As such, privacy, data ownership, and corporate responsibility is top of mind – or should be. Corporations like Apple are making public commitments to privacy and stewardship of user data, both from a messaging and product design standpoint. Others (left unnamed) are dealing with data breach fines as legislation is evolving across the globe to punish those who are not part of this new order. In the face of all this, I was curious about a different perspective: what do individuals really care about?...

It struck me as a great idea given how much time we spend trying to figure each other out when we work together for the first time. The manual would provide a more explicit description of your character, personal values, and how you like to work with other people. The idea would be for you to share it with when you start working with new team members to help shorten the learning curve of having to decipher ‘you....

I am a professional musician and a professor of music technology who studies acoustics. My work investigates the intersection between the scientific, artistic, and subjective human elements of sound. Choosing the right headphones involves considering all three of those aspects, so what makes for a truly good pair? What is sound really? In physics, sound is made of air vibrations consisting of a series of high and low pressure zones....

And you wanna know the best part? They are free. That’s right — F R E E, as long as you don’t use them for commercial purposes or advertising. Among the eight background options are stills from Spirited Away, Howl’s Moving Castle, Arrietty, The Tale of Princess Kaguya, Laputa’s Castle in the Sky, Nausicaa Valley of the Wind, Ponyo, and Princess Mononoke. Whichever you choose is your call. Get it?...

“What’s that?” I hear you say. Well, it is what it says on the tin: a collection of 51 games from around the world. You can find the full list of the titles here, but it includes a whole range of fun activities, from chess to mancala, from bowling to battle tanks, and from blackjack to solitaire. And more, obviously. I only listed six things there. There are 45 others included....

To this day, it’s difficult to explain Wave. Essentially, it let you collaborate with others in real-time — a first for the web of a decade ago. But when users got their hands on it, they were left confused about what they were supposed to do with an impressive tech demo that failed to clearly spell out real-world use cases. Ten years on, Wave is dead but its legacy lives on every time you collaborate in real-time with someone else on a Google Doc....

“The 10,000 foot-view of these trends makes it clear that ‘web’ design looks more like traditional ‘graphic’ or ‘print’ design than ever. The amount of flexibility that designers in being expressive and creatively nimble is astonishing compared to just five or ten years ago,” states Khoi Vinh, Senior Director of Product Design at Adobe XD. Vinh couldn’t be more right. Having done this look ahead in design trends for several years now, I can completely agree that these trends show just how creative designers have become with making the web feel more like other types of media, such as graphic design and print design....

Suez Canal blockage In March, a 400-meter cargo ship called Ever Given wedged itself in the Suez Canal for nearly a week due to high winds and poor visibility. It was responsible for memes like: — Josh Marshall (@joshtpm) March 25, 2021 — James Felton (@JimMFelton) March 25, 2021 With over 12% of the world’s trade traveling on the Suez Canal, this left over 300 vessels at both ends of the canal from being able to move....

These superhabitable systems are generally warmer, wetter, larger and older than Earth. Stars with lifespans longer than the Sun would allow solar systems more time to develop life, researchers speculate. By cataloging superhabitable worlds, astronomers will know where to look in the search for extraterrestrial life. “We have to focus on certain planets that have the most promising conditions for complex life. However, we have to be careful to not get stuck looking for a second Earth because there could be planets that might be more suitable for life than ours,” said Dirk Schulze-Makuch, a geobiologist at Washington State University....

So, here’s some top advice to help you maximize your current home setup so that your body doesn’t suffer. Isolate and separate Before we start talking about an ideal home setup, you need to think about two things: Isolation and separation. You need to find a space with a sole purpose, one that can be used just for work. [Read: 7 tweets that show what it’s REALLY like to work from home] You should also isolate yourself from people who may interrupt or disrupt your work — although this is a common issue for people working in open offices — it’s also important to bear this in mind when you’re surrounded by family....

According to a new analysis seen by The Guardian, over the course of an EV‘s life, just 30 kg of raw materials will be lost from its lithium-ion battery — once recycling is taken into account. However, in gasoline vehicles, 17,000 liters of oil will be lost, and well, there ain’t no recycling that! The analysis was conducted by Transport & Environment (T&E), a non-profit organization campaigning for cleaner transport based in Brussels, Belgium....

Seeing how our fund is currently Europe’s most active VC, I thought I’d give founders some insight into the current fundraising climate, and spread the good news: things are not as dire as they might seem. Despite the current economic climate, our investment strategy has remained the same. We focus on early-stage startups, and we find that if the business fundamentals are strong — a great team, a strong market, and a viable product — then we have a compelling investment option....

However, unlike its competitors, the German VC market is much smaller, making the ecosystem ripe for international investors to scout new talent. According to KFW’s 2020 Venture Capital study, out of the deals exceeding $50 million funding rounds, half are led entirely by foreign VCs, while 45% are made up of a mix of foreign and domestic investors. Another advantage is that the German startup market is very diverse. Rather than being concentrated in one major city, a number of tech hubs have developed across the country thanks to the government’s Digital Hub Initiative....

It takes years of concerted effort. You have to build up habits, to the point where the line between work and time-wasting is essentially blurred. It takes a total lack of self-awareness and an inability to reflect on your own shortcomings. Not to brag, but I’m somewhat of an expert. Here are some proven strategies for burning yourself out while accomplishing very little. Multitask constantly Multitasking is a proven method for getting less done....

Those who accelerated their analytical capabilities were better able to handle huge changes in user behavior and the economic environment, as data analytics became, “an essential navigation tool,” according to senior partners at McKinsey. 2020 told us loud and clear that it would be foolhardy to always assume prior performance can predict future results. But the inexorable rise of computing power and storage, coupled with an ever-increasing array of data sources, also means that we no longer need to rely on gut decisions....

A decade ago, buying business software as a non-technical employee wasn’t exactly easy. Usually, an IT manager would purchase all of the software that was used on company machines, which largely remained in the office. The few remote workers logged into these systems using cumbersome and often slow corporate virtual private networks (or VPNs). The Software as a Service (SaaS) used today, to contrast, is based in the cloud and enables remote employees to get the same experience as those in the office....

But finding the right place to host your website can be a daunting task, especially as there are a number of reputable services, each with their own benefits and tradeoffs. You might end up paying too much for things you don’t need or missing out on things that are vital to your business. Here are five questions that will help you evaluate the services of web hosting platforms and find one that fits your needs....

It might seem like AI is smarter than humans in some ways. For example, the powerful neural networks used by big tech can sort through millions of files in a matter of seconds, a feat that would take humans more than a single lifetime. But that’s not a superhuman feat of intellect. It’s trading human attention for machine speed. On a file per file basis, there is no attention-based task a machine can beat a human at barring chance....

The 2022 Super Bowl featured a parade of commercials for companies in the crypto industry. While the majority advertised exchange platforms, one slot was reserved for a decentralized autonomous organization (DAO). DAOs are community-led organizations that share common goals, from making profitable investments to building impactful products. Instead of leaders making decisions, DAOs are managed by their members and governed by rules that are enforced on a blockchain. For more details on how they work, check out our explainer here....

But we found that Syrian refugees living in rural Lebanon often have to make difficult choices when buying essential items at the expense of food. Their e-vouchers can only be used in exchange for food, not other essentials like nappies. Refugees have to engage in “grey-area transactions” that work around the e-voucher system, by asking shop owners to sell them the nappies and instead record on the system that they bought food....