Why Your Business Should Be on Instagram | business.com

January 14, 2021January 12, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Instagram is a great way to expand your business’s reach and engagement with your customers. Here are 12 reasons why you should make an account.

Since its inception, Instagram has proven to be a powerful marketing tool for businesses looking to expand their presence and the visibility of their products. While advertisement and sponsorship opportunities exist, getting started with Instagram is free and businesses can establish a significant following without spending a dime. If you have not jumped on the Instagram bandwagon yet, you may be doing your business a great disservice.

What is Instagram?

Instagram is a hugely popular photo and video-sharing social media platform. Users can share photo or video posts; temporary Stories that live on your profile for 24 hours; Reels, which are 15-second-max short-form videos; IGTV videos, and can even shop directly from e-commerce brands through the app.

Instagram is owned by its parent company Facebook and has over 1billion active users.

If you still need convincing to join, then check out these 12 reasons why Instagram is continuously rising in importance and how your company can benefit.

California’s Disneyland to become Covid vaccination site | BBC News

January 13, 2021January 12, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

California’s Disneyland theme park is set to become a massive Covid-19 vaccination site this week, county officials announced on Monday.

The “happiest place on earth” is one of several large distribution sites opening up in the state as cases soar and hospitals near capacity.

The most populous US state has lagged behind in its vaccination rate, doling out around a third of its doses so far.

5 Predictions for America’s Small Businesses in the Biden Era | Inc.com

January 13, 2021January 12, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Before this past year, in which the coronavirus took more than 374,000 lives and permanently shuttered around four million small businesses, few people appreciated the crucial role of the U.S. Small Business Administration as well as Karen Mills.

Today, the former SBA administrator has plenty of company. More than 7.1 million businesses received some form of aid from the agency in 2020. Over 5.2 million small businesses received a Paycheck Protection Program loan during the first and second tranches of the aid program, 1.8 million businesses received debt relief from the agency, and more than 42,300 businesses received a loan through the SBA’s flagship 7(a) loan program in 2020.

YouTube and WhatsApp inch closer to half a billion users in India | TechCrunch

January 12, 2021January 11, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

WhatsApp has enjoyed unrivaled reach in India for years. By mid-2019, the Facebook-owned app had amassed over 400 million users in the country. Its closest app rival at the time was YouTube, which, according to the company’s own statement and data from mobile insight firm App Annie, had about 260 million users in India then.

Things have changed dramatically since.

In the month of December, YouTube had 425 million monthly active users on Android phones and tablets in India, according to App Annie, the data of which an industry executive shared with TechCrunch. In comparison, WhatsApp had 422 million monthly active users on Android in India last month.

The Plan to Build a Global Network of Floating Power Stations | WIRED

January 12, 2021January 11, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

EARLY LAST YEAR, just a few weeks before the pandemic brought life in the United States to a standstill, Yi Chao and a small team of researchers dropped a slender metal tube into the Pacific Ocean off the Hawaiian coast. After nearly two decades as an oceanographer at NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory, Chao had left the space agency to commercialize a seafaring generator that can harness the limitless thermal energy trapped in the world’s oceans. His company, Seatrec, is based just down the road from his old NASA stomping grounds in Pasadena, but Chao regularly travels to Hawaii to test hardware in the tranquil, cerulean waters around the Big Island. On this trip, Chao and his team planned to push their invention deeper than it had ever gone before.

“Respect for Users”: The Reason Why Many Are Switching From WhatsApp to Telegram | Entrepreneur

January 11, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Given the changes in WhatsApp for 2021 , especially in its privacy policies, many users are moving to other messaging apps. The reason behind the change is not fortuitous and Pável Dúrov, co-founder of Telegram, explains why his application has become a favorite of those fleeing Mark Zuckerberg’s platform.

Last Friday, through a statement published on his official Telegram channel, Dúrov explained that the great attraction of his app is precisely the weak point of WhatsApp.

“I hear that Facebook has an entire department dedicated to finding out why Telegram is so popular. Imagine dozens of employees working on it full time. I am happy to save Facebook tens of millions of dollars and give away our secret for free: respect its users, ” said the Russian entrepreneur.

Real-Time VR System Enhances Therapy | CoolBusinessIdeas.com

January 8, 2021January 7, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A compelling new study, published in the journal Pain, has found integrating an immersive virtual reality system into a chronic pain treatment can significantly enhance a patient’s pain-relief outcome. The research suggests “digiceutical” therapies may be effective for patients suffering chronic pain.

The study focused on VR as an adjunct to spinal cord stimulation (SCS), a therapy for chronic pain involving a surgical implant designed to deploy electrical pulses that interrupt pain signaling to the brain. Fifteen subjects with SCS implants for chronic leg pain were recruited for the study.

Complete Chef cooks the food it processes | New Atlas

January 8, 2021January 7, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Even if you like cooking, it can still be a hassle transferring ingredients between bowls – all of which subsequently have to be washed. Cuisinart’s new Complete Chef food processor was designed with that in mind, as it also cooks what it slices and dices.

Processing-wise, the Complete Chef does all of the usual things – it chops, mixes, purees, shreds, whisks, kneads, and yes, it does indeed slice and dice foods. All of these actions take place within its 18-cup (4.3-l) stainless steel mixing bowl.

Windows 10 is rumored to be getting a major redesign. Don’t screw this up, Microsoft! | CNN

January 7, 2021January 5, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Microsoft is rumored to be working on a major redesign of Windows 10 that could bring big changes to the way the PC operating system looks and functions.

Windows 10 could use a refresh. Aside from twice-annual tweaks, Windows 10 been mostly unchanged since its release in 2015. Six years is long in the tooth for any PC operating system, and a revolution is coming to personal computers that threatens Windows’ standing as the dominant productivity operating system.

Still, Microsoft (MSFT) doesn’t exactly have the best reputation for fixing operating systems that ain’t broke. So a lot is riding on Microsoft’s ability to turn the next iteration of Windows 10 into something hundreds of millions of computer owners will want to keep using.

Woman’s garden ‘stepping stone’ turns out to be an ancient Roman artifact | Live Science

January 7, 2021January 5, 2021 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

A seemingly dull marble slab, used for 10 years as a stepping stone in an English garden, is actually a rare ancient Roman engraving, a new analysis finds.

The discovery surprised its owner, who learned that the 25-inch-long (63 centimeters) slab — a stone she had previously used as a stair while mounting her horse — dated to the second century A.D. and was worth about $20,400 (£15,000).

However, no one knows how the marble masterpiece ended up in England. It was likely carved in Greece or Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey), according to a statement from Woolley and Wallis, a U.K auction house that is handling the sale of the slab.