USA news TODAY headlines: 2021

Friday, December 10, 2021

Best Places to Visit in Eastern Europe

Thursday, December 2, 2021

Airtel, Vodafone, Jio: Rollback Prepaid Recharge Hike

This petition is about 3 major telecom giants whose practices I find questionable. They promised us 5G but supply 2G speed. They claim to support to voice calls but all of us suffer call drops instead. They charge us for 30 days but give us services for 28 days. SIM cards are sold with the 'Lifetime' tag but every month incoming calls are stopped.

Things have now gotten way out of hand. Recently, Airtel, Vodafone, and Jio all hiked their prepaid recharge rates by 20%. This adversely impacts lakhs and crores of Indians. I am one among them. I have decided to raise my voice.

http://funkelixo.com.br/blogs/post/21331

http://corsica.forhikers.com/forum/p/93518

https://youhaveocd.com/forum-2/topic/money-heist-movie-horror-movies-imdb/#postid-53038

http://snomoto.com/forums/timbersled/money-heist-movie-filmywap-imdb/

https://www.exoltech.us/wall/forum/topic/4613

https://www.exoltech.ps/wall/forum/topic/8242

http://ptits.net/boards/t/54684/money-heist-movies-near-me-imdb.aspx

https://www.pckitcj.com/posts/list/0/60948.page#81107

https://www.click4r.com/posts/g/3054234/money-heist-movie-hindi-movie-imdb

https://www.webstyling3000.de/qa/index.php?qa=3375&qa_1=money-heist-movie-123mkv-imdb

https://webhitlist.com/forum/topics/money-heist-movie-hdhub4u-imdb

https://caribbeanfever.com/photo/albums/money-heist-movie-fzmovies-imdb

http://bioimagingcore.be/q2a/413915/money-heist-movie-best-movies-on-netflix-imdb

https://ameblo.jp/laviinbar/entry-12713518623.html

https://www.88posts.com/post/824737/p%C3%A9tition-%C2%B7-money-heist-season-5-episode-6-watch-online-and-download-%C2%B7-change-org

http://www.4mark.net/story/4998567/money-heist-movie-free-movies-imdb

https://www.1upfun.com/post/1577899/money-heist-movie-free-movies-imdb

https://www.mychemicalromance.com/news/money-heist-movie-bollyflix-imdb-3769081

https://onlineree23movies.cookpad-blog.jp/articles/682135

https://www.whatpeoplesay.org/money-heist-movie-yomovies-imdb

http://justaaa.com/topic.php?tid=327847

https://neolatino.ning.com/profiles/status/show?id=516621%3AStatus%3A23671220

Tuesday, November 30, 2021

7 things to know about Hailee Steinfeld, star of Marvel’s Hawkeye

Now airing on Disney+, Hawkeye is a new Marvel TV series that sits within the wider Marvel Cinematic Universe, connecting with events in the film franchise. Beside telling us more about the hero Clint Barton, played by Jeremy Renner, it also explains the ties between him and fan Kate Bishop, who has spent her whole life honing her archery skills to eventually take over the mantle of Hawkeye.

Hailee Steinfeld was born in 1996 to a Jewish father and a mother whose background is European, Filipino and African American, per EthniCelebs.

After modelling for Gap and appearing in several short films, at 13 she beat 15,000 auditionees to land her first movie role, True Grit, according to Insider. She portrayed Mattie Ross, a sassy girl out for revenge alongside Jeff Bridges. It brought her an Academy Award nomination for best supporting actress at 14, becoming one of the youngest nominees for the category of all time.

In particular, she is very proud of her Filipino heritage and felt at home when she visited the country, she told Philippine Entertainment Portal (PEP): “One thing I learned very early on about Filipinos is how much passion there is, how much pride there is being Filipino and as little as there is [of that blood] in me, I really do feel so connected to the culture … It’s so incredibly important that I can come somewhere so far from home and feel like I’m home.”

At age eight, Steinfeld was inspired to act after watching an ad made by her older cousin True O’Brien. Her parents supported her interest by sending her to acting class for a year, per Vanity Fair.

Since then, she has played some iconic characters, including Juliet in the 2013 adaptation of William Shakespeare’s Romeo & Juliet, Emily Junk in the Pitch Perfect film series, Emily Dickinson in the comedy series Dickinson, and Gwen Stacy or Spider-Woman in the 2018 animated film Spider-Man: Into the Spider-Verse.

She didn’t need to audition for Hawkeye

Instead of auditioning for the role of Kate Bishop, Steinfeld was simply offered it. Heroic Hollywood reports that at a press conference for Hawkeye, Marvel Studios president Kevin Feige said, “Hailee did not audition. We were very, very lucky that Hailee was open to this because we very much believed that she was sort of the prototype for the character, and as occasionally happens, the dream version of the character agrees to do it … We were very thankful that she wanted to jump into this role because we had a feeling that she would be great, and she is.”

After the Oscar nomination, Steinfeld became a teen Hollywood star, catching the eye of Miu Miu. The fashion brand featured her in its autumn/winter campaign in 2011 and later made her a brand ambassador, according to Fashionista. That made her the youngest ever face of the brand, and saw her join Katie Holmes, Evan Rachel Wood, Vanessa Paradis and Lindsay Lohan in the ranks of former Miu Miu muses.

She also modelled hoodies, denim and outerwear for a Guess Kids ad campaign in 2007, per MTV, and appeared in print ads for Kohl’s and Nike. In 2017, she was brand ambassador for Mission’s women activewear line, according to Fashion Network.

She waited for the right moment to become a pop star

Together with acting, Steinfeld was also interested in music from a young age, attending singing lessons and writing music with family friends who are producers, as she revealed to The Stanford Daily. Music was always a part of her plan, but it wasn’t until her role in musical Pitch Perfect 2 in 2015, in which she played a cappella-singing Barden Bella, did she find the perfect opportunity to start her singing career.

She signed with Republic Records, Taylor Swift’s label, and her debut album “Haiz” was released in 2015 with the single Love Myself peaking at No 30 on the Billboard Hot 100. Later singles Starving (2016), Most Girls and Let Me Go (both 2017) also made the chart.

Before working with Swift, Steinfeld was already her good friend. After getting to know each other through mutual friend Emma Stone, Steinfeld became one of the first members of Swift’s famous squad, Entertainment News reports. Steinfeld appreciates her friendship with the Shake It Off singer, praising her as “an amazing friend, a great person and an inspiration to her and many others” in the May 2014 issue of Nylon. When they meet, they usually “listen to music, watch TV, films, bake and all of that kind of stuff”.

Steinfeld also appeared in the video for Swift’s Bad Blood together with other A-list stars from Swift’s squad. She is also close to fellow squad members Selena Gomez, Sarah Hyland, Lena Dunham, Lorde, Gigi Hadid and Camila Cabello.

When Steinfeld isn’t acting or singing, she likes to work out, which keeps her fighting fit for the roles of heroines like Kate Bishop. As her father is a personal trainer, she usually trains with him. She tries to exercise at least 15 minutes a day after work, whether it’s cardio like using the elliptical or treadmill, or swimming or biking, along with her favourite circuit training and kick-boxing routines. On The Kelly Clarkson Show, host Clarkson joked that she must do 3,000 crunches a day, to which Steinfeld replied quite seriously, “Every day. 3,000 is the number.”

Talking to Shape, she said, “I always feel like spending time in the gym is a relief. I go in and put my headphones in and kind of just separate myself from everything for a while. It’s kind of like a safe zone in a way. I definitely walk away feeling more relaxed.”

Writing is another of her favourite things to do. She usually has a pen and paper in her bag and when she doesn’t, she writes on the notes app in her phone, per Rookie. She said she writes her own songs to expose herself even more than when she acts: “There’s this sense of vulnerability – in that that’s my name and my voice and my experience, not a character, no matter how much I’ve related to that character or identified with that character.”

Monday, November 29, 2021

Earlier this month the IAB Europe warned

Earlier this month the IAB Europe warned that it expects to be found in breach of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation, and that its so-called ‘transparency and consent’ framework (TCF) hasn’t managed to achieve either of the things claimed on the tin.

But this is also just the latest ‘reform’ missive from the ICO to rule-breaking adtech.

And Denham is merely restating requirements that are derived from standards that already exist in UK law — and wouldn’t need reiterating had her office actually enforced the law against adtech breache(r)s. But this is the regulatory dance she has preferred.

This latest ICO salvo looks more like an attempt by the outgoing commissioner to claim credit for wider industry shifts as she prepares to leave office — such as Google’s slow-mo shift toward phasing out support for third party cookies (aka, it’s ‘Privacy Sandbox’ proposal, which is actually a response to evolving web standards such as competing browsers baking in privacy protections; rising consumer concern about online tracking and data breaches; and a big rise in attention on digital matters from lawmakers) — than it is about actually moving the needle on unlawful tracking.

If Denham wanted to do that she could have taken actual enforcement action long ago.

Instead the ICO has opted for — at best — a partial commentary on embedded adtech’s systematic compliance problem. And, essentially, to stand by as the breach continues; and wait/hope for future compliance.

Change may be coming regardless of regulatory inaction, however.

And, notably, Google’s ‘Privacy Sandbox’ proposal (which claims ‘privacy safe’ ad targeting of cohorts of users, rather than microtargeting of individual web users) gets a significant call-out in the ICO’s remarks — with Denham’s office writing in a press release that it is: “Currently, one of the most significant proposals in the online advertising space is the Google Privacy Sandbox, which aims to replace the use of third party cookies with alternative technologies that still enable targeted digital advertising.”

“The ICO has been working with the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) to review how Google’s plans will safeguard people’s personal data while, at the same time, supporting the CMA’s mission of ensuring competition in digital markets,” the ICO goes on, giving a nod to ongoing regulatory oversight, led by the UK’s competition watchdog, which has the power to prevent Google’s Privacy Sandbox ever being implemented — and therefore to stop Google phasing out support for tracking cookies in Chrome — if the CMA decides the tech giant can’t do it in a way that meets competition and privacy criteria.

So this reference is also a nod to a dilution of the ICO’s own regulatory influence in a core adtech-related arena — one that’s of market-reforming scale and import.

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New methods of advertising must be compliant

There is no suggestion from the tech giant as this point of any additional delay to that timeline — assuming it gets the regulatory greenlight to go ahead.

It’s been well over two years since the UK’s data protection watchdog warned the behavioural advertising industry it’s wildly out of control.

The ICO hasn’t done anything to stop the systematic unlawfulness of the tracking and targeting industry abusing Internet users’ personal data to try to manipulate their attention — not in terms of actually enforcing the law against offenders and stopping what digital rights campaigners have described as the biggest data breach in history.

Indeed, it’s being sued over inaction against real-time-bidding’s misuse of personal data by complainants who filed a petition on the issue all the way back in September 2018.

But today the UK’s (outgoing) information commissioner, Elizabeth Denham, published an opinion — in which she warns the industry that its old unlawful tricks simply won’t do in the future.

New methods of advertising must be compliant with a set of what she describes as “clear data protection standards” in order to safeguard people’s privacy online, she writes.

Among the data protection and privacy “expectations” Denham suggests she wants to see from the next wave of online ad technologies are:

• engineer data protection requirements by default into the design of the initiative;

• offer users the choice of receiving adverts without tracking, profiling or targeting based on personal data;

• be transparent about how and why personal data is processed across the ecosystem and who is responsible for that processing;

• articulate the specific purposes for processing personal data and demonstrate how this is fair, lawful and transparent;

• address existing privacy risks and mitigate any new privacy risks that their proposal introduces

Denham says the goal of the opinion is to provide “further regulatory clarity” as new ad technologies are developed, further specifying that she welcomes efforts that propose to:

• move away from the current methods of online tracking and profiling practices;

• improve transparency for individuals and organisations;

• reduce existing frictions in the online experience;

• provide individuals with meaningful control and choice over the processing of device information and personal data;

• ensure valid consent is obtained where required;

• ensure there is demonstrable accountability across the supply chain;

The timing of the opinion is interesting — given an impending decision by Belgium’s data protection agency on a flagship ad industry consent gathering tool. (And current UK data protection rules share the same foundation as the rest of the EU, as the country transposed the General Data Protection Regulation into national law prior to Brexit.)

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CMA has also been extended vs the earlier plan

We understand that concerns from market participants also covered Google removing other functionality — such as the user agent string — and that strengthened commitments are intended to address those wider worries too.

Self-preferencing requirements have also been dialled up. And the revised commitments include clarifications on the internal limits on the data that Google can use — and monitoring those elements will be a key focus for the trustee.

The period of active oversight by the CMA has also been extended vs the earlier plan — to six years from the date of any decision to accept Google’s modified commitments (up from around five).

This means that if the CMA agrees to the commitments next year they could be in place until 2028. And by then the UK expects to have reformed competition rules wrapping tech giant — as In its own blog post, Google condenses the revised commitments thus:

Monitoring and reporting. We have offered to appoint an independent Monitoring Trustee who will have the access and technical expertise needed to ensure compliance.Testing and consultation. We have offered the CMA more extensive testing commitments, along with a more transparent process to take market feedback on the Privacy Sandbox proposals.

Further clarity on our use of data. We are underscoring our commitment not to use Google first-party personal data to track users for targeting and measurement of ads shown on non-Google websites. Our commitments would also restrict the use of Chrome browsing history and Analytics data to do this on Google or non-Google websites.

As with the earlier set of pledges, it has agreed to apply the additional commitments globally — assuming the package gets accepted by the UK regulator.

So the UK regulator continues playing a key role in shaping how key web infrastructure evolves.

Google’s blog most also makes reference to an opinion published yesterday by the UK’s information commission — which urged the adtech industry of the need to move away from current tracking and profiling methods of ad targeting.

“We also support the objectives set out yesterday in the ICO’s Opinion on Data protection and privacy expectations for online advertising proposals, including the importance of supporting and developing privacy-safe advertising tools that protect people’s privacy and prevent covert tracking,” Google noted.

This summer Google announced a delay to its earlier timeline for the deprecation of tracking cookies — saying support wouldn’t start being phased out in Chrome until the second half of 2023.

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A potential timeline for this to happen is early 2022

It will then make a call on whether the beefed up bundle bakes in enough checks-and-balances to ensure that Google carries out the move away from tracking cookies with the least impact on competition and the least harm to user privacy (although it will be the UK’s ICO that’s ultimately responsible for oversight of the latter piece).

If the CMA is happy with responses to the revised commitments, it would then close the investigation and move to a new phase of active oversight, as set out in the detail of what it’s proposing to agree with Google.

A potential timeline for this to happen is early 2022 — but nothing is confirmed as yet.

Commenting in a statement, CMA CEO Andrea Coscelli said:

“We have always been clear that Google’s efforts to protect user’s privacy cannot come at the cost of reduced competition.

That’s why we have worked with the Information Commissioner’s Office, the CMA’s international counterparts and parties across this sector throughout this process to secure an outcome that works for everyone.

We welcome Google’s co-operation and are grateful to all the interested parties who engaged with us during the consultation.

If accepted, the commitments we have obtained from Google become legally binding, promoting competition in digital markets, helping to protect the ability of online publishers to raise money through advertising and safeguarding users’ privacy.”

In general, the expanded commitments look intended to offer a greater level of reassurance to the market that Google will not be able to exploit loopholes in regulatory oversight of the Sandbox to undo the intended effect of addressing competition risks and privacy concerns.

Notably, Google has agreed to appoint a CMA approved monitoring trustee — as one of the additional measures it’s suggesting to improve the provisions around reporting and compliance.

It will also dial up reporting requirements, agreeing to ensure that the CMA’s role and the regulator’s ongoing process — which the CMA now suggests should continue for a period of six years — are mentioned in its “key public announcements”; and to regular (quarterly) reporting to the CMA on how it is taking account of third party views as it continues building out the tech bundle.

Transparency around testing is also being beefed up.

On that, there have been instances, in recent months, where Google staffers have not been exactly fulsome in articulating the details of feedback related to the Origin Trial of its FloCs technology to the market, for example. So it’s notable that another highlighted change requires Google to instruct its staff not to make claims to customers which contradict the commitments.

Another concern reflected in the revisions is the worry of market participants of Google removing functionality or information before the full Privacy Sandbox changes are implemented — hence it has offered to delay enforcement of its Privacy Budget proposal and offered commitments around the introduction of measures to reduce access to IP addresses.

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Google announced its intention to deprecate support

Google announced its intention to deprecate support for the third party tracking cookies that are used for targeting ads at individuals in its Chrome browser all the way back in 2019 — and has been working on a stack of what it claims are less intrusive alternative ad-targeting technologies (aka, the “Privacy Sandbox”) since then.

The basic idea is to shift away from ads being targeted at individuals (which is horrible for Internet users’ privacy) to targeting methods that put Internet users in interest-based buckets and serve ads to so-called “cohorts” of users (aka, FloCs) which may be less individually intrusive — however it’s important to note that Google’s proposed alternative still has plenty of critics (the EFF, for example, has suggested it could even amplify problems like discrimination and predatory ad targeting).

And many privacy advocates would argue that pure-play contextual targeting poses the least risk to Internet users’ rights while still offering advertisers the ability to reach relevant audiences and publishers to monetize their content.

Google’s Sandbox plan has attracted the loudest blow-back from advertisers and publishers, who will be directly affected by the changes. Some of whom have raised concerns that the shift away from tracking cookies will simply increase Google’s market power — hence the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) opening an antitrust investigation into the plan in January.

As part of that probe, the CMA had already secured one set of commitments from Google around how it would go about the switch, including that it would agree to halt any move to deprecate cookies if the regulator was not satisfied the transition could take place in a way that respects both competition and privacy; and agreements on self-preferencing, among others.

A market consultation on the early set of commitments drew responses from more than 40 third parties — including, TechCrunch understands, input from international regulators (some of who are also investigating Google’s Sandbox, such as the European Commission, which opened its own probe of Google’s adtech in June) .

Following that, the first set of proposed commitments has been expanded and beefed up with additional requirements (see below for a summary; and here for fuller detail from the CMA’s “Notice of intent to accept the modified commitments”).

The CMA will now consult on the expanded set — with a deadline of 5pm on December 17, 2021, to take fresh feedback.

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BTS Army also highlighted another error made by Recording

Meanwhile, the South Korean all-boys group which comprises of RM, Jin, V, Jungkook, Suga, J-Hope and Jimin shared a thank note post the announcement, expressing their gratitude to the Army for their constant support. BTS, who have been nominated alongside Tony Bennett and Lady Gaga, Justin Bieber and Benny Blanco, Doja Cat and SZA & Coldplay, took to the microblogging site and wrote, "This is a huge honor. Thanks to everyone who supports our music journey!"

BTS Army also highlighted another error made by Recording Academy by pointing out the missing description under BTS' name during the nominations announcement like other presenters. With millions of BTS fans taking to their respective Twitter handles to call out Recording Academy, the microblogging site has been flooded with tweets related to BTS.

While BTS has earned a solo nod at the upcoming Grammy Awards, American musician and television presenter Jon Batiste leads the pack with 11 nods. On the other hand, pop sensation Justin Bieber, Doja Cat and H.E.R. have managed to secure eight nods each while Olivia Rodrigo and Billie Eilish follow with seven.

The 64th Grammy Awards ceremony will be held on Jan. 31, 2022, at the Crypto.com Arena (formerly known as the Staples Center), in Los Angeles.

As part of an ongoing antitrust investigation into Google’s Privacy Sandbox by the UK’s competition regulator, the adtech giant has agreed to an expanded set of commitments related to oversight of its planned migration away from tracking cookies, the regulator announced today.

Google has also put out its own blog post on the revisions — which it says are intended to “underline our commitment to ensuring that the changes we make in Chrome will apply in the same way to Google’s ad tech products as to any third party, and that the Privacy Sandbox APIs will be designed, developed and implemented with regulatory oversight and input from the CMA [Competition and Markets Authority] and the ICO [Information Commissioner’s Office]”.

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Another factor to consider regarding rising prices

But there’s more: Venture investors report to The Exchange that startup valuations are rising in part thanks to growth rates not only proving stronger than anticipated at tech companies, but also that growth rates are proving to be more durable than expected. That’s to say that former startups are going public with faster growth than many expected, and they are holding onto that pace of expansion longer. The impact of that is that tech companies may be worth more in the future than anticipated, so investors can pay more now and not worry as much incrementally as you’d expect.

Another factor to consider regarding rising prices that Menlo investor Matt Murphy explained to me recently is that the old venture expectations of startup failure rates are now incorrect. The failure rate is lower than it was, and the all-important hit rate is higher, he said.

You might look at the above as a whole, and think well, maybe all those insta-unicorns and six-figure rounds make sense? It’s a somewhat comforting perspective to take. After all, the putatively smart money is taking the wager that faster, more durable growth and fewer failures — essentially that SaaS is hard to kill — will balance out higher costs to generate the sort of returns required to make venture math square up.

But, butttttttttt, there’s more and more risk being taken on because the fundamentals of the startup market have not improved much since the COVID-induced boom in software buying took off after the initial shocks of the pandemic wore off. That’s to say: The startups that venture investors are backing this year haven’t really seen their macro fortunes improve since mid-2020, but they are busy raising lots more money, lots faster. That generates increased investment risk.

There are more than 900 unicorns in the market today, all of which will need IPOs to generate the sort of return that their backers expect. If the market does finally correct a bit, just to get a little more historically aligned, quite a number of high-priced private companies could find themselves stuck in limbo between their private-market valuation and what the public markets might pay. It could get sticky. People are just betting that it doesn’t.

All this is to say that despite there being some reasonable reasons for why startup prices are going up as they also raise more capital, earlier and faster, it is hardly a zero-marginal-risk wager.

The nominations for the 64th Grammys are out and it looks like BTS Army is pretty disappointed with the Recording Academy. The global K-pop icons, who created history at the American Music Award 2021 by winning the Artist Of The Year, along with two other wins (Favorite Pop Duo/Group and Favorite Pop Song), managed to earn just a single nod at the prestigious music awards. And this seems to have irked the Army, who took to social media to express their resentment. While millions of fans used the hashtag 'Scammy'

while calling out Recording Academy, a few even called them 'xenophobic'. Check out a few reactions here:

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A little while back we chatted through the point

Welcome to The TechCrunch Exchange, a weekly startups-and-markets newsletter. It’s inspired by the daily TechCrunch+ column where it gets its name. Want it in your inbox every Saturday? Sign up here.

Hello from the blisteringly cold East Coast of the United States, where I am eating doughnuts to ward off the effects of my COVID-19 vaccine booster shot. Thus far the third dose of Moderna is not as bad as the second, but who knows what is coming. So we’ll stay brief today in case I fall out of my desk chair and straight into a nap midkeystroke.

To start, thank you. This little weekend newsletter now has comfortably over 30,000 subscribers, and an open rate that sits in the mid- to high-40s each week. It’s part of a larger project I kicked off at TechCrunch when I came back but was far from a settled question when we added the newsletter to the regular Exchange columns.

Frankly, I figured it was a coin flip if it would get an audience. The bet wound up paying out, and because of you, The Exchange now publishes six times weekly. That’s just good fun. Thank you.

Now, risk! A little while back we chatted through the point that risks from the startup market are slipping more frequently into the public markets. This meant that the regular investor can now get their hands on more nascent, higher-priced startup equity than before thanks to SPACs and some, well, interesting public offerings.

But inside that point was the implicit argument that startup risk is also rising for its private market backers. Let’s talk about what is going on:

Startup valuations are rising thanks to ample capital availability, limited investments with strong yield and related issues. You’ve heard this bit before.

Startup valuations are also rising thanks to more investors going earlier in the investing process. Again, you’ve heard this before. But you may not be aware of how it’s a self-reinforcing issue. Large funds can invest a stage “earlier” than they might given the size of their funds, essentially taking out an option contract on a larger purchase of shares in the startup in question without risking their overall returns profile. This pushes later-stage money, generally, earlier. And valuations rise as later-stage investors are less price-sensitive to early-stage valuations thanks to a dollar differential. More simply, if you have $1 billion to invest and you put $5 million into a Series A, you don’t care that much if it’s at a $65 million pre-money valuation or a $75 million pre-money valuation. What you do care about is putting $50 million more into winners when they raise their next round.

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Walmart was a sensible first partner for the new effort

Walmart was a sensible first partner for the new effort, as the retailer has been increasingly investing in livestream events across social media. Over the past year, it hosted more than 15 livestream events across five platforms, including YouTube, TikTok and its own website, among others.

Its Twitter livestream will focus on Cyber Deals and will kick off on November 28 at 7 PM ET in the U.S. The stream will also be broadcast on Walmart.com/live, and across the retailer’s Facebook, Instagram, TikTok and YouTube accounts.

Twitter says this is the first-ever e-commerce livestream on its platform, but it plans to bring more experiences like this to its customers in the future.

The event will also serve as a means of testing the Twitter user base’s appetite for live shopping, which today often takes place on other social apps, like Instagram and Facebook, on dedicated live commerce platforms and on video services like YouTube and TikTok. But Twitter — a place where users tend to track news, events, pop culture trends, politics and more — hasn’t yet defined itself as a platform. Its overabundance of new features released in the past year feel more like spaghetti being thrown at the wall to see what sticks, instead of a carefully planned roadmap. Twitter today wants to be a home to live audio, creator subscriptions, newsletters, bitcoin tipping, NFTs, private communities and more. But, in reality, only some of these things will actually work. For example, Twitter already had to kill its Stories feature (Fleets) due to lack of traction. And its early days of Super Follow, subscriptions didn’t produce much revenue.

Snapchat is bringing AR to holiday shopping. On Black Friday (11/26), the company will launch the Snap Holiday Market, which will feature immersive AR experiences from a half-dozen brand partners, including Amazon Prime Video, Coca-Cola, Hollister, Under Armour, Verizon and Walmart. Each brand will have a dedicated storefront where Snapchat users can browse their products and deal in an AR space designed for each brand. The market will be available from the Lens Carousel and the top of the “For You” tab in the Lens Explorer.

Snap also plans to offer AR try-on and e-commerce Lenses throughout the holiday shopping season, including those from brands like American Eagle, Fendi, Diork Kaja Beauty, NYX Cosmetics, Shein and Tory Burch.The company announced a new AR stat, as well: Snapchat now sees over 6 billion AR Lens plays every day on average, it said.

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TechCrunch is beginning to roll out our annual gift

TechCrunch is beginning to roll out our annual gift guides! For those who are new, we have a tradition of publishing niche-yet-nerdy wish lists every year to help gift-givers make decisions. It can range from gadgets to upgrade your work-from-home setup, or gifts to make you less lonely.

Here’s what to know: So far, we’ve published gift guides for the work-from-home office, the video call setup and the cohort of homeowners who want to upgrade their home into a smart home. Oh, and we also published a wishlist for plant lovers and for kids who love STEM toys. Can you tell that we’ve all been inside for way too long?

Subscribe to Actuator, Brian Heater’s soon-to-be-launched newsletter about robotics by the week.

For my gift guide, I need you to DM me who your favorite solo-entrepreneur is (I know, mysterious, but how else do we build up suspense‽)

New Culture! Anyone who listens to the podcast knows that I absolutely love a cheesy startup, both figuratively and literally. This week, New Culture raised $25 million in seed funding to commercialize its cheesy vegan mozzarella. Maybe it’ll get to grocery stores soon enough!

Here’s what to know: The alternative cheese manufacturer claims that it’s far better for the environment than dairy-based cheese, which can require 56 gallons of water just to produce one ounce. New Culture also touted progress when it comes to land use.

Let’s talk about estate planning (partially because the topic is core to the latest season of “Insecure,” and partially because it feels like one of those parts of life no one, understandably, wants to plan for). In a column for TechCrunch+, Gentreo CEO and founder Renee Fry gave founders some basic estate planning tips, both for high-net-worth individuals and simple startup owners.

Here’s what to know: Fry argues that estate plans should constantly be adjusted throughout a person’s life, especially if they’re in charge of a thriving business. The fluidity of a business’ success is exciting in real time but could bring challenges when it comes to succession planning.

The app industry continues to grow, with a record 218 billion downloads and $143 billion in global consumer spend in 2020. Consumers last year also spent 3.5 trillion minutes using apps on Android devices alone. And in the U.S., app usage surged ahead of the time spent watching live TV. Currently, the average American watches 3.7 hours of live TV per day, but now spends four hours per day on their mobile devices.

Apps aren’t just a way to pass idle hours — they’re also a big business. In 2019, mobile-first companies had a combined $544 billion valuation, 6.5x higher than those without a mobile focus. In 2020, investors poured $73 billion in capital into mobile companies — a figure that’s up 27% year-over-year.

This Week in Apps offers a way to keep up with this fast-moving industry in one place with the latest from the world of apps, including news, updates, startup fundings, mergers and acquisitions, and suggestions about new apps and games to try, too.

Twitter’s e-commerce initiatives now include livestream shopping, the company announced this week, and Walmart will be the first retailer to test the new platform. The Live Shopping service will take advantage of Twitter’s existing capabilities in livestreaming content and its newer e-commerce features, like the Shop Module for business profiles. During the upcoming livestream event, users will be able to watch the show, tweet to join the conversation from the Live Events page, and browse products on the “Shop” and “Latest” tabs just below the video. When ready to purchase, users will click through to the retailer’s website where the livestream will continue — so they don’t have to miss any of the show.

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Been a great privilege to have supported from an early stage

Finally, philanthropy has an important role to play. I am very proud that I helped launch the nonprofit MethaneSAT, an organization that will police methane leaks from oil and gas operations globally through satellite imaging. Though clearly impactful, the initiative’s role as an open and objective policy enforcement tool does not align properly with a for-profit endeavor. There are numerous other important nonprofit interventions to fund and pursue.

It has been a great privilege to have supported from an early stage some of the most iconic and important companies and technologies in clean tech. But enabling these technologies and the startups around them remains only one ingredient in our fight against climate change. We cannot let the excitement about new technology distract us from the monumental infrastructure tasks needed in the near future. A substantial portion of the world’s financial capital needs to turn its attention to this space, and other forms of capital — social, political, philanthropic — must also be deployed if we are to secure a more stable future for generations to come.

This past week, I wrote about the launch of Fractional, a startup that wants to make it easier for friends (and strangers) to co-own real estate together. The co-founders, Stella Han and Carlos Treviño, bonded over their shared background of growing up in real estate families while working at Affirm, the buy now, pay later giant. However, the mission of “pay at your own pace” at Affirm clashed with the duo’s firsthand experience of the taxing time commitment and high costs that come with owning real estate; a contrast that eventually seeded the idea for Fractional.

I get more into the specifics of Fractional’s product and its recent fundraise in my story, but today I want to focus on a bit of my interview with Han, the co-founder, that has stuck with me. During our phone call, we chatted about how the future of alternative investing is built on on-ramping folks into a long-exclusionary asset class; we’re seeing it with private equity, art ownership and, now, real estate. While lowering the check size for entry matters — it’s one of Fractional’s hooks — so does the social aspect. Can you meaningfully educate a cohort of people to understand the value that they’re going to get from putting money into a home versus an index fund? Can you “disrupt” hesitation to get into business with friends? Can you plan for the unplanned twists and turns of life and someone in your investment group wanting liquidation sooner rather than later? These questions are all far more interesting, and thorny, than the logistical argument of making home ownership accessible. Fractional, I hope, will make it collaborative as well.

The way that Fractional has been preparing for the unexpected, so far, looks like some classic curation. Han explained that they’re building investment communities around specific properties, with the goal of putting together like-minded folks. “It doesn’t make sense for someone who’s thinking about flipping a property in a year versus someone who wants to hold for like five years,” she said. By eliminating major core differences upfront, and then getting lawyers involved, the startup is beginning to pacify early concerns. Still, the startup’s heaviest lift — like any business promising to bring access to a new asset — will be governance and transparently establishing expectations.

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During our early years, we were often the only capital available

First, we need to see giant sums of capital, dwarfing anything in VC, flow to low-risk, already established solar, wind and storage technology, often in countries with weaker currencies and much higher financing costs than the nearly free money we can access in the United States. By our estimates, more than $30 trillion, and therefore more than 10% of all investable capital in the world, needs to be invested in the coming decade, at rates of return of no more than a few percent; otherwise, clean infrastructure will not proliferate fast enough to combat the relentless tide of climate change.

The good news is that giant sums of capital are currently languishing in bonds at rates of return below those in renewables. One of the challenges of this decade is to incentivize other sectors of the financial markets to reallocate some of that capital, especially in emerging markets where demand for power, transportation, materials and food is growing quickly. VC, with its demand for high returns and mismatched scale of capital, will have little bearing on this giant, but pivotal, infrastructure challenge and opportunity.

Many point to “impact investing” as a way around this problem. And it’s true: During our early years, we were often the only capital available to a new startup, and therefore we had the leverage to demand a high return. We could invest in high-impact initiatives without sacrificing our financial incentives.

But as we have been joined by many new funds in pursuing clean tech opportunities, the balance between impact and return has become harder to strike. We need to recognize the potential incongruence between high returns and high impact, and VCs today need to add singular value to justify a higher cost of capital and also remain disciplined amidst great enthusiasm in the sector. It’s very tempting to chase “hot” opportunities and shift focus to proliferating more mainstream technology. From my perspective, clean tech is still ripe for breakthrough technological innovation and the best and most impactful VCs will maintain a contrarian philosophy and focus on areas that are unpopular and unable to otherwise attract capital at an early stage.

Second, the importance of government intervention cannot be overlooked. The market is not pushing incumbents in the energy and other industrial spaces to transition away from dirty, fossil-based systems fast enough. Despite the promises of net-zero pledges and the growing accountability for results demanded by shareholders, government mandates likely remain necessary to speed up this process.

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TechCrunch Global Affairs ProjectDue to short-term horizons

Read more from the TechCrunch Global Affairs ProjectDue to short-term horizons, CEOs at large companies focus on incremental growth, cost savings and other “market-driven” imperatives and cannot stomach the risks required to develop and commercialize disruptive innovation. Although history is filled with vivid lessons in disruption, big company CEOs still don’t lead. As a result, we continue to find areas where long time horizons, high risks and lack of leadership yield opportunities uniquely tailored to VC. A striking example is that 20 years after Tesla, there are still such opportunities in electrifying the transportation space. For instance, with the EV revolution now underway, the need to recycle EVs and their batteries is becoming critical to sustaining growth; the leadership position in this nascent endeavor to recycle batteries is once more occupied by a startup, Redwood Materials.

Venture investors can push forward climate-friendly disruption in many legacy industries. Take, for instance, the chemical and manufacturing sectors. The incumbent companies in these and other heavy industries are slow to act and culturally inept in reacting to disruption. VC money, on the other hand, is helping to develop technologies that will give them no choice but to adapt, such as sourcing hydrocarbons sustainably by using renewable energy to separate hydrogen from water and carbon from air and combining these elements into all the chemicals that we have until now made from coal, oil and gas. Young companies like Electric Hydrogen and Twelve are doing exactly that.

Venture is also well positioned to provide funding for experimental technologies, like fusion energy. Outside of government, there are essentially no incumbent companies in this area, and with no adjacent companies bold enough to seize the day, the field is reliant on startups. Several startups have this year attracted more than $500 million each of investment capital, including Helion Energy and Commonwealth Fusion Systems.

Despite my optimism about our ability to have an impact, we must remember that tech, let alone venture funding, is only one piece of the puzzle in addressing climate change. We must scale clean tech solutions unnaturally fast in order to combat the relentless march of climate change, and VC is not well structured as a sector to address some of those key challenges.

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Srishti Shukla is a qualified engineer in Computer Science

Not just an influencer, Srishti Shukla had earlier featured in a Telugu film titled ‘Natyam’. Moreover, Srishti Shukla is a qualified engineer in Computer Science. Besides her successful run as an influencer and an actress, she is working as a data analyst in one of the Fortune 500 companies. “The idea is to make a balance of work in professional life. That’s how you grow by learning different aspects of work in diversified fields”, concludes Shukla.

The TechCrunch Global Affairs Project examines the increasingly intertwined relationship between the tech sector and global politics.

The COP26 in Glasgow last week averted disaster but also made clear the private sector’s crucial role in tackling climate change. Besides a few notable political wins to address methane leaks and rekindle frayed cooperation between economies, it was new commitments from the private sector that perhaps hold the most promise.

Back in 2006, Al Gore’s film “An Inconvenient Truth” helped ignited $25 billion of venture investments in clean tech, mostly in the solar and ethanol sectors. Despite investors’ optimism, much of this capital burned out only a few years later, and as a result, many venture investors categorically avoided clean tech for the better part of a decade.

Thanks to our successes in the first clean tech wave, we are naturally optimistic about the role of VC in helping fund and scale game-changing clean tech solutions. Coming out of COP26 and as the world relies on the rapid adoption of clean tech to tackle climate change, it’s important that we understand VC’s further potential — but also its limitations.

At its best, the venture model enables young companies to take risks on early technology and pursue innovation in a way that large companies cannot. It might be counterintuitive, but venture-backed startups — beyond the magic created by their highly performing founders and organizations — also often outspend much larger and better-financed companies.

For a decade, Tesla, then an early-stage startup, easily outspent and outthought VW, Ford and the rest of the established car companies on engineering, designing and manufacturing electric vehicles (EVs). Similarly, startups Joby Aviation and Lilium are running circles around Boeing and Airbus on electric vertical takeoff (eVTOL) aircraft and QuantumScape is leading on next generation solid-state batteries.

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Actress Srishti Shukla aka Srish races Ahead

In a generation where social media has become a crucial part of one’s life, influencers and creators are the bridge between end-users and brands. It would not be wrong to say that the influencer culture has grown by leaps and bounds in India. There has been a myriad of changes on social media where influencers have become the medium to dispense information and are also entertaining the audience with distinct services. One of the profound names on the internet, Srishti Shukla is shaping up the influencer culture with exceptional content.

Social media has gone way beyond a networking platform and has become an ultimate podium of creating out of the box content. Going by the numbers of 2020, almost 518 million users use social media, and the number is projected to rise in the coming years. Leveraging this, many creative professionals are showcasing their talent over the webspace. Srishti Shukla, popularly known by the name Srish has often created a rage over the internet with her fashion statement and deadly dance moves.

Just like celebrities, even the influencers have made an apt choice in the decision-making power of the end-users. Srishti Shukla through her talent has proved that social media can be a game-changer if utilized smartly. Be it any sector or any industry, the advent of influencer marketing has seen an upward trend. The notable influencer feels that advertisers who hire celebrities to market products portray lives that they don’t live. “That’s where influencers have got an upper hand as they influence the purchasing power of audiences by creating credible and relatable content on the internet”, says Srishti.

Whether it is the field of medicine, entertainment or business, influencers make their presence felt in every sector. Srishti began her career with YouTube by creating dance covers after which she forayed into short video-making apps like TikTok, Josh and Moj. Her dance videos and reels on several occasions have gone viral over the internet and have fetched views in millions. An inspiration to millions of creative professionals, Srishti says, “I feel glad when my work influences people’s lives. It is all about being the change in this highly competitive world.”

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Sunday, November 28, 2021

Sofia continued the look with a cream colored cardigan and quilted designer bag to match.

Going casual on bottom, the beauty donned a pair of platform sneakers in a snakeskin pattern.

She gave her look a glitzy note with a giant 'M' pendant around her neck, likely a nod to son Manolo or husband Joe Manganiello's initials

As the star walked inside she smiled and tossed her head to the side with sass.

A pair of staple trainers is essential for every shoe collection, but that doesn't mean they have to be boring! If you're wondering where to begin, you might like to check out Sofia Vergara for inspiration. The actress looked effortlessly cool when she stepped out in West Hollywood wearing Puma kicks. The 'Cali' style features a cool snake print, chunky sole and signature branding. It's safe to say it will complement everything from a floaty midi dress to sportswear! While this exact design has sold out, click the image to get your hands on something similar. Or take your pick from the line-up of footwear in the carousel.

Sunday, November 21, 2021

Quantum Entanglement and Quantum

In the show called Quantum Leap, Dr. Samuel Beckett is able to travel in time, but only into the years of his own past. He trades places with past persons, like Lee Harvey Oswald, but is seen by others as that person. Once he has set right what once went wrong—for example, according to the show, Sam was the Secret Service agent who saved Jackie Kennedy—he ‘leaps’ into another body.

Although the show does not explain much about why he leaped into the bodies he did, there are handwaving explanations to explain how. As the title suggests, it has something to do with quantum mechanics. But it probably has nothing to do with actual quantum leaping. That’s when an electron moves from one orbit of an atom to another without passing in-between—it just appears. And that’s cool, but that’s not going to make time travel.