31 January 2020

After earnings, Amazon joins the $1T club as Alphabet dips out


American tech companies almost did something neat today before messing it up.

After reporting earnings yesterday, Amazon’s shares shot higher this morning, pushing the company’s value north of $1 trillion. Its growth and profits proved toothsome to the investing classes, bolstering the Seattle area’s tech pedigree by adding a second trillion-dollar business to its rolls.

Microsoft and Apple, also flush after reporting their own well-received earnings, are also worth north of $1 trillion apiece. Amazon’s ascension would have brought the group of trillion-dollar American tech shops to four, if Alphabet hadn’t gone and spoiled the fun.

Here’s the chart, on which you can spot Alphabet’s dip back under the $1,000 billion mark:

MSFT Market Cap Chart

So close, right?

Perhaps Google and its cadre of money-losing subsidiaries will manage to skate back over $1 trillion today, leaving only little Facebook out of the Cool Kid Clubhouse.

Get it together, Zuck! A billion dollars isn’t cool. You know what is? Being yet another trillion-dollar tech company. Gosh.


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How Dubsmash revived itself as #2 to TikTok


Lip-syncing app Dubsmash was on the brink of death. After a brief moment of virality in 2015 alongside Vine (R.I.P), Dubsmash was bleeding users faster than it could recruit them. The app let you choose an audio track like a rap song or movie quote and shoot a video of you pretending to say the words. But there was nowhere in the app to post the videos. It was a creation tool like Hipstamatic, not a network like Instagram. There’s a reason we’re only using one of those today.

So in 2017 Dubsmash‘s three executives burned down the 30-person company and rebuilt something social from the ashes with the rest of the $15.4 million it’d raised from Lowercase Capital and Index Ventures. They ditched its Berlin headquarters and resettled in Brooklyn, closer to the one demographic still pushing Dubsmashes to the Instagram Explore page: African-American teenagers posting dances and lip-syncs to indie hip-hop songs on the rise.

Dubsmash stretched its funding to rehire a whole new team of 15. They spent a year coding a new version of Dubsmash centered around Following and Trending feeds, desperately trying to match the core features of Musically, which by then had been bought by China’s ByteDance. It’s got chat but still lacks the augmented reality filters, cut transitions, and photo slideshows of TikTok. But Dubsmash has the critical remix option for soundtracking your clip with the audio of any other video that sets it apart from Instagram and Snapchat.

“We realized to build a great product, we needed a depth of expertise that we just didn’t have access to in Berlin” Dubsmash co-founder and CEO Jonas Druppel tells me. “It was a risky move and we felt the weight of it acutely.  But we also knew there was no other way forward, given the scale and pace of the other players in the market.”

Few social apps have ever pulled off a real comeback. Even Snapchat had only lost 5 million of its 191 million users before it started growing again. But in the case of Dubsmash, its biggest competitor was also its savior.

The pre-relaunch version of Dubsmash

In August 2018, ByteDance merged Musically into TikTok to form a micro-entertainment phenomenon. Instead of haphazardly sharing auto-biographical Stories shot with little forethought, people began storyboarding skits and practicing dances. The resulting videos were denser and more compelling than content on Snapchat and Instagram. The new Dubsmash, launched two months later, rode along with the surge of interest in short-form video like a Lilliputian in a giant’s shirt pocket. The momentum helped Dubsmash raise a secret round of funding last year to keep up the chase.

Now Dubsmash has 1 billion video views per month.

Dubsmash rebuilt its app and revived its usage

“The turnaround that we executed hasn’t been done in recent memory by a consumer app in such a competitive marketplace. Most of them fade to oblivion or shut down” Dubsmash co-founder and President Suchit Dash tells me. “By moving the company to the United States, hiring a brand new all-star team & relaunching the product, we gave this company & product a second life. Through that journey, we obsessed only on one metric: retention.”

Now the app has pulled 27% of the US short-form video market share by installs, second only to TikTok’s 59%, according to AppAnnie. Sensor Tower tells TechCrunch that TikTok has about 3X as many US lifetime installs as Dubsmash, and 11X more between when Musically became TikTok in August 2018 and now.

In terms of active users outside of TikTok, Dubsmash has 73% of the US market, compared to just 23% on Triller, 3.6% on Firework, and an embarrassing 0% on Facebook’s Lasso. And while Triller began surpassing Dubsmash in downloads per month in October, Dubsmash has 3X as many active users and saw 38% more first-time downloads in 2018 than 2019. Dubsmash now sees 30% retention after a month, and 30% of its daily users are creating content.

It’s that stellar rate of participation that’s brought Dubsmash back to life. It also attracted a previously unannounced round of $6.75 million in the Spring of 2019, largely from existing investors. While TikTok’s superstars and huge visibility could be scaring some users away from shooting videos while a long-tail of recent downloaders watch passively, Dubsmash has managed to make people feel comfortable on camera.

“Dubsmash is ground zero for culture creation in America—it’s where  the newest,  most popular hip-hop and dance challenges on the Internet originate” Dash declares.  “Members of the community are developing content that will make them the superstars of tomorrow.”

Being #2 might not be so bad, given how mobile video viewing is growing massively thanks to better cameras, bigger screens, faster networks, and cheaper data. Right now, Dubsmash doesn’t make any money. It hopes to one day generate revenue while helping its creators earn a living too, perhaps through ad revenue shares, tipping, subscriptions, merchandise, or offline meetups.

One advantage of not being TikTok is that the app feels less crowded by semi-pro creators and influencers. That gives users the vibe that they’re more likely to hit the Trending or Explore page on Dubsmash. The Trending page is dominated by hot new songs and flashy dances, even if they’re shot with a lower production quality that feels accessible.

Dubsmash tries to stoke that sense of opportunity by making Explore about discovering accounts and all the content they’ve made rather than specific videos. While popular clips might have tens of thousands of views rather than the hundred-thousand or multi-million counts on TikTok’s top content, there’s enough visibility to make shooting Dubsmashes worth it.

TikTok has already taken notice. Shown in a leak of its moderation guidelines from Netzpolitik, the company’s policy is to downrank the visibility of any video referencing or including a watermark from direct competitors including Dubsmash, Triller, Lasso, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. That keeps Dubsmash videos, which you can save to your camera roll, from going viral on TikTok and luring users away.

TikTok’s content moderation guidelines show it downranks content featuring the watermarks of competitors like Dubsmash

TikTok also continues to aggressively buy users via ads on competing apps like Facebook thanks to the billions in funding raked in by its parent ByteDance. In contast, Dash says Dubsmash has never spent a dollar on user acquisition, influencer marketing, or any other source of growth. That makes it achieving even half to a third of as many installs as TikTok in the US an impressive fete.

Why would creators choose Dubsmash over TikTok? Dash clinically explains that its a “decoupled audio and video platform that enables producers and tastemakers to upload fresh, original tracks that are utilized by creators and  influencers alike” but that it’s also about “Its role as a welcoming home for a community that’s underrepresented on social platforms.”

If Dubsmash keeps growing, though, it will encounter the inevitable content moderation problems that come with scale. It’s already doing a solid job of requiring users to sign up with their birthdate to watch or post videos, and it blocks those under 13. Only users who follow each other can chat.

Any piece of content that’s flagged by users is hidden from the network until it passes a review by its human moderation team that works around the clock, and it does proactive takedowns too. However, brigading and malicious takedown reports could be used by trolls to silence their enemies. Dubsmash is working off of a common sense model of what’s allowed rather than firm guidelines, which will be tough to keep consistent at scale.

“Being a social media app in 2020 means you need to take greater responsibility for the well being of the community” says Dash. “We decided upon relaunch to take a strict perspective. Our goal is to be intentional and proactive early, and invest in safety and healthy growth rather than growth at all costs. This may not be the most popular approach amongst the market, but we believe this is the most effective way to build a social platform.”

Dubsmash proves that short-form video is so compelling to teens that the market can sustain multiple apps. That will have to be the case given Instagram is preparing to release its TikTok clone Reels, and Vine’s co-founder Dom Hofmann just launched his successor Byte. The breakdown could look like:

  • TikTok: A slightly longer-form combo of comedy, dance, and absurdity
  • Dubsmash: Mid-length dance and music videos with a diverse community
  • Byte: Super short-form comedy featuring slightly older ex-Vine stars
  • Triller: Mid-length life blogging clips from Hollywood celebrities
  • Instagram Reels: International influencers making videos for a mainstream audience

Perhaps we’ll eventually see consolidation in the market, with giants like TikTok and Instagram acquiring smaller players to grow their content network effect with more fodder for remixes. But fragmentation could breed creativity. Different tools and audiences beg for different types of videos. Make something special, and there’s an app out there to enter your into pop culture cannon.

For more on the short-form video wars and the future of micro-entertainment, read:


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How Dubsmash revived itself as #2 to TikTok


Lip-syncing app Dubsmash was on the brink of death. After a brief moment of virality in 2015 alongside Vine (R.I.P), Dubsmash was bleeding users faster than it could recruit them. The app let you choose an audio track like a rap song or movie quote and shoot a video of you pretending to say the words. But there was nowhere in the app to post the videos. It was a creation tool like Hipstamatic, not a network like Instagram. There’s a reason we’re only using one of those today.

So in 2017 Dubsmash‘s three executives burned down the 30-person company and rebuilt something social from the ashes with the rest of the $15.4 million it’d raised from Lowercase Capital and Index Ventures. They ditched its Berlin headquarters and resettled in Brooklyn, closer to the one demographic still pushing Dubsmashes to the Instagram Explore page: African-American teenagers posting dances and lip-syncs to indie hip-hop songs on the rise.

Dubsmash stretched its funding to rehire a whole new team of 15. They spent a year coding a new version of Dubsmash centered around Following and Trending feeds, desperately trying to match the core features of Musically, which by then had been bought by China’s ByteDance. It’s got chat but still lacks the augmented reality filters, cut transitions, and photo slideshows of TikTok. But Dubsmash has the critical remix option for soundtracking your clip with the audio of any other video that sets it apart from Instagram and Snapchat.

“We realized to build a great product, we needed a depth of expertise that we just didn’t have access to in Berlin” Dubsmash co-founder and CEO Jonas Druppel tells me. “It was a risky move and we felt the weight of it acutely.  But we also knew there was no other way forward, given the scale and pace of the other players in the market.”

Few social apps have ever pulled off a real comeback. Even Snapchat had only lost 5 million of its 191 million users before it started growing again. But in the case of Dubsmash, its biggest competitor was also its savior.

The pre-relaunch version of Dubsmash

In August 2018, ByteDance merged Musically into TikTok to form a micro-entertainment phenomenon. Instead of haphazardly sharing auto-biographical Stories shot with little forethought, people began storyboarding skits and practicing dances. The resulting videos were denser and more compelling than content on Snapchat and Instagram. The new Dubsmash, launched two months later, rode along with the surge of interest in short-form video like a Lilliputian in a giant’s shirt pocket. The momentum helped Dubsmash raise a secret round of funding last year to keep up the chase.

Now Dubsmash has 1 billion video views per month.

Dubsmash rebuilt its app and revived its usage

“The turnaround that we executed hasn’t been done in recent memory by a consumer app in such a competitive marketplace. Most of them fade to oblivion or shut down” Dubsmash co-founder and President Suchit Dash tells me. “By moving the company to the United States, hiring a brand new all-star team & relaunching the product, we gave this company & product a second life. Through that journey, we obsessed only on one metric: retention.”

Now the app has pulled 27% of the US short-form video market share by installs, second only to TikTok’s 59%, according to AppAnnie. Sensor Tower tells TechCrunch that TikTok has about 3X as many US lifetime installs as Dubsmash, and 11X more between when Musically became TikTok in August 2018 and now.

In terms of active users outside of TikTok, Dubsmash has 73% of the US market, compared to just 23% on Triller, 3.6% on Firework, and an embarrassing 0% on Facebook’s Lasso. And while Triller began surpassing Dubsmash in downloads per month in October, Dubsmash has 3X as many active users and saw 38% more first-time downloads in 2018 than 2019. Dubsmash now sees 30% retention after a month, and 30% of its daily users are creating content.

It’s that stellar rate of participation that’s brought Dubsmash back to life. It also attracted a previously unannounced round of $6.75 million in the Spring of 2019, largely from existing investors. While TikTok’s superstars and huge visibility could be scaring some users away from shooting videos while a long-tail of recent downloaders watch passively, Dubsmash has managed to make people feel comfortable on camera.

“Dubsmash is ground zero for culture creation in America—it’s where  the newest,  most popular hip-hop and dance challenges on the Internet originate” Dash declares.  “Members of the community are developing content that will make them the superstars of tomorrow.”

Being #2 might not be so bad, given how mobile video viewing is growing massively thanks to better cameras, bigger screens, faster networks, and cheaper data. Right now, Dubsmash doesn’t make any money. It hopes to one day generate revenue while helping its creators earn a living too, perhaps through ad revenue shares, tipping, subscriptions, merchandise, or offline meetups.

One advantage of not being TikTok is that the app feels less crowded by semi-pro creators and influencers. That gives users the vibe that they’re more likely to hit the Trending or Explore page on Dubsmash. The Trending page is dominated by hot new songs and flashy dances, even if they’re shot with a lower production quality that feels accessible.

Dubsmash tries to stoke that sense of opportunity by making Explore about discovering accounts and all the content they’ve made rather than specific videos. While popular clips might have tens of thousands of views rather than the hundred-thousand or multi-million counts on TikTok’s top content, there’s enough visibility to make shooting Dubsmashes worth it.

TikTok has already taken notice. Shown in a leak of its moderation guidelines from Netzpolitik, the company’s policy is to downrank the visibility of any video referencing or including a watermark from direct competitors including Dubsmash, Triller, Lasso, Snapchat, and WhatsApp. That keeps Dubsmash videos, which you can save to your camera roll, from going viral on TikTok and luring users away.

TikTok’s content moderation guidelines show it downranks content featuring the watermarks of competitors like Dubsmash

TikTok also continues to aggressively buy users via ads on competing apps like Facebook thanks to the billions in funding raked in by its parent ByteDance. In contast, Dash says Dubsmash has never spent a dollar on user acquisition, influencer marketing, or any other source of growth. That makes it achieving even half to a third of as many installs as TikTok in the US an impressive fete.

Why would creators choose Dubsmash over TikTok? Dash clinically explains that its a “decoupled audio and video platform that enables producers and tastemakers to upload fresh, original tracks that are utilized by creators and  influencers alike” but that it’s also about “Its role as a welcoming home for a community that’s underrepresented on social platforms.”

If Dubsmash keeps growing, though, it will encounter the inevitable content moderation problems that come with scale. It’s already doing a solid job of requiring users to sign up with their birthdate to watch or post videos, and it blocks those under 13. Only users who follow each other can chat.

Any piece of content that’s flagged by users is hidden from the network until it passes a review by its human moderation team that works around the clock, and it does proactive takedowns too. However, brigading and malicious takedown reports could be used by trolls to silence their enemies. Dubsmash is working off of a common sense model of what’s allowed rather than firm guidelines, which will be tough to keep consistent at scale.

“Being a social media app in 2020 means you need to take greater responsibility for the well being of the community” says Dash. “We decided upon relaunch to take a strict perspective. Our goal is to be intentional and proactive early, and invest in safety and healthy growth rather than growth at all costs. This may not be the most popular approach amongst the market, but we believe this is the most effective way to build a social platform.”

Dubsmash proves that short-form video is so compelling to teens that the market can sustain multiple apps. That will have to be the case given Instagram is preparing to release its TikTok clone Reels, and Vine’s co-founder Dom Hofmann just launched his successor Byte. The breakdown could look like:

  • TikTok: A slightly longer-form combo of comedy, dance, and absurdity
  • Dubsmash: Mid-length dance and music videos with a diverse community
  • Byte: Super short-form comedy featuring slightly older ex-Vine stars
  • Triller: Mid-length life blogging clips from Hollywood celebrities
  • Instagram Reels: International influencers making videos for a mainstream audience

Perhaps we’ll eventually see consolidation in the market, with giants like TikTok and Instagram acquiring smaller players to grow their content network effect with more fodder for remixes. But fragmentation could breed creativity. Different tools and audiences beg for different types of videos. Make something special, and there’s an app out there to enter your into pop culture cannon.

For more on the short-form video wars and the future of micro-entertainment, read:


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Dictators hate political cartoons -- so I keep drawing them | Rayma Suprani

Dictators hate political cartoons -- so I keep drawing them | Rayma Suprani

"A political cartoon is a barometer of freedom," says Rayma Suprani, who was exiled from her native Venezuela for publishing work critical of the government. "That's why dictators hate cartoonists." In a talk illustrated with highlights from a career spent railing against totalitarianism, Suprani explores how cartoons hold a mirror to society and reveal hidden truths -- and discusses why she keeps drawing even when it comes at a high personal cost. (In Spanish with consecutive English translation)

Click the above link to download the TED talk.

Twitter suspends notorious UK hate preacher for violating abuse rules


Twitter has confirmed it has temporarily suspended the account of controversial rightwing commentator, Katie Hopkins. The move was reported earlier by the BBC.

Hopkins, a former MailOnline columnist and presenter on LBC radio, is a veteran of the social media platform, joining Twitter just under a decade ago — and using it amplify her brand of far-right leaning, liberal-baiting politics. She regularly tweets anti-immigration and anti-Islam sentiments, and has claimed that white British people are now a discriminated against minority.

It’s not clear which of Hopkins’ tweets led Twitter to finally pull the trigger, although she had recently targeted black British rapper Stormzy for a series of abusive tweets.

In a statement confirming the account suspension, Twitter told us:

Keeping Twitter safe is a top priority for us — abuse and harassment have no place on the service. We take enforcement action against any account that is violative of our rules – which includes violations of our hateful conduct policy and abusive behaviour policy. These rules apply to everyone using our service — regardless of the account involved.

At the time of writing Hopkins’ account is still visible — although all but one of her tweets has been deleted.

It is not clear whether Hopkins herself deleted the majority of her tweets. Twitter pointed out that users may choose to delete their own Tweets at any time, including by using third-party services which provide the option of deleting all tweets

Two non-visible tweets on Hopkins’ feed are listed as ‘no longer available’ for violating Twitter’s rules.

The remaining visible tweet is a retweet of another user accusing her of inciting racial hatred — which contains a screengrab of a number of abusive tweets Hopkins made targeting Stormzy.

Hopkins’ Twitter biog lists her as “Milo’s Mum” — a reference to Milo Yiannopoulos, another controversial rightwing troll who Twitter banned in 2016 after he incited his followers to harass Ghostbusters actress Leslie Jones.


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Gateron’s Mechanical Switches for 2020: Waterproof, Magnetic, and Low-Profile


gateron 2020 switches displayed on a table

Gateron, a top-tier manufacturer of mechanical switches for keyboards, announced their newest and greatest products for 2020: a range of colored switches which include magnetic, low-profile, waterproof, tactile, linear, and clicky options. Most are simply upgrades of their 2019 models but a handful are entirely new technologies.

Gateron provided me with a grab-bag of their old and new switch options. This very brief summary will cover Gateron’s new switch options and how they compare to already announced products from their competitors at Cherry.

The 2020 Gateron Lineup

The current Gateron lineup includes magnetic, waterproof, and low-profile switches, which require special Printed Circuit Boards (PCBs) in order to work. In other words, magnetic, waterproof, and low-profile switch technologies are not compatible with the Cherry-MX standard which dominates today’s keyboard market. However, the magnetic and waterproof switches will work with Cherry-MX key-cap stems.

Gateron Low-Profile KS-21 Switches

gateron low profile red switch

Gateron’s newest switches include three special low-profile switches which come in Blue, Brown, and Red. As with Cherry’s color-nomenclature, they are as follows:

  • Brown: tactile, 2.5mm travel, 1.5mm actuation, 50g force
  • Blue: clicky, 2.5mm travel, 1.5mm actuation, 52g force
  • Red: linear, 2.5mm travel, 1.5mm actuation, 45g force

The new switches will compete against Kailh’s Chocolate line of low-profile switch and Cherry’s similarly slender competitors. To be honest, I cannot tell the difference between Kailh and Gateron. In dimensions, the Gateron low-profiles come in at 8.3mm height from the top of the stem to the bottom of the switch housing. The plastic PCB anchor is another 2.6mm in height (total height of 10.9mm). Gateron’s offering comes in at 0.10mm longer, equivalent to the Kailh Chocolate switches. Cherry advertises a height of 11.9mm.

While Gateron’s Cherry-clones generally, depending on the model, feel smoother and less scratchy than products from Cherry and Kailh, its low profile options seem virtually identical to the Kailh Chocolate switches. But that’s not bad. The low-profile keys are rattle-free designs as they incorporate box housing for their key caps. In face, going off the measurements, it appears that Gateron also supports Kailh’s key caps while sticking to the same pinouts as Cherry’s low-profile standard. In other words, the KS-21 is compatible with the same boards as Cherry’s low-profile switches but cannot use Cherry-MX key caps. Instead, it requires Kailh Chocolate key caps.

gateron low profile red side view

Gateron Magnetic KS-20 Switches

gateron magnetic switch displayed fro the bottom

Gateron’s magnetic switches (model number KS-20) will bring with them the deep 4mm of travel expected of desktop class mechanical switches along with extreme lightweight actuation force of 30 grams of weight. The magnetic switches also have less variation in their actuation force (+/- 10 grams instead of 15 grams).

Their key selling point is their massively enhanced durability versus standard mechanical switches: they last for double the amount of time of regular Cherry switches. Instead of 50 million presses, the KS-20 is rated for 100 million. However, I doubt anyone in history has reached the mechanical durability limits of 50 million key actuations so 100 million is superfluous.

gateron switch magnetic displayed from the side

Unfortunately, the KS-20 will require its own custom PCB. So you cannot retrofit older boards with the newer switch technology. On top of that, while the actuation force was described as 30-grams of force in the product guide, their actual force came out in the ballpark of 45-grams of force when I tested two switches. It could be that the magnetic switch, on the PCB, actually has a lower actuation force.

Gateron KS-12 Waterproof Switches

Unfortunately, Gateron did not show me their waterproof switch, which unfortunately requires its own specialized PCB. The switch contains four plastic stabilizers on its base, though, which means you cannot simply stick one on a random Cherry-MX compatible PCB. So if you wanted to spray a waterproof coating on your favorite PCB and throw some KS-12 switches on it, you’re out of luck.

Gateron 2019 Vs. Gateron 2020

Gateron’s older lines of keyboard switches included more or less copies of Cherry’s color scheme with their own unique take. These models (KS-3, KS-8, and KS-9) included the following colors:

  • Blue: midweight, 55g actuation, clicky
  • Brown: lightweight: 45g actuation, tactile
  • Black: midweight, 50g actuation, tactile
  • Red: lightweight, 45g actuation, linear
  • Green: heavy, 80g actuation, clicky
  • Clear: lightweight, 35g actuation, linear

Other than the KS-12, KS-21, and KS-20, there isn’t much new to announce. Many of its 2019 switches, like the Ink series, are not much different from its 2018 switches other than in aesthetics. Whiel there are many Gateron switches on the market, a few of the new products provided to me appear to be new options. It appears that Gateron issued updated switches of their KS-9 series and has more or less increased the bottoming-out force of some of its main switches. It also reissued these with different colored housing, mismatched against the color of the stem. The stem-color represents the actuation force and the housing color seems to indicate the bottoming-out force. Unfortunately the Gateron rep didn’t fully understand my questions regarding these new, unlabeled, products.

I did not see revisions of any other switches. For example, in 2019, Gateron announced an infrared switch, known as the KS-15. And it eventually added its Ink series, which was more or less colored, clear-bodied switch housings with slightly deeper actuation points. Neither line seems to have received an update.

Overall, Gateron’s 2020 lineup represents a more radical departure from its competitors and its 2019 offerings.

Read the full article: Gateron’s Mechanical Switches for 2020: Waterproof, Magnetic, and Low-Profile


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How to Stream British TV Using BritBox


Fans of British TV can now stream all of the British television they can stand using BritBox. BritBox is a streaming TV service solely focused on British TV shows. And it’s available in the US and Canada (for Anglophiles and expats) and in the UK (for fans of classic TV).

A Streaming Service Full of British TV

As a Brit I can admit that US TV is king right now. There are so many quality American shows available that there aren’t enough hours in the day to watch them all. However, British TV has its fair share of great shows, including these unmissable British comedies.

This is where BritBox comes into its own, as it’s packed full of British TV shows. BritBox offers thousands of hours of programming, including classic shows such as Miss Marple, newer shows such as Downton Abbey, and original shows such as Lambs of God.

How to Stream British TV Using BritBox

BritBox is available in the US, Canada, and the UK. BritBox launched in North America in March 2017, with the British version launching in November 2019. There are some differences in the two services, but both offer British TV for a monthly subscription.

In the US, BritBox costs US$6.99/month, in Canada, BritBox costs CAD$8.99/month, and in the UK, BritBox costs £5.99/month. The streaming service is available on a range of different devices and platforms, so you should be able to watch it at home and on the go.

To get started with a BritBox subscription, just head to BritBox.com for more details. There’s a 30-day free trial available, so you can try BritBox for free before deciding whether to pay for the privilege. There are no ad breaks, and you can cancel at any time.

BritBox Is Yet Another Streaming Service

As you may have already noticed, there are a growing number of streaming TV services available. However, while many offer the same mix of movies and TV shows, BritBox has focused entirely on British television. And it’s this niche that makes it worthwhile.

Proving how popular British TV shows are in the US, American viewers have another option in the form of Acorn TV. This streaming service also focuses on classic British TV shows, so be sure to read our article pitting BritBox vs. Acorn TV to find out which is best.

Image Credit: AK Rockefeller via Flickr

Read the full article: How to Stream British TV Using BritBox


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Enjoy In-Studio Sound With Soundcore’s Liberty 2 Pro Earbuds


Soundcore Liberty 2 Pro Featured

If you’re in the market for great-sounding truly wireless earbuds that have long-lasting play time and an affordable price tag, the Liberty 2 Pro earbuds from Soundcore are the ideal choice.

Here’s what we thought of them after giving the buds a try.

Liberty 2 Pro Sound Quality

There’s a reason that the Liberty 2 Pro earbuds’ sound quality is excellent: Soundcore developed the first ACAA (Astria Coaxial Acoustic Architecture) driver.

The innovative design of this driver incorporates a customized Knowles balanced armature and an 11MM dynamic driver. The ACAA driver removes interference while it produces synchronized treble and bass.

Soundcore Liberty 2 Pro Earbuds With Case

So what does this mean for you? Amazing sound, period. It’s consistent and flawless without a crackle or a blip. You hear nothing except the song you’re playing with such incredible detail it’s as if you’re hearing it live on private stage.

What’s more, the Liberty 2 Pro earbuds are endorsed by 10 Grammy Award-winning audio producers. If they don’t know fantastic sound quality when they hear it, who would?

Customizing the Liberty 2 Pro Earbuds

In addition to the ACAA driver, the Liberty 2 Pro earbuds have a feature called HearID for custom sound. HearID analyzes your listening profile to provide you with the best possible sound, personalized just for your ears.

To set up HearID, download the free Soundcore app. The HearID test takes just a few minutes; it’s definitely worth the time to customize and enhance your listening experience unlike any other earbuds can.

In addition to the HearID profile, the Soundcore app lets you choose from different sound settings if you like. Pick from bass booster or reducer, dance, classical, rock, and more, along with custom equalizer settings.

For even more personalization, you get to decide how to control your Liberty 2 Pro earbuds. As an example, you can set the earbuds to skip to the next or previous track with a double-tap, or instead use that action to increase or decrease the volume.

This is a favorite feature of ours because it puts you in control, not the manufacturer.

Download: Soundcore for Android | iOS (Free)

Charging and Play Time

As with any wireless device you buy, you’ll want to know how long you must charge it and how long it lasts between charges, right?

With the Liberty 2 Pro earbuds, you’ll get eight hours of play time from a single charge and another 32 hours from the charging case. Need a fast recharge? Use the included USB-C cable to charge for 10 minutes, and you can then listen for two hours!

What’s Included With the Liberty 2 Pro

Along with your wireless Liberty 2 Pro earbuds, you’ll receive all of this in the box:

  • Seven pairs of ear tips and three pairs of ear wings. These let you select the perfect combination of sizes for ultimate ear comfort.
  • A versatile charging case and USB-C cable. You can charge the earbuds in the case with a wireless charger or the included cable.
  • The Liberty 2 Pro quick start guide. Connect to your device via Bluetooth in seconds and start listening.

Ready to Buy the Liberty 2 Pro Earbuds?

Though they’re regularly priced at only $149.99, you can buy the Liberty 2 Pro earbuds right now for $30 off at Amazon. This is an amazing price for the value you receive.

You get flawless customizable sound quality, simple setup, an array of ear tips and wings for all ear shapes and sizes, and personalization of controls for both earbuds.

So what are you waiting for? Get your Liberty 2 Pro earbuds today and start enjoying your music in a way that you never have before!

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How to Create a Flowchart in Microsoft Excel


excel-flow-chart

Plenty of options exist for creating flowcharts, but you may not need one if you’re already subscribed to Microsoft Office 365. We’ve shown how you can create a flowchart in Word, but Excel works just as well.

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In this article, we’ll show you how to set up a flowchart environment and create awesome flowcharts in Excel. We’ll end with some links where you can download free Microsoft Excel flowchart templates.

How to Create a Flowchart in Excel With SmartArt Graphics

The easiest way to create a flowchart in Excel involves inserting the preset flowchart designs. You can still customize your worksheet and page layout before inserting a SmartArt flowchart. But we’ll save those specific instructions for when we create an Excel flowchart from scratch.

To start creating a flowchart in Excel with SmartArt graphics, open your worksheet.

Insert Your SmartArt Graphic

With your open worksheet, click the Insert tab at the top of Excel. Press the Insert a SmartArt Graphic button under the Illustrations group.

smartart graphic button location

The choose a SmartArt Graphic dialog box will appear. Pay attention to the items listed on the left, and select Process.

insert smartart graphic dialog box
Look through the available options and choose the flowchart template you want to use. Press OK to close the dialog box and insert your new flowchart design.

How to Create an Excel Flowchart From Scratch

While it’s easy to create a flowchart using SmartArt designs, sometimes you need a specific type of flowchart design. To do this, you want to prepare your worksheet before inserting any shapes. Afterward, you can freely design a flowchart to your precise situation.

Set Up a Flowchart Grid in Excel

When creating a flowchart in Excel, the worksheet grid provides a useful way to position and size your flowchart elements.

Create a Grid

To create a grid, we need to change the width of all the columns to be equal to the default row height. The worksheet will look like graph paper.

First, select all the cells on the worksheet by clicking the box in the upper-left corner of the worksheet grid. Then, right-click on any column heading and select Column Width.

Select all cells, then select Column Width in Excel

If you’re using the default font (Calibri, size 11), the default row height is 15 points, which equals 20 pixels. To make the column width the same 20 pixels, we must change it to 2.14.

So enter 2.14 in the box on the Column Width dialog box and click OK.

Change Column Width in Excel

Enable Snap to Grid

The Snap to Grid features makes it easy to place and resize shapes on the grid so you can consistently resize them and align them to each other. Shapes snap to the nearest grid line when you resize and move them.

Click the Page Layout tab. Then, click Align in the Arrange section and select Snap to Grid. The Snap to Grid icon on the menu is highlighted with a gray box when the feature is on.

Enable Snap to Grid in Excel

Set Up the Page Layout in Excel

You should set up the page layout for your flowchart so you know your boundaries before laying out your flowchart. For example, if you’re going to insert your flowchart into a Word document, you should set the margins in Microsoft Excel to the same margins as your Word document. That way you won’t create a flowchart larger than the pages in your Word document.

To set up items like margins, page orientation, and page size, click the Page Layout tab. Use the buttons in the Page Setup section to change settings for the different layout options.

Change Page Orientation in Excel

Now that your worksheet is set up for flowcharts, let’s create one.

Add a Shape Using the Shapes Tool

To add your first shape to your flowchart, go to the Insert tab and click Shapes in the Illustrations section. A dropdown menu displays a gallery of various types of shapes like basic shapes, lines, and arrows.

Select a shape in the Flowchart section of the dropdown menu.

Select a Shape in Excel

Drag the shape to the size you want on the worksheet. If Snap to Grid is enabled, the shape automatically snaps to the gridlines as you draw it.

Draw a shape on the grid in Excel

Add More Flowchart Shapes Using the Format Tab

Once you draw your first shape and select it, a special Format tab becomes available. You can use this tab to add more shapes to your flowchart and to format your shapes, which we’ll cover later.

A dropdown gallery of shapes displays, just like when you clicked Shapes in the Illustrations section on the Insert tab. Select the shape you want to add and draw it on the worksheet.

You can also double-click a shape on the gallery menu to add it to the worksheet. To resize the shape, select it and drag one of the handles along the edges.

To move the shape, move the cursor over the shape until the cursor becomes a cross with arrows. Then, click and drag the shape to where you want it.

Open the Shapes gallery on the Format tab in Excel

Add Text to a Shape

To add text to a shape, simply select the shape and start typing. We’ll show you later how to format the text and change its alignment.

To edit the text in a shape, click on the text in the shape. This puts you in edit mode allowing you to add, change, or delete the text.

Click outside the shape or select the shape like you were going to move it as we talked about in the previous section.

Type text in a shape in Excel

Add Connector Lines Between Shapes

After adding some shapes to your flowchart, it’s time to connect them.

Select Line Arrow on the shapes gallery either on the Insert tab or the Format tab.

Select Line Arrow in Excel

The cursor becomes a plus icon. Move the cursor over the first shape you want to connect. You’ll see dots at the points that represent connection points for that shape.

Click on the connection point where you want the line to start and drag the line to the next shape until you see the connection points on that one. Release the mouse on one of those points.

An arrow displays where the line ends. When a line is properly connected to a shape, the connection point is solid. If you see a hollow connection point, the line didn’t connect to the shape.

Draw a connector line on a flowchart in Excel

Add Text to Connector Lines

In flowchart programs like Visio and Lucidchart, you can add text directly to connector lines. In Microsoft Excel, you can’t do that. But you can do the next best thing.

To add text to a connector line, you create a text box and position it along the line or on the line.

Select a shape or a connector line to activate the Format tab. Click the tab and then click Text Box in the Insert Shapes section.

Click Text Box in Excel

Draw the text box near the connector you want to label. Move the text box to where you want it the same way you move shapes.

You may want to turn off Snap to Grid when positioning text boxes on connector lines. This allows you to fine-tune the size and position of the text boxes.

To add text, select the text box and start typing. We’ll show you how to format and position text boxes a bit later.

Add a text box near a connector line on a flowchart in Excel

Add Notes Using Callouts

You can also use text boxes to add notes to your flowchart the same way you used them to add text to connector lines. And you can use a connector line to point to the area relating to the note.

But, that might be confusing and look like a step in the flowchart. To make a note look different, use a callout.

Select a callout from the shapes gallery either on the Insert tab or the Format tab.

Select a callout shape in Excel

Draw the callout on the worksheet just like you would draw a shape.

Add text to the callout and use the handles to resize it the same way you would on a shape.

Initially, the part of the callout that points shows on the bottom border. To make the callout point to where you want, click and drag the point. When the point connects with a shape, the connection point turns red.

Draw a callout in Excel

How to Format a Flowchart in Excel

Excel has many formatting options, too many to cover here. But we’ll show you a few basics so you can format your shapes, text, and connector lines.

Format Shapes

An easy way to format shapes and the text in shapes is to use Theme Styles.

Select all the shapes you want to format with the same style. Click on the first shape, then press and hold down Shift while clicking the other shapes. Then, click the Format tab.

Click the More arrow in the lower-right corner of the Theme Styles box in the Shape Styles section. A gallery of styles displays in a dropdown menu.

When you move your mouse over the various theme styles, you’ll see how they look on your shapes. Click the style you want to use.

Change the Theme Style for shapes in Excel

Format Text in the Shapes and Text Boxes

Formatting text in shapes and text boxes is done the same way you normally format text in cells.

First, we’ll format shapes. Select all the shapes containing the text you want to format using the Shift key while clicking the remaining shapes after the first one.

Click the Home tab and use the commands in the Font and Alignment sections to format your text. For example, we used the Center and Middle Align buttons in the Alignment section to center the text in the shapes horizontally and vertically. Then, we applied Bold to all the text.

Do the same thing with the text boxes along the connector lines to format and align the text.

Format text in shapes using the Home tab in Excel

Format Connector Lines

The default format on the connector lines is a bit thin. We’re going to make them thicker.

Select all the connector lines you want to format using the Shift key while clicking the remaining lines after the first one. Then, click the Format tab.

Click Shape Outline in the Shape Styles section and select a color from the Theme Colors section or Standard Colors section. Then, on the same menu, go to Weight and select a thickness for the connector lines from the submenu.

Change color and weight for connector lines on a flowchart in Excel

Use SmartArt Tools Design

When editing SmartArt flowcharts, the main difference centers around the Design tab. While you can individually select all the shapes and connector lines to format them, the Design tab allows you to modify the flowchart collectively by selecting the entire graphic.

smartart tools design add shape

The Design tab allows you to add shapes, change your flowchart’s layout, collectively change the colors of your graphic, and more. It’s similar to using the Format tab, but the changes occur primarily via a single button click. It’s great for quick edits where you don’t have to personalize your flowchart much.

smart art tool design change colors

If you convert your SmartArt graphic into shapes, it’ll act as if you made the flowchart from scratch and only allow you to use the Format tab.

Get Started With These Excel Flowchart Templates

Excel flowchart templates provide a quick start when creating your own flowcharts. We’ve previously covered flowchart templates for Microsoft Office, but these are specifically for Microsoft Excel.

Here are more templates you can download:

Organize Your Life With Excel Flowcharts!

The ability to create flowcharts in Microsoft Excel makes it a very useful and versatile tool for keeping yourself organized. It’s not the only option, though. You’ll find several good free flowchart tools for Windows.

Are you a Macbook user? There are great free flowchart makers for macOS, or you can use Pages on Mac for simple flowcharts.

Read the full article: How to Create a Flowchart in Microsoft Excel


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