost only $10 from the insurance company,” said Clarence Bethea, the CEO and founder of Upsie.

When an expensive purchase like a consumer electronics product breaks down, the buyer needs to pay out big money for repairs or replacements, and that worry drives many of those customers to pay a big sum for the guarantee that someone else will cover those liabilities.

The operative words in that last paragraph are “big sum”: a warranty can represent peace of mind, and sometimes actually help in those cases where something relatively new does break down, but one of the big issues is the mark-up that providers put on a service that preys on the fear of needing it — in some cases a warranty can cost as much as 900 percent more than the policy would cost if it were purchased directly from an insurance provider.

Bethea used to be a consultant to big box retailers and in the work he did, he realised quickly that the retailers were taking advantage of consumers when they were selling warranties on top of products. “Consumers don’t know what the warranties actually cost,” he said. “That’s what pushed me into this.”

Upsie gives consumers the option to purchase warranties up to 60 days after the sale (or 45 for smartphones). The product itself needs a minimum 90-day warranty from the manufacturers themselves, and the Upsie warranty does not kick in until 30 days after its purchased — the idea being that it picks up right after the manufacturer warranty ends.

The warranties can be purchased online or through an app and they apply currently to around 15 different categories and hundreds of electric goods covering areas like computers, wearables, phones, TVs, small and large appliances and outdoor tools. The Upsie app in itself is like your warranty file in your filing cabinet, except much simpler and lighter and less cluttered: it stores receipts, lets you scan sku’s to register the goods and more to make it easier. Then after a user purchases the warranty, it can be managed and claims can be filed by way of Upsie’s app.

The basic idea behind Upsie is reminiscent of the direct-to-consumer brands that have grown in popularity over the last several years.

Just as these have leveraged the web, mobile apps and more recently social media to build direct relationships with consumers, Upsie is also bypassing retailers and hoping that consumers will consider their cheaper alternatives, which in actuality have been negotiated with the same warranty service providers that the retailers use. It currently works with Centricity, and the plan is to expand it to a wider range over time.

Other companies have built businesses in the area of providing warranty services outside of what retailers offer, such as SquareTrade, which was acquired by AllState, and Asurion. Puneet Agarwal, a partner at True Ventures, believes that it stands out.

“Upsie is the only consumer facing brand in the space whereas everyone else is more of a back end provider,” he said. “Their subscriber growth and engagement are tremendous and the end consumer identifies with them. Because of their direct consumer focus, they also offer a level of pricing, convenience, and customer service the industry has not seen.” He added that the “big ambition” is “to make the idea of ‘upsie-ing’ a product as part of the the everyday lexicon of the consumer.”

Bethea said that one of the big early challenges was convincing insurance companies that D2C was a viable idea — which dissipated as insurance companies, like all brands and B2B2C businesses, began to consider the plethora of ways that people are buying goods today, which increasingly extend well outside the realm of just retailers.

The other challenge that is still one that Upsie will continue to work to surmount as it continues growing is convincing consumers to change their behavior. “Initially it was about convincing the industry that this is a market,” he said. “Today it’s awareness and giving consumers another option. ‘I didn’t know I could leave the register and purchase a plan afterwards’ is what we want people to be thinking.”

So far, the results have been pretty positive. Since exiting beta in 2016, Bethea said that the company has grown 300 percent each year. Services are live only in the US, and while it works towards expanding to international markets, it will also be adding auto warranties to its plans next.

Living outside of Silicon Valley as I do, companies that are outliers from the normal pattern that often list the same litany of credentials (including but not limited to grads from Stanford or MIT, possible stint at YC, office in San Francisco, past history at other tech companies), but are still thriving, do tend to catch my eye. Upsie, with its roots in the Midwest and an African American founder (also not very common at the typical SV startup), and tackling something that is fundamentally broken but not flashy, ticks some of those boxes.

Turns out that True sees and wants to seek out more of this, too.

“Great companies are being built everywhere,” said Agarwal. “More and more of the companies we invest in are outside of the Valley or are building teams outside of the Valley and we encourage it. It can be a tremendous competitive advantage both from a talent and cost perspective. We have had great success investing in places like Michigan, Montana, Oregon, Wisconsin, Washington, even recently in Africa, and now in Minnesota with Upsie. I still do see a lot of bias from investors not wanting to invest outside of the Valley. There is no question they will miss out not because of high prices in the Valley but because of the opportunity.”


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Google makes mobile-first indexing the default for all new domains


At the end of 2018, Google said mobile-first indexing — that is, using a website’s mobile version to index its pages — was being used for more than half the web pages in Google search results. Today, Google announced that mobile-first indexing will now be the default for all new web domains as of July 1, 2019.

That means that when a new website is registered it will be crawled by Google’s smartphone Googlebot, and its mobile-friendly content will be used to index its pages, as well as to understand the site’s structured data and to show snippets from the site in Google’s search results, when relevant.

The mobile-first indexing initiative has come a long way since Google first announced its plans back in 2016. In December 2017, Google began to roll out mobile-first indexing to a small handful of sites, but didn’t specify which ones were in this early test group. Last March, mobile-indexing began to roll out on a broader scale. By year-end, half the pages on the web were indexed by Google’s smartphone Googlebot.

Google explained the change to how sites are indexed is aimed at helping the company’s “primarily mobile” users to better search the web. Since 2015, the majority of Google users start their searches from mobile devices. It only makes sense, then, that the mobile versions of the website — and not the desktop pages — would be used to deliver the search results.

Mobile-first indexing isn’t the only way that Google has begun catering to the larger mobile majority.

Several years ago, it also began to boost the rank of mobile-friendly webpages in search. Last year, it added a signal that uses page speed to help determine a page’s mobile search ranking. Starting in July 2018, slow-loading content became downranked.

While many sites today now show the same content to users across desktop and mobile, those that have not yet achieved this parity have a variety of resources to help them get started. Site owners can check for mobile-first indexing of their website by using the URL Inspection Tool in the search console to see when the site was last crawled and indexed. Google also offers a host of documentation on how to make websites work for mobile-first indexing, and suggests that websites support responsive web design — not separate mobile URLs.

“We’re happy to see how the web has evolved from being focused on desktop, to becoming mobile-friendly, and now to being mostly crawlable and indexable with mobile user-agents,” said Google, in its announcement today.


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Leaked screenshots confirm dark mode is coming to iOS 13


9to5mac’s Guilherme Rambo managed to obtain screenshots of iOS 13. While it still looks like iOS, there’s a twist — there will be a system-wide dark mode to make your apps look better at night. Apple is expected to announce the new version of iOS at its WWDC keynote on Monday.

With iOS 13, users can enable dark mode in the Settings app or with a toggle in Control Center — you may have to add the Control Center button in the Settings app first.

And here’s what it’ll look like according to 9to5mac’s screenshots:

As you can see, the home screen doesn’t change much except the dock at the bottom. But the Music app looks completely different with white text on top of a black background. The tab bar at the bottom also switches from transparent white to transparent black. Apple still uses red for buttons and links, which makes the app slightly less readable.

Enabling dark mode also affects user interface elements at the operating system level. When you take a screenshot and tap on the screenshot thumbnail, top and bottom menus are dark for instance. Developers should be able to support dark mode in third-party apps as well.

In other news, Rambo also shares a screenshot of the new version of the Reminders app. It now features four different menus — today, scheduled, all and flagged. The user interface has been refreshed as well.

Finally, 9to5mac also confirms a previous scoop with the icon of a new app called “Find My”. Apple plans to merge Find My Friends and Find My iPhone into a single app on both the iPhone and iPad.

Rumor has it that there will be more fundamental changes with iOS 13. Apple plans to let you open multiple windows of the same app. This way, users will be able to work on multiple documents or see multiple conversations at the same time. This will be a key new feature for iPad users in particular.

You can also expect smaller updates to Safari, Mail, font management, the volume indicator, the keyboard, etc.


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Google makes mobile-first indexing the default for all new domains


At the end of 2018, Google said mobile-first indexing — that is, using a website’s mobile version to index its pages — was being used for over half the web pages in Google search results. Today, Google announced that mobile-first indexing will now be the default for all new web domains as of July 1, 2019.

That means that when a new website is registered it will be crawled by Google’s smartphone Googlebot, and its mobile-friendly content will be used to index its pages, as well as to understand the site’s structured data and to show snippets from the site in Google’s search results, when relevant.

The mobile-first indexing initiative has come a long way since Google first announced its plans back in 2016. In December 2017, Google began to roll out mobile-first indexing to a small handful of sites, but didn’t specify which ones were in this early test group. Last March, mobile-indexing began to roll out on a broader scale. By year-end, half the pages on the web were indexed by Google’s smartphone Googlebot.

Google explained the change to how sites are indexed is aimed at helping the company’s “primarily mobile” users better search the web. Since 2015, the majority of Google users start their searches from mobile devices. It only makes sense, then, that the mobile versions of the website — and not the desktop pages — would be used to deliver the search results.

Mobile-first indexing isn’t the only way that Google has begun catering to the larger mobile majority.

Several years ago, it also began to boost the rank of mobile-friendly webpages in search. Last year, it added a signal that uses page speed to help determine a page’s mobile search ranking. Starting in July 2018, slow-loading content became downranked.

While many sites today now show users across desktop and mobile the same content, those that have not yet achieved this parity have a variety of resources to help them get started. Site owners can check for mobile-first indexing of their website by using the URL Inspection Tool in the search console to see when the site was last crawled and indexed. Google also offers a host of documentation on how to make websites work for mobile-first indexing, and suggests that websites support responsive web design — not separate mobile URLs.

“We’re happy to see how the web has evolved from being focused on desktop, to becoming mobile-friendly, and now to being mostly crawlable and indexable with mobile user-agents,” said Google, in its announcement today.


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Apple announces a new… iPod touch


Apple is updating the iPod touch with an A10 Fusion system-on-a-chip. Other than that, it looks pretty much like the old iPod touch with a 4-inch display, a classic home button and many different color options.

The A10 Fusion chip was first introduced with the iPhone 7. In other words, the new iPod touch will perform more or less just like an iPhone 7. Just like the previous version of the iPod touch, it supports iOS 12.

This is a surprising move as the iPod touch hasn’t been updated since 2015. Many people believed that Apple would focus on the iPhone as there’s less demand for a smartphone without cellular capabilities. It’s also worth noting that there’s a headphone jack at the bottom of the device.

And yet, the iPod touch is crazy cheap. Apple is releasing three different models. For $199, you get 32GB of storage, for $299, you get 128GB of storage, and for $399, you get 256GB of storage. It is available in six different colors and should be available today on Apple’s website and later this week in retail stores.

There are many potential use cases for such a device. It can be a great standalone music and video player for kids or people who don’t want to get a smartphone. You can also use it as a remote to control music on your Sonos speakers and other connected speakers.

This is a developing post, please refresh for more information…


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Where Are iPhones Made?


where-iphones-made

The iPhone isn’t ubiquitous—chances are good that you have plenty of friends and family using Android phones. That said, it is iconic. Fewer phones enjoy the brand recognition that an iPhone does, from the looks to the recognizable ring and text tones.

Apple often proudly boasts of its history in California. This ranges from the names of macOS versions to the message on the back of the box your iPhone arrived in: “Designed by Apple in California.” Where are iPhones actually made though?

The Short Answer: iPhones Are Made in China

You might think the answer might be right next to the message telling you where the iPhone is designed. It says, “Assembled in China.” What does that actually mean?

Chances are good that Foxconn manufactured your iPhone, most likely in China. However, it’s not that simple. Not only does Foxconn have factories around the world in countries including Thailand, South Korea, Malaysia, Singapore, the Philippines, and the Czech Republic, but it’s not the only company that assembles iPhones.

Pegatron also manufactures iPhones and has been doing so for quite some time. The company reportedly produced 30 percent of iPhone 6 models, according to AppleInsider.

The Long Answer: It Depends

There’s a key term on Apple’s boxes: assembled. While Foxconn and Pegatron assemble iPhones, they’re putting them together from parts. Where do those parts come from?

iPhone XR colors

There’s no one place that Apple sources all its parts from. Depending on the type of part, Apple may even source it from different manufacturers. This is especially true for key parts of the iPhone.

What Apple Product Comes From Where?

Apple sources its parts from manufacturers located all over the world. Back in 2017, Macworld tracked many of them down. We may not have listed  every single company Apple sources parts from below, but we’ve collected a good number of them.

Processors

At the heart of every iPhone lies an A-series processor, holding much of its key functionality. Apple relies on two companies for this. Samsung, based in South Korea, is one of these companies. TSMC, based in Taiwan, also manufactures A-series processors. The company also has locations in China, Singapore, and the US.

For the audio chips, Apple relies on Cirrus Logic. This company is based in the US but has locations in China, South Korea, Taiwan, Japan, Singapore, and the United Kingdom.

Camera

iPhone XS cameras

Apple relies on a few different companies for its cameras, depending on which phone you use. Sony, based in Japan, has produced many of its rear-facing cameras. OmniVision, based in the US, has produced FaceTime cameras but subcontracts much of this work to TSMC. Qualcomm has also supplied cameras for iPhones.

LCD

Due to how in-demand they are, Apple turns to at least two companies for its LCDs. One is LG, which based in South Korea but also has locations in Poland and China.

The other LCD manufacturer is Sharp. This brand is based in Japan but has locations in 13 other countries.

Touchscreen Controller

The touchscreen controller handles how you interact with your phone. Broadcom supplies this hardware for Apple. The company has its headquarters in the US but manufactures in several other locations. These include India, China, Taiwan, Singapore, and South Korea, as well as western locations like Israel, Greece, Belgium, France, The Netherlands, and the United Kingdom.

Touch ID

iPhone 6

More devices rely on Face ID now, but plenty of people still use Touch ID-powered iPhones. This hardware is supplied partially by TSMC, which seems to provide several parts to Apple. Xintec is another company that handles Touch ID hardware. This company is based in Taiwan.

Glass

You may be familiar with the term Gorilla Glass, which the iPhone uses alongside many popular Android phones. The US-based Corning manufactures Gorilla Glass. This is another company with several locations, including Australia, Belgium, Brazil, China, South Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, the Philippines, Russia, Singapore, South Africa, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates, and others.

Wi-Fi & Cellular Networks

For the baseband cellular chip, Apple uses Qualcomm. This company has its home base in the US. That said, it outsources manufacturing to many other locations across dozens of countries.

Murata supplies the Wi-Fi chip. This is another company based in the US with locations all over the work. These include Japan, South Korea, Thailand, Malaysia, the Philippines, Vietnam, Taiwan, India, Mexico, Brazil, Canada, and several countries in Europe.

Storage

Storage is another important aspect of the iPhone, and it’s one on which Apple relies on two companies for. One is Samsung, which also supplies Apple’s A-series processors, based in South Korea,

The other flash memory supplier is Toshiba. This company is based in Japan but has locations in more than 50 other countries.

Battery

While it doesn’t supply much core functionality, your battery is one of the most important parts of your phone. Without it, you’ve got nothing.

iPhone SE colors

This is another part that Samsung supplies, but that company isn’t the only supplier. Sunwoda Electronic, based in China, also manufactures batteries for iPhones.

Apple has run into trouble over its batteries in recent years, slowing down iPhones over time to alleviate symptoms caused by aging batteries. Are you worried about your battery’s lifespan? Take a look at our guide to calibrating your iPhone’s battery.

Accelerometer, Compass, and Gyroscope

The accelerometer determines several factors, including whether you’re driving or not. Bosch Sensortech manufacturers this part. Bosch has its headquarters in Germany. The company also has locations in the US, China, Japan, South Korea, and Taiwan.

AKM Semiconductor manufactures the compass, which helps with navigation. This company is based in Japan but has locations in France, England, China, South Korea, Taiwan, and the US.

STMicroelectronics supplies the gyroscope. This company is based in Switzerland, with locations in more than 30 countries.

Want to Prolong Your iPhone’s Life?

Looking at the above list, you’ll notice that each iPhone has several parts from around the world. On the good side, this helps keep people employed, but it has significant geological and environmental impact. So, you might want to keep your iPhone a little longer before you upgrade.

If you want to keep your phone alive for as long as possible, make sure to maintain it regularly. If you’re not sure what that entails, check our iPhone maintenance tips.

Read the full article: Where Are iPhones Made?


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How to Fix Your Windows 10 Update Errors With SetupDiag


fix-windows-update-errors

A failed Windows 10 update is frustrating. Let alone the time you can lose to the update process; you know you’re going to have to do it all again. Most of the time, Windows 10 will provide you an error regarding the failed update. At other times, however, you’re not so lucky, especially if you’re using the Windows 10 Insider Previews.

Microsoft designed a free tool, SetupDiag, to analyze why an upgrade or update failed to complete. Here’s how you can use SetupDiag to figure out why your Windows 10 upgrade or update isn’t going to plan.

What Does SetupDiag Do?

SetupDiag analyzes Windows Setup log files and attempts to figure out the cause of a Windows Update failure. SetupDiag comes with a preset of rules to match known issues with Windows update. At the time of writing, SetupDiag has 53 rules (check them out here). When you run SetupDiag, it cross-references your Windows update log against the rules. Afterward, SetupDiag creates a log that you can check, indicating the issue.

Future SetupDiag versions will include more rules.

1. Preparing Your System for SetupDiag

“Preparing your system” sounds like a serious undertaking. In fact, you just need to make sure you have .NET Framework 4.6 installed, then download SetupDiag.

To find out which version of .NET Framework is running on your system, press Windows Key + X, then select Command Prompt (Admin). If the Command Prompt option is not available (replaced by PowerShell), type command in your Start Menu search bar, then right-click the Best Match and select Run as Administrator.

Now, copy and paste the following command into the Command Prompt:

reg query "HKLM\SOFTWARE\Microsoft\Net Framework Setup\NDP\v4" /s

The command lists the installed .NET Frameworks for Version 4. If you see “v4.6.xxxxx” you’re good to go. Otherwise, head to the Microsoft .NET Framework 4.6 download page and download the file.

Command prompt .NET framework version

Download: .NET Framework 4.6 for Windows (Free)

Next up, you need to download and run SetupDiag.

Download: SetupDiag for Windows (Free)

2. Running SetupDiag for the First Time

Type SetupDiag in your Start Menu search bar. Right-click the Best Match and select Run as Administrator.

SetupDiag will run immediately. You’ll see SetupDiag run through each rule, checking it against your Windows logs. After the analysis completes, SetupDiag will close.

3. Analyzing Your SetupDiag Log File

In its default configuration, SetupDiag creates a basic log file in the folder you run SetupDiag from. For instance, if you run SetupDiag from C:/SetupDiag, you will find the SetupDiag log file in the root of your C: drive. The log file contains the information regarding the Windows update failure.

Locate the SetupDiagResults.log, then open it using your text editor of choice. The log displays a list of the issues found during the analysis process. Here’s an example log from a Windows 10 Insider Preview update issue from my laptop:

SetupDiag log file

The first part of the log gives you system information such as manufacturer, the host OS architecture, BIOS version, and so on. It also shows the version of Windows 10 your system is running, and the version the update was attempting to install.

Below this, the log lists any issues found. In my cases, I can see that an Intel Audio Display driver is an issue, but also one that shouldn’t affect the installation of the Windows 10 update.

If your Windows 10 update encounters an issue (that falls within one of the rules), you will find it here. The SetupDiag log information offers a reasonable level of detail. SetupDiag advises me to manually uninstall my Intel Audio Display driver, then retry the update. However, it doesn’t always offer a specific fix.

In that case, you must take the SetupDiag log information and head to the internet, or follow the link SetupDiag provides.

SetupDiag Doesn’t Diagnose My Windows 10 Update Issue

In the event SetupDiag doesn’t diagnose your Windows 10 update issue, you’re plum out of luck.

Only joking! You have several other options to help figure out why your Windows 10 installation won’t update.

One of the first things to do is try the Windows Update Troubleshooter.

In your Start Menu search bar, type windows update, then select Find and fix Windows Update problems. When the troubleshooter opens, select Next. Let the process complete, then apply and fixes.

Here are four more easy steps you can take to resolve your Windows Update issue.

Windows 10 Update Is Better Than Ever

Windows 10 rolled out way back July 2015. Yet, the Windows 10 update process remains a thorny issue for many users.

Microsoft took control of the update process, removing the option to pick and choose individual updates. Windows 10 updates also had a terrible knack of appearing at the worst times, repeatedly. Then some updates simply didn’t work or introduced bugs that testers and the development team should squash before release.

Of late, Microsoft’s stance on Windows Update has softened. In July 2018, Microsoft announced that Windows 10 would use machine learning algorithms to figure out the optimum time to update your system. Roll forward to May 2019, and Windows 10 is shifting the power of Windows Update back to the users. As of the Windows 10 May 2019 update you will have the choice of when to initiate the update.

Better still, Windows 10 Home users will also have the option to pause updates for up to 35 days, a feature previously only available to Windows 10 Pro users.

Still getting to grips with Windows Update? Here’s how you manage Windows Update in Windows 10.

Read the full article: How to Fix Your Windows 10 Update Errors With SetupDiag


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Learn to Manipulate Data With 45 Hours of Microsoft Excel Training for $20


Microsoft Excel has long been a fixture in office life. But now that data is becoming increasingly important, Microsoft’s spreadsheet software is taking center stage. If you want to make a career in finance or sales, the A to Z Microsoft Excel Certification Training Bundle can help you acquire valuable skills. Through eight courses and 45 hours of training, you learn everything there is to know about data handling and analysis. You can grab the bundle now for $20 at MakeUseOf Deals with coupon WEEKEND60.

Crunching the Numbers

If you have ever worked behind a desk, you probably know how to use Microsoft Excel. But how well do you really know the software? Excel has many great features that most of us don’t know about.

This bundle helps you uncover those useful tools and work smarter with data. Through hands-on tutorials, you get a guided tour of the software and all the best features.

Along the way, you learn how to sort data, use formulas and queries, create visualizations, build pivot tables, and much more. The training also helps you gain experience with macros and VBA — two vital parts of modern data analysis.

These skills are invaluable in business, finance, marketing, sales, and many other industries. To prove your knowledge, each course in the bundle offers a certificate of completion.

Eight Courses for $20 (With Coupon)

Order now for $49 to get this complete Excel education, valued at $1,600 — and use code WEEKEND60 for an extra 60% off.

Read the full article: Learn to Manipulate Data With 45 Hours of Microsoft Excel Training for $20


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5 Dictionary and Vocabulary Apps to Learn New Words

SoundCloud buys artist distribution platform Repost Network


The past year has seen Spotify embark on a series of acquisitions to beef up its service, particularly on podcast content. Now it is the turn of SoundCloud, another European music startup — albeit one that had lost its way in recent years — to go deal-making: the Berlin-based company has picked up Repost Network, a service that helps artists get the most out of SoundCloud.

The deal is undisclosed and it actually was announced last week, although it was not widely reported — perhaps an anecdotal sign of SoundCloud’s position as a relative outsider in today’s streaming market.

Once a pioneer of online distribution for artists, it has watched Sweden-headquartered Spotify takes its service global with a total audience of over 200 million monthly listeners. The competition includes services from Apple and Google as well as the likes of Pandora, Deezer and Jay-Z-owned Tidal.

Soundcloud had its come-to-Jesus-moment some 18 months ago when it raised a $169.5 million Series F fund led by New York investment bank Raine Group and Singapore’s sovereign wealth fund Temasek.

That deal, announced in August 2017, was very much kiss-of-life that saved SoundCloud from bankruptcy — just a month earlier, it laid off 40 percent of its staff to slash costs. The investment also saw a change at the top as former Vimeo CEO Kerry Trainor replaced co-founder Alex Ljung as CEO. The new money took SoundCloud to nearly $470 million raised, and the pre-money valuation was said to be $150 million — down from a previous of high of $700 million from previous rounds.

Still, things have progressed enough for this acquisition, which is SoundCloud’s second ever. The company said the purchase will enable its top artists to access Repost Network’s tools, which include streaming distribution, analytics dashboards and content protection.

That restructuring, painful as it was, looks to have put the focus on the fundamentals. Filings from the company indicate that its revenue grew 80 percent year-on-year to reach €90.7 million ($102 million) in 2017, while losses narrowed by 27 percent to reach €51.4 million, or $58 million. Those results are from the beginning of Trainor’s tenure, we’ll have to wait on its newest filings to get a clearer picture of how things are going.

SoundCloud’s first acquisition was back in 2012 when it paid $10 million purchase of Instinctiv, a music management startup.


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Devices built with Intel’s Ice Lake and Project Athena specifications will be available in time for the holidays


Even before Computex officially launched today, AMD and Qualcomm threw down the gauntlet at Intel with a new chip and a 5G PC, respectively. Today Intel responded in kind during its keynote presentation in Taipei, introducing new processors and laptops, in addition to unveiling Ice Lake, its 10th generation Intel Core chips.

Now shipping to OEMs, the 10-nm processors will increase speeds for AI computing tasks and graphics and boost wireless speeds up to three times, Intel says. Built on Intel’s Sunny Cove architecture and Gen11 graphics engine, the series includes chips with up to 4 cores and 8 threads, up to 4.1 max turbo frequency and up to 1.1GHz graphics frequency. Gen11 will enable faster graphics in laptops, 4K HDR in a billion colors and games with up to two times faster frames per second, Intel claims. With Thunderbolt 3 and Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) inside, the company says the chips will also enable up to three times faster wireless speeds. Devices powered by Ice Lake are expected to be available for purchase by the holidays.

The company also unveiled Intel’s new class of laptops, Project Athena. Laptops built to Athena 1.0 specifications wake from sleep in less than a second, claim battery life of 9 or more hours under real-life conditions based on Intel’s testing conditions (with default settings, display brightness set to 250nits and continuous Internet connection with apps like Office 365 and Google Chrome running in the background) or 16 or more hours in local video playback mode. They are built with Thunderbolt 3, Intel Wi-Fi 6 (Gig+) and OpenVINO and scheduled to be available in time for this holiday season.

Lenovo’s senior vice president of consumer devices Johnson Jia, who helped launch Qualcomm’s first Snapdragon-powered 5G laptop yesterday, returned to the stage with Intel to showcase the the ultra-lightweight (1.2kg) Yoga S940 laptop, built on Project Athena, scheduled to go on sale in time for (you guessed it) the holidays.

Yesterday, AMD revealed the 12-core Ryzen 9 3900X, retailing for just half of Intel Core i9 9920X’s $1,100 starting price. Intel recaptured some thunder with its Intel Core i9-9900KS processor. Part of its 9th-generation chip series, the eight-core Core i9-9900KS is aimed at gamers who want to play and livestream at the same time. Like Intel’s other 9th-generation chips, it features mobile 5Ghz, and can run all eight cores at 5GHz all the time. Pricing has not been disclosed, but Intel announced that it will also be available by the holidays.

For gamers, Intel showed off its 9th-generation Intel Core-powered laptops Alienware M15 and M17, which boost mobile Ghz, a 8-core, 16-thread processor and faster frame rates and reaction times. The two laptops are expected to begin selling on June 11 at a starting price of $1,500.

Intel also announced that the Intel Performance Maximizer will be available for free download next month. The software makes overclocking more accessible by testing every core in a 9th-generation desktop processors and bringing it to maximum frequency.


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GitHub Sponsors Lets You Fund Open Source Software


GitHub has launched GitHub Sponsors, which lets you fund the development of open source software. As GitHub is the biggest repository for open source projects, this is big news for developers dedicated to creating and maintaining open source software.

Fund Open Source Software Using GitHub Sponsors

GitHub describes GitHub Sponsors as “a new way to financially support the developers who build the open source software you use every day.” The idea is to let everyone who uses open source software—which is everyone—contribute to its development.

In the post on the GitHub Blog announcing the new initiative, GitHub explains its reasoning that “Funding individuals helps them keep doing important work, expands opportunities to participate, and gives developers the recognition they deserve.”

GitHub Sponsors is currently limited to “a small number of sponsored developers”. However, “anyone who contributes to an open source project is eligible to become a sponsored developer in the future.” You can join the waitlist at GitHub Sponsors.

While the number of developers is limited at the moment, any GitHub user can sponsor one of the developers in the program. Just head to their profile or hover over their username to do so. For the first 12 months GitHub will cover the payment processing fees.

The Pros and Cons of Funding Open Source Software

GitHub Sponsors is likely to split opinion. On the one hand it could encourage more developers to make their projects open source, which is good news. One the other hand, it could influence the types of projects developers work on, which would be bad news.

We need to hope that adding money to GitHub doesn’t ruin everything. Especially when Microsoft now owns GitHub, for better or worse. Still, if GitHub Sponsors does have a negative effect on the community there are plenty of GitHub alternatives around.

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The 5 Best YouTube Playlist Downloaders to Grab Videos in Bulk


We know what you’re thinking: “Why would I want to download a YouTube playlist?” It’s a fair question—after all, we live in an age where everything from your phone to your fridge has an internet connection. We can get any video we want in a matter of seconds.

It boils down to one point—saving data. If you want to download a whole TV series to watch when you’re traveling, or perhaps a playlist of videos about a hobby or a foreign language, it makes sense to download the files on your desktop then save them onto your mobile device. YouTube uses a lot of data, after all.

Here are some of the best YouTube playlist downloaders.

1. 4K Video Downloader

4K Video Downloader app

Available On: Windows, Mac, Linux

Lots of video downloading apps are saturated with adware, spyware, and aggressive toolbars. 4K Video Downloader is one of the few exceptions. The free version of the app is ad-supported, but the ads are few and far between and in no way annoying.

And it does a whole lot more than merely download playlists. You can download entire channels with a single click, ask the app to automatically download new videos from individual channels as soon as they become available, and even download YouTube’s new 3D and 360-degree videos.

One of its noteworthy features is the ability to download any associated subtitles. You can either embed them into the video file itself or save them as a separate SRT file. The videos themselves can be saved as MP4, MKV, M4A, MP3, FLV, or 3G.

If you decide to download a playlist, the app with automatically generate an M3U playlist file so you can easily play your content in sequence on an app. The downloading process is simple; just paste a YouTube link into the main window and let the app do its thing.

The app also supports downloading videos from other popular sites such as Vimeo, Facebook, and DailyMotion.

A premium version removes ads, provides channel subscriptions, and unlimited downloads.

2. Gihosoft TubeGet

gihosoft download youtube

Available On: Windows, Mac

Like 4K Video Download, Gihosoft TubeGet covers a whole lot more than just a way to download playlists from YouTube.

The app supports more than 10,000 sites, including Facebook, Dailymotion, Vimeo, Metacafe, Break, Veoh, and Blip.tv—though the additional sites are only available in the Pro version.

The app can download single videos and entire playlists. To download a playlist, just grab its URL and click +PasteURL in the top left-hand corner of the screen.

You’ll then be prompted to choose either the format (MP4, WebM, 3GP, FLV, AVI, or MKV) and the quality (4K, 1440P, 1080P, 720P, 480P, 360P, or 240P). When you’re ready, click Download. The app will download up to five videos at a time. On the free version of the app, download speed is limited to 4Mbps.

If you’ve got a slow internet connection but want to download a large playlist, don’t worry. You can limit the download speed so it does not interfere with any other online activities you’re working on.

Lastly, the app also includes an MP3 extraction tool; it’ll let you save the audio of a video without needing to download the whole video file. Again, the MP3 tool is only available in the Pro version.

3. VLC Media Player

Available On: Windows, Mac, Linux

Did you know you can use VLC Media Player to save YouTube videos? The process is not as simple as using a dedicated third-party app, but if you’re averse to installing yet more software on your machine, it’s a good option.

To begin, fire up the app and head to Media > Open Network Stream. Paste the URL of the YouTube video you want to download and hit Play.

After the video begins, go to Tools > Codec and copy the link in the Location box.

Paste the link into your browser and press Enter. Once again, the video will start playing automatically. Right-click on the video and select Save Video As.

If you’re interested in learning about some of VLC’s other hidden features, check out our article with six top tips.

4.YouTube By Click

youtubebyclick app

Available On: Windows, Mac

It’s not as polished as the other apps, but YouTube By Click is still a great way to download YouTube playlists onto your computer.

One of the app’s best features is its autodetect. If the app is running in the background and you copy the URL of a YouTube playlist, YouTube By Click will automatically recognize it and offer to download it.

Along the top of the app’s window, you can choose the destination folder for your downloads, whether you want to download the video (MP4) or just the audio (MP3), and the quality of the video.

There’s also a premium version of the app. It costs $9.99 for a one-time license and adds features such as high definition downloads, subtitle downloads, additional video format options, and a ringtone creator.

5.Tubegeter

tubegeter price

Tubegeter is a paid YouTube playlist downloader. It lets you save entire YouTube playlists and channels in MP4, MKV, M4A, MP3, and 3GP.

Because its a paid app, you also get a few other features that you won’t see elsewhere. They include a way to extract YouTube subtitles, 4K downloads, 360-degree video downloads, a video converter tool, and even a smart mode for automated future downloads.

Three different price plans are available. The Basic plan is $10.99 per month. It includes unlimited videos per session, unlimited playlists per session, and unlimited channels per session. The top plan is Ultimate. It costs $15.99.

How Do You Download YouTube Playlists?

The five tools we have discussed in this article will all let you download YouTube playlists so you can take the videos on-the-go and watch them when you’re offline.

If you would like even more information about downloading web videos, you should check out our articles on how to download videos from DailyMotion and how to download videos from Instagram.

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Switching From Console to PC Gaming: 8 Big Differences Explained