I wore the Oura Ring for 90 days. Here’s why I can’t stand it | Digital Trends

December 14, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Ever since I joined Digital Trends nearly two years ago, I’ve been tremendously jealous listening to my colleague, Andy Boxall, rave and rave about how much he loves the Oura Ring. Somehow or another, conversations in our Microsoft Teams meetings often turn into Andy telling me — once again — just how good the Oura Ring is. That feeling was compounded when Christine Romero-Chan joined our crew and did the same thing. And there I was, Oura Ring-less, having to take their word for how amazing the smart ring was.

So, I decided to do something about it. I got an Oura Ring for myself and have been wearing it (almost) daily since September — hoping to fall in love with it the same way Andy and Christine have.

Unfortunately, that’s not what happened.

Cultivating Prestigious Clients: A Guide | The Startup Magazine

December 13, 2023December 12, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Ultimately, the clients you serve are a representation of the kind of business you are. That’s not to say discrimination is acceptable of course, but certain measures such as your pricing, the technical knowledge required by those who understand what you have to offer, and how you market can all have an influence on this.

A high-street music store is certainly going to appeal to a different market than a guitar luthier who spends seven months handcrafting a custom guitar for a vast array of discerning clients, and the latter doesn’t need to “discriminate” for natural prestigious and understanding clients to form around him.

Perhaps you’re just starting out with such a refined enterprise, and you need to determine your best approach. This requirement can apply to any industry, from event caterers to those looking to improve their HVAC SEO rankings. Either way, understanding the clients and their needs comes first.

In this post, we’ll discuss how this approach might work differently for prestigious clients, and what tips would work best for those you hope to serve:

4 Important Finance and Preparation Tasks to Consider Before Home Renovation | The Startup Magazine

December 13, 2023December 12, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Every year, millions of homeowners consider home renovation projects, and several go through it. While everyone has their own set of obstacles along the way, one of the most important things they regret is not planning beforehand. Home renovation preparation is critical.

You may think that home renovation is a simple project, especially if you leave it in the hands of professionals. However, it is hard to overlook the challenges of home renovation. One way or another, you will face these challenges. However, you can ease their intensity by being prepared.

Here are some of the best things to consider before home renovation.

Disney: Elon Musk calls for boss to be fired over ad spat | BBC

December 12, 2023December 10, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Elon Musk has said Disney boss Bob Iger should be “fired immediately” after the company stopped advertising on X.

“Walt Disney is turning in his grave over what Bob has done to his company,” Mr Musk said in a series of posts against the media giant.

It comes just a week after he told companies that joined an ad boycott of his platform, formerly known as Twitter, to “Go [expletive] yourself”.

Some firms have paused advertising on X amid concerns over antisemitism.

Smile Direct Club dentistry aligners firm shuts down | BBC News

December 12, 2023December 10, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Smile Direct Club has shut down months after filing for bankruptcy in the US, leaving some customers confused and stranded as their treatment is ongoing.

Best known for selling clear aligners remotely, the firm said it had made the “incredibly difficult decision” to wind down operations late on Friday.

The US-based dentistry company was offering aligners for about £1,800 without the need to visit a dentist.

A last-ditch rescue attempt failed though as it was weighed down by debt.

Founded in 2014, the orthodontics company styled itself as a disruptor to the “bricks-and-mortar” dental industry.

Google’s best Gemini demo was faked | TechCrunch

December 11, 2023December 10, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Google’s new Gemini AI model is getting a mixed reception after its big debut yesterday, but users may have less confidence in the company’s tech or integrity after finding out that the most impressive demo of Gemini was pretty much faked.

A video called “Hands-on with Gemini: Interacting with multimodal AI” hit a million views over the last day, and it’s not hard to see why. The impressive demo “highlights some of our favorite interactions with Gemini,” showing how the multimodal model (i.e., it understands and mixes language and visual understanding) can be flexible and responsive to a variety of inputs.

To begin with, it narrates an evolving sketch of a duck from a squiggle to a completed drawing, which it says is an unrealistic color, then evinces surprise (“What the quack!”) when seeing a toy blue duck. It then responds to various voice queries about that toy, then the demo moves on to other show-off moves, like tracking a ball in a cup-switching game, recognizing shadow puppet gestures, reordering sketches of planets, and so on.

Apple cuts off Beeper Mini’s access after launch of service that brought iMessage to Android | TechCrunch

December 11, 2023December 10, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Was it too good to be true? Beeper, the startup that reverse-engineered iMessage to bring blue bubble texts to Android users, is experiencing an outage, the company reported via a post on X on Friday. And Apple is to blame, it seems. Users, including those of us at TechCrunch with access to the app, began seeing error messages when trying to send texts via the newly released Beeper Mini and messages are not going through.

The error message reads: “failed to lookup on server: lookup request timed out” spelled out in red letters.

End-to-End Encrypted Instagram and Messenger Chats: Why It Took Meta 7 Years | WIRED

December 8, 2023December 7, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Since 2016, the social behemoth now known as Meta has been working to deploy end-to-end encryption in its communication apps. CEO Mark Zuckerberg even promised in 2019 that the data privacy protection would roll out by default across all of the company’s chat apps. In practice, though, it was a wildly ambitious goal fraught with technical and political challenges, and Meta has only been able to move toward it in gradual, incremental steps. But this week the company is finally starting its full rollout.

“It’s been a wild ride,” says Jon Millican, a software engineer within Meta’s messenger privacy team. “I suspect this is the first time that something’s been end-to-end encrypted with all of the constraints that we’re working with. It’s not just that we’re migrating people’s data, but it’s actually that we’re having to fundamentally change a bunch of the assumptions that they work with when they’re using the product.”

Google’s Gemini Is the Real Start of the Generative AI Boom | WIRED

December 8, 2023December 7, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

The history of artificial intelligence has been punctuated by periods of so-called “AI winter,” when the technology seemed to meet a dead end and funding dried up. Each one has been accompanied by proclamations that making machines truly intelligent is just too darned hard for humans to figure out.

Google’s release of Gemini, claimed to be a fundamentally new kind of AI model and the company’s most powerful to date, suggests that a new AI winter isn’t coming anytime soon. In fact, although the 12 months since ChatGPT launched have been a banner year for AI, there is good reason to think that the current AI boom is only getting started.

Boss or Leader? 8 Principles to Truly Effective leadership | Entrepreneur

December 7, 2023December 6, 2023 ~ knjohn ~ Leave a comment

Throughout my career, I’ve seen the stark differences between mere bosses and true leaders. These experiences have shaped my leadership approach and fueled my drive to help others become outstanding leaders. In today’s ever-changing business world, understanding this distinction is critical. It’s more than semantics; it’s about inspiring belief in your vision and mission. Drawing from over forty years of experience as a business owner and through extensive leadership presentations and writings, I’ve delved into what separates leaders from bosses.

Boss vs. Leader: Understanding the difference

The terms ‘boss’ and ‘leader’ are often used interchangeably, but they represent vastly different approaches to organizational management. A boss typically focuses on processes, compliance and maintaining the status quo.

In contrast, a leader inspires change, fosters a culture of innovation and encourages team growth. This contrast is not just in actions but also in mindset; while a boss thinks about tasks and authority, a leader focuses on people, potential and possibilities.