Author: Aaron Tosin

Candace Owens, a prominent Black activist and Trump ally, tweeted on Dec. 9 that “the same people that are out here yelling ‘my body my choice’ will be telling you that the government has a right to force vaccinate you for a virus that has a 99% survival rate.” Twitter spokeswoman Lauren Alexander said the tweets did not violate the company’s misinformation rules, which specifically prohibit false statements saying the vaccine could be used to harm or control populations.Complicating matters is Trump himself. The president — who has a history of questioning vaccines — has also been notably less vocal…

But exposure notifications only work if you and the people around you turn them on. Yes, you!There’s early evidence this anonymous smartphone technology works — but so far isn’t helping very many Americans. In August, I wrote about the first of these state-sponsored alerts, Virginia’s Covidwise app. In the three months that followed, only 488 people have used the state’s app to send alerts about a positive diagnosis to others.The alerts use software built by Apple and Google into iPhones and Android devices to detect when people (or the phones they’re holding) get into close contact with each other. That…

Matvei Svetlak is the iScanner Product Owner/Developer with more than 10 years of experience in IT. iScanner holds the top positions in the App Store as the most reliable scanner app in the U.S. 60,6M Downloads on Android and iOS. Where did the idea for iScanner come from? Matvei Svetlak: In 2014-2015, we saw the impressive rise of Utilities on the app market and decided to take a close look at this category. Surprisingly, there were almost no solid scanner apps. Like many other growing companies, we were looking for ways to optimize our internal processes, mainly document management. So, our…

Suraj Rajwani is the managing partner and co-founder of DoubleRock. Located in San Francisco, the company is a venture capital firm established in 2012. Investments promoted by the company include IoT, mobile, SaaS, and big data solutions. Companies whose growth was fostered by DoubleRock investments have experienced a high level of success in their later stages. Suraj Rajwani has an extensive background in building and operating businesses. Beginning with a business degree from the National University of Singapore, he has always been interested in the ways that businesses can grow when given the proper investment and timing. Rajwani’s business ventures range…

In his peer review of Gebru, Jeff Dean, the head of Google Artificial Intelligence, left only one comment when asked what she could do to have a greater impact, according to documents viewed by The Washington Post: Ensure that her team helps make a promising new software tool for processing human language “consistent with our AI Principles.”In an email thanking Dean for his review, Gebru let him know that her team was already working on a paper about the ethical risks around the same language models, which are essential to understanding the complexity of language in search queries. On Oct.…

If we could win?That’s the idea behind the subreddit r/outside, where about 650,000 users imagine our reality as “a free-to-play MMORPG with 7 billion+ active players,” as stated in its bio. Users post questions or stories about life as if they’re discussing a video game such as “World of Warcraft.” Though the subreddit has been around since 2009, 100,000 of those users joined in 2020. What better year, after all, to point out life’s absurdities through the lens of a video game?“Prepare to update your games because 2021.v1 is dropping only weeks from now. Hoping it patches the COVID bug,”…

Mingjie Zhai is an author, speaker, and entrepreneur. She is the founder and CEO of The Love Story Media Inc., a non-profit organization that combines media with the mission of improving mental wellbeing through expressive journaling. She is also the founder of a new writing genre called “Journal-Artism,” which fuses journaling, journalism, and the personal journey to arc one’s character while writing their narrative. This genre is the central practice of her organization. Zhai is a published author of three books; The Producer’s Playbook, Diary of a Crazy Entrepreneur, and The Love Story Playbook. She has spoken at UCLA, UC Berkeley,…

“I went on for half an hour just talking about everything that’s just amazing about Ireland and Irish people and the country, just everything. At the table next to us, a guy got up and he was gonna leave and he came over and he just said: ‘Couldn’t have said it better myself,’” said John in his best Irish accent, cracking up with laughter. Brenda jokingly called John “the greatest unpaid spokesman for Ireland.”For her, a 54-year-old Bafta-winning designer widely known for her work on the “Wizardry” series, the connection to the country goes back to her great-grandfather. Paddy O’Donovan…

Chris Onyett is the co-founder of Roketto, a SaaS marketing agency focused on large scale content strategies. His responsibilities include operations, finances, HR, and process development. He’s a digital marketing veteran with 15+ years of experience in Google Ads, analytics, and content marketing strategies and is also a HubSpot enthusiast. He enjoys sharing about the things he’s learned along the way and has been published on websites such as Foundr.com, Campaignmonitor.com, Callrail.com, and more. Prior to Starting Roketto in 2009, Chris worked for one of Canada’s biggest digital marketing agencies, Major Tom, where he quickly developed a passion for data-driven marketing. Chris…

Adriana Keefe is a Life Strategist & Empowerment Coach from Uxbridge, Massachusetts. She’s a mom of two girls, wife, and animal lover. Adriana was an award-winning Realtor, but couldn’t overcome the feeling of being stuck and lost in her life a few years ago. After a long journey of finding herself, she now helps overwhelmed and overworked women who are in the same rut recapture their identity and find fulfillment in a life they love. Where did the idea for your company come from? Adriana Keefe: My Life Strategy & Empowerment Coaching company is named after myself, Adriana Keefe! I’ve…