These Experience Zones are designed to help global clients across industries, such as financial services, government, healthcare, industrial, manufacturing and consumer packed goods (CPG), find new ways to derive value from generative AI, hybrid cloud and other Microsoft products and technologies.

IBM and Microsoft Open Three New Experience Zones to Provide Global Clients with More Hands-on Access to Cloud and Generative AI Solutions

The German government has approved a draft law that will allow sexual violence in conflict zones to be prosecuted as a war crime and a crime against humanity. The law will expand the definition of war crimes to include sexual assault, sexual enslavement ...

Germany moves to classify sexual violence as war crime

The Maui News Two more residential zones of Lahaina will reopen to residents and property owners this week, Maui County announced Tuesday. Restrictions will be lifted from 7 a.m. to 3 p.m. Friday and Saturday for Zones 9F and 9G,

Two more Lahaina zones to reopen this week

First identified by work crews before Labor Day in 2022, the Red Line slow zone was “being removed” as of Wednesday morning. Here is its story.

The MBTA just eliminated one of its longest-lasting slow zones

Kraft Heinz on Wednesday shuffled some of its upper management, naming a new leader for its North American business and will say goodbye to one of its longtime top executives.

Kraft Heinz names Pedro Navio new North America president

A balloon release will be held in Livingston Parish Wednesday, Nov. 1 in honor of a 4-year-old boy who drowned. A town hall organizer said they are trying to listen and consider more input. The Better Business Bureau said you could end up talking to a representative of a company that is really a scammer.

Parents in Ascension Parish can weigh in on new proposed attendance zones

A total of 325 cases of breast cancer have been detected in a five-day screening exercise carried out by the Ghana Free Zones Authority (GFZA) in collaboration with the Afrah International Hospital.The screening which took place in the Taifa – Burkina,

Free Zones Authority breast cancer screenings identify 325 cases through early detection

The government plans to review the framework set in the establishment of Special Economic Zones (SEZ) and Export Processing Zones to accommodate more participants in the space.The review comes as the Kenya Kwanza administration prioritises facilities including industrial parks in positioning Kenya as a global production hub.

Special Economic Zones, EPZs face overhaul plan

Oct. 31—Recommendations to limit the number of vacation rentals in residential zones were voted down by the Westport City Council Monday evening, marking the second time in two and a half months the body has asked the city's planning commission to ...

Westport stews on short term rental regs

Antioch Mayor Lamar Thorpe has unveiled the city’s second round of its facade improvement program, designed to help small businesses, nonprofits and

Antioch mayor announces new round of funds for businesses in high crime zones

Zones

zones

Photo courtesy of John Buie and Jason Hagerman In 2023, industrial companies experienced significant drops in sales leads and slower revenue growth. Traditional marketing methods that had worked previously were no longer delivering the desired results. In response, John Buie and his team at B2B marketing agency Journey Better Business Group Inc. developed tailored strategies specifically for the industrial B2B sector. Buie, co-author of “Imposters on the Zoom,” focused on understanding these emerging challenges to provide effective solutions. Journey’s in-depth analysis revealed that the problem extended beyond outdated marketing tactics. The rapid pace of digital transformation in the industry left many established businesses struggling to compete with newer, more agile players. As Buie points out, “Traditional strategies no longer work in today’s market. Companies are losing leads and falling behind as competitors embrace digital advancements more quickly.” Buie and his team understood that closing revenue gaps required more than just generating additional leads. They recognized the need for long-term strategies that directly address the specific challenges facing the industrial sector. By leveraging data-driven methods, Journey helps businesses adapt to marketplace changes and position themselves for sustainable growth. Expanding to New Markets Building on its success, B2B digital marketing company Journey Better Business Group Inc. is now expanding into international markets, including the UK, Germany, and Australia. Each of these regions presents its own unique regulatory challenges and business practices, which require careful consideration. Despite these complexities, Buie remains confident that their strategies will effectively adapt to meet the needs of each local market. Global B2B e-commerce is expected to grow by about 18% annually from 2024 to 2030, fueled by advancements in AI, automation, and data analytics. However, these same technologies bring new challenges, as businesses must manage the complexities associated with adopting them. Journey supports its clients through these transitions, helping them navigate the complexities of entering and succeeding in new regions. By offering tailored solutions, Journey not only assists businesses with market entry but also helps them manage the technological and operational challenges that arise. This allows companies to capitalize on growth opportunities in a competitive global marketplace. Tackling Ongoing B2B Marketing Challenges Journey Better Business Group Inc. remains focused on addressing the ongoing challenges of the industrial B2B sector. Rather than simply reacting to changes, the team develops strategies that anticipate market shifts. Their goal is to help clients close revenue gaps with data-driven solutions tailored to long-term business growth. As technology advances and market demands evolve, Journey refines its methods to help businesses manage increasing complexities and operate more effectively amid digital transformation. Their ongoing work reflects a deep commitment to helping companies stay competitive and thrive in a dynamic business environment. Photo courtesy of John Buie and Jason Hagerman Photo courtesy of John Buie and Jason Hagerman Photo courtesy of John Buie and Jason Hagerman In 2023, industrial companies experienced significant drops in sales leads and slower revenue growth. Traditional marketing methods that had worked previously were no longer delivering the desired results. In response, John Buie and his team at B2B marketing agency Journey Better Business Group Inc. developed tailored strategies specifically for the industrial B2B sector. Buie, co-author of “Imposters on the Zoom,” focused on understanding these emerging challenges to provide effective solutions. B2B marketing agency B2B marketing agency Journey’s in-depth analysis revealed that the problem extended beyond outdated marketing tactics. The rapid pace of digital transformation in the industry left many established businesses struggling to compete with newer, more agile players. As Buie points out, “Traditional strategies no longer work in today’s market. Companies are losing leads and falling behind as competitors embrace digital advancements more quickly.” “Traditional strategies no longer work in today’s market. Companies are losing leads and falling behind as competitors embrace digital advancements more quickly.” Buie and his team understood that closing revenue gaps required more than just generating additional leads. They recognized the need for long-term strategies that directly address the specific challenges facing the industrial sector. By leveraging data-driven methods, Journey helps businesses adapt to marketplace changes and position themselves for sustainable growth. Expanding to New Markets Expanding to New Markets Building on its success, B2B digital marketing company Journey Better Business Group Inc. is now expanding into international markets, including the UK, Germany, and Australia. Each of these regions presents its own unique regulatory challenges and business practices, which require careful consideration. Despite these complexities, Buie remains confident that their strategies will effectively adapt to meet the needs of each local market. B2B digital marketing B2B digital marketing Global B2B e-commerce is expected to grow by about 18% annually from 2024 to 2030, fueled by advancements in AI, automation, and data analytics. However, these same technologies bring new challenges, as businesses must manage the complexities associated with adopting them. Journey supports its clients through these transitions, helping them navigate the complexities of entering and succeeding in new regions. By offering tailored solutions, Journey not only assists businesses with market entry but also helps them manage the technological and operational challenges that arise. This allows companies to capitalize on growth opportunities in a competitive global marketplace. Tackling Ongoing B2B Marketing Challenges Tackling Ongoing B2B Marketing Challenges Journey Better Business Group Inc. remains focused on addressing the ongoing challenges of the industrial B2B sector. Rather than simply reacting to changes, the team develops strategies that anticipate market shifts. Their goal is to help clients close revenue gaps with data-driven solutions tailored to long-term business growth. As technology advances and market demands evolve, Journey refines its methods to help businesses manage increasing complexities and operate more effectively amid digital transformation. Their ongoing work reflects a deep commitment to helping companies stay competitive and thrive in a dynamic business environment.

How Journey is Bridging Revenue Dead Zones in B2B Sales

Səyahət B2B Satışlarında Ölü Bölgələri Gəlirlə Necə Bağlayır

Πώς το Journey γεφυρώνει τις νεκρές ζώνες εσόδων στις πωλήσεις B2B

Cómo Journey está superando las zonas muertas de ingresos en las ventas B2B

Kako Journey premošćuje mrtve zone prihoda u B2B prodaji

Hogyan hidalja át az utazás a bevételi holtzónákat a B2B értékesítésben?

Ինչպես է Journey-ը կամրջում եկամուտների մեռած գոտիները B2B վաճառքներում

Come Journey sta colmando le zone morte di fatturato nelle vendite B2B

כיצד מסע מגשר על אזורים מתים של הכנסות במכירות B2B

Journey が B2B セールスの収益デッドゾーンをいかに埋めるか

Jak Journey łączy martwe strefy przychodów w sprzedaży B2B

Како Јоурнеи премошћује мртве зоне прихода у Б2Б продаји

Uhambo luyidibanisa njani iNgeniso yeNdawo ezifileyo kwiiNtengiso zeB2B

Introduction Working with time zones sometimes becomes confusing, especially when you have just started to work on a timezone-dependent application, and you never had this experience before. The Timezone world is very unstable. Every year, there are a bunch of time zone changes that take place on Earth, and regular dev doesn’t think about it (and actually shouldn’t). But for a better understanding of how this time zone world exists and how it is related to the Date object, I want to go through a couple of things here. Below, I have multiple examples you’ve probably never thought about. Bare with me; you will find something new for yourself. Javascript Tools If you want to follow all the examples from this article, you only need the and tabs in Chrome. If you don’t know how to find functionality, then use this hotkey within Chrome Dev Tools: Console Sensors Sensors - Windows ctrl + shift + p - Mac ⌘ + shift + p Then type “Show Sensors” - you will get this option: When you hit enter, you get the tab, where you will be able to change your location, timezone, and locale. Sensors What I will be talking about I want to discuss two things, first is what timestamp is and second, what do those UTC/GMT, CST, CDT, America/Chicago, etc mean? Why do all these exist? How do those work with Javascript Date object? I’ll try to make it clear to you. Without further ado, let’s get started. Timestamp Let’s Imagine that you are an astronaut circling the Earth at ISS, at some point you decided to run your stopwatch, which measures milliseconds (Javascript uses milliseconds under the hood of a Date object). From the time you run a stopwatch, you never stop it. So number of milliseconds is growing with time. For every point in time, you have some number of milliseconds passed. No matter where you are living on Earth, which continent, country, city, or street - the point in time on this stopwatch is equal for everybody. It sounds pretty obvious, but I found that it confuses a lot of people. Consider this stopwatch run as a timestamp. In other words, every state in time of the Earth has a number. Ok, now we have constantly growing milliseconds, but it’s not very human-friendly. You can’t tell someone let’s meet somewhere in the future at 1893456000000 ms. This is where time zones start to take place. This date and time when our imaginary astronaut has run the stopwatch is 01 January 1970 at midnight (you’ve probably heard about ). Unix Epoch Below is a little example with 3 different timestamps and corresponding dates just for visualization. Ok, we know that at 0 ms we have the date 01 January 1970 00:00:00, but the other question is where exactly? The answer is below in the screenshot. This line which crosses part of the planet is called UTC (or UTC+0). So at 0ms all the locations which lay on this line have 01 Jan 1970 midnight. Map If you want to see exact locations, you can find them here Below, I’ll be explaining more about UTC abbreviation. The most important point here is to understand that behind the Javascript’s Date object is a timestamp. All below return timestamp (number). Number(new Date()); new Date().valueOf(); new Date()[Symbol.toPrimitive]('number'); But don’t do this in the code because there is more right way to get the current timestamp from the Date object, which is: new Date().getTime(); Ok, now that we know what a timestamp is in Javascript, let’s talk more about time zones and how they work with the Javascript Date object. Timezone and Timezone names First, let’s consider 3 different groups of time zones you’ve probably come across. . Sometimes you can see that and are used interchangeably. Even if it is not very , in our (not scientific) case let’s consider that they are the same. UTC timezone UTC GMT true ( , , , , , etc) Abbreviated timezone CST EST CDT MST EST ( , , etc) IANA timezone America/Chicago Europe/Brussels All these types represent some geographical areas, but they have different properties and behavior. UTC I’ve mentioned UTC in the Timestamp section a little bit, that we calculate our stopwatch at UTC+0 geographical locations. Let’s dive into the UTC abbreviation more. Consider UTC as the baseline for all other timezone types. It’s just a split of the Earth into 24 equal pieces 15° each (24hrs * 15° = 360°). In other words, Earth rotates 15° every 1 hour. It rotates full circle for 24 hours. Each of these 15° pieces is mimicked with UTC names, from UTC-11 to UTC+12 (including UTC+0), which in total is 24. I found a good which illustrates what I’ve just said. picture Look above and below the map (black horizontal lines). Above you can see degrees, below you can see hours. So you can use UTC these two ways. Wait a minute you would probably say but what about UTC-12 or UTC+14 which do exist for some parts of the planet, they are out of bound of -11 to +12. And this confused me at first, too. But the answer is easy, you should just understand that UTC can be used in 2 different contexts. First, I’ve just explained to you regarding equal physical pieces of the Earth and second is just time offset. But what does it mean to be time offset? Let’s take a look at what’s residing under UTC-12. You will see such a name as the , so instead of leaving those islands in UTC+12, there was just a political decision to follow UTC-12 time to be consistent with other parts of the country. If those islands wouldn’t be part of the US we would likely have seen different offsets. U.S. Outlying Islands The same story with UTC+14. The Line Islands before 1994 were in the UTC-10 timezone, but the local government decided to shift to the UTC+14 timezone to be consistent with all other parts of the republic. The other reason can be Daylight Saving time when you shift time, for example, from UTC+12 to UTC+13. Javascript allows you to set even more extreme offsets: new Date("2023-07-15T10:00:00.000-23:59") Or new Date("2023-07-15T10:00:00.000+23:59") Trying to use ±24 offset returns an invalid Date because it doesn’t make sense since 24 just makes a full circle around the Earth and returns you back to the UTC+0. It looks funny that we have 2 locations on Earth where the time between them is more than 24h. Like these two (26 hours apart): If you want to play with UTC to get more understanding of how it works, you can find an interactive map on the web like : this I mentioned above that UTC is a base of the Date object in the Javascript. It means that when you create a new Date object, it takes the current UTC+0 time and adds up the timezone offset of the user location to finally get the user local time. For example, type this date in your browser console: new Date('2023-07-15T13:00:00') You will get something like this: Sat Jul 15 2023 13:00:00 GMT-0500 (Central Daylight Time) Depending on where you are, results can differ by offset. In my case, it’s (minus 5 hours). Remember that here, we use GMT and UTC interchangeably. GMT-0500 Calculation: I like to think about Date object creation from such string in this way (and probably this is how it works behind the scenes): Javascript sees this string , parses it, and calculates the UTC timestamp for this date (converts string to timestamp). It returns the same timestamp as this static method with specified arguments: 2023-07-15T13:00:00 Date.UTC(2023, 6, 15, 13, 0, 0, 0); // returns 1689426000000 Then Javascript observes an environment where code is run and checks the timezone offset from . UTC+0 new Date('2023-07-15').getTimezoneOffset(); minutes in my case (it can be with a minus sign as well depending on where you are) +300 Then it adds minutes (or ms) to the timestamp which we got on step 1. +300 +18000000 1689426000000 Then, it creates a Date from this timestamp: new Date(18000000 + 1689426000000); You can check that you are getting the same results from these 2 Date objects creation (your results can be different because of the offset part): Or in other words, this equation is true: ( new Date('2023-07-15T13:00:00').getTime() 
  - 
 new Date('2023-07-15').getTimezoneOffset() * 60 * 1000 ) 
 === 
Date.UTC(2023, 6, 15, 13, 0, 0, 0) <Local Date Timestamp> - <UTC offset> === <UTC+0 Timestamp> The reason why I’m putting date string as an argument to here: new Date('2023-07-15').getTimezoneOffset() // 2023-07-15 argument is set is that the place where you are may experience daylight saving time (and overall historical changes have an impact on what you can get), so to run the method this way can give you different results based on where you are and the date and time you are running this function. new Date().getTimezoneOffset() Abbreviated Timezone (CST, EST, CDT, MST, etc) Ok, now let’s talk about timezone names like CST (Central Standard Time). Consider such abbreviations as other names for UTC offsets. It’s not very convenient for people to talk about time zones in the UTC language. For example, if someone asks you, “What timezone are you in?” without an abbreviated timezone, you would answer something like “UTC-6”. It would work, but it’s not very comfortable. So people decided to create such abbreviations like in the title of this section. Single Abbreviated timezone name can have only a single UTC offset, but not vice versa. For example, following abbreviations are sticking to a specific offset. But UTC offset itself can have many abbreviations. Pay close attention when you are using such names. For example, CST can be either Central Standard Time, China Standard Time, or Cuba Standard Time. So try not to create a Date object this way: new Date('15 Jul 2023 13:00:00 CST') Because it’s ambiguous (and it is not in the ). spec In my case, when I run this command in Chrome new Date('15 Jul 2023 13:00:00 CST') it treats CST as Central Standard Time. And it’s very likely it does work the same way in Chrome no matter where you are. But it doesn’t guarantee that it will work the same way forever. I tried to set up a current location in China. But anyway, it sets offset as 360 minutes or 6 hours (UTC-06) (new Date('15 Jul 2023 13:00:00 CST').getTime() 
  - 
Date.UTC(2023, 6, 15, 13, 0, 0, 0)) / 1000 / 60 So, even if you are located in China, Chrome treats CST as American Central Standard Time, not China Standard Time. My initial assumption was wrong that the browser will use offset based on the user location if you use such names that have multiple translations. The other way to check offset (probably more visually easier) is doing the following: You see that returned dates are the same, which means that in this case CST === -06:00 Another property of the Abbreviated time zones is that it relates to UTC offset, not UTC geographical split. For example, China is scattered across almost five UTC 15° slices (or five 5-hour-long areas), but their local authorities have decided to match only a single UTC+8 offset. So, China Standard Time is equal to UTC+8 offset (not a UTC slice). IANA Timezone This is the only timezone type that has historical data of the timezone of any (inhabited) locations. Time zones above, like UTC or CST/CDT, are just names for the specific offsets. Yes, they apply to specific regions of the planet, but they don’t save any historical data. For example, CST is applied during winter time for some regions, and then during summer time, CST is not applied but CDT. If any location decides not to use Daylight saving from some point in time, then they will have just CST throughout the year. Or if the location's government decides to move from one timezone to another, like the example below when Kentucky’s Wayne County in the US decided to switch from CST to EST (it happened 17 August 2000). But timezone data before this point in time will be lost. You can’t extract this information just from the CST name. This is where the IANA timezone comes into rescue. Just imagine that internally, in the browser, you have historical data like this: IANA name Offset Active from Active to America/Kentucky/Monticello UTC-06 (CST) 01 Jan 1970 16 Aug 2000 America/Kentucky/Monticello UTC-05 (EST) 17 Aug 2000 Current Also, you don’t need to think about Daylight saving time when you reference to IANA name; it already observes it instead of you. To understand it better, let’s consider some examples. You will see the power of the IANA timezone along with interesting timezone change examples. If you want to get your current IANA timezone, you can type this command in the console: Intl.DateTimeFormat().resolvedOptions().timeZone Example #1 : Can the Timezone of the geographical area be changed? Question : Yes. Answer : History Let’s explore this example when a geographical area has changed its timezone. Wayne County in Kentucky state in the US on 17 August 2000, moved from the to the . You can read more about it . Central Time Zone Eastern Time Zone here For my example I’ve taken the city of Monticello from Wayne County. It has the IANA timezone America/Kentucky/Monticello Since this change took place in 2000 then, let’s see what date and time we will get in 1999 (before the change) and in 2001 (after the change) Tech part (proof): (new Date(Date.UTC(1999,6,15,13,0,0,0))
  .toLocaleString('en-US', {timeZone: 'America/Kentucky/Monticello'})) Returns 7/15/1999, 8:00:00 AM (new Date(Date.UTC(2001,6,15,13,0,0,0))
  .toLocaleString('en-US', {timeZone: 'America/Kentucky/Monticello'})) Returns 7/15/2001, 9:00:00 AM So, in 2000 it returns 1 hour earlier than in 2001 for the same timestamp. Those two invocations differ only in the passed year to the Date.UTC static method. So it proves that the IANA timezone tracks a history. Example #2 : Is geographical area always attached to the single IANA timezone? Question : No. Actually, Example #1 can prove it as well, but I decided to take another example. Answer : History Let’s explore this example I found in the IANA log . here There is a quote from the link: The northern edge of Chihuahua resumes US DST rules.  New zone America/Ciudad_Juarez for the western half, which rejoins -07 from 2022-11-30. It means that the whole of Chihuahua in Mexico before the end of 2022 had lived under the same timezone rules. They had a timezone named . However, their local government had decided that the northern part of the Chihuahua would shift time by 1 hour during DST. What it means for IANA is that they couldn’t use the same name for the whole region. They didn’t have any other choice except to create a new name in that case. America/Ojinaga America/Ojinaga America/Ciudad_Juarez If to summarize shortly, Chihuahua before 2022 had a single IANA name , after 2022 Chihuahua was split into two halves. The first lives under an old name , and the other one lives under the timezone name. America/Ojinaga America/Ojinaga America/Ciudad_Juarez Tech part (proof): This time I want to show you how the browser is syncing with the IANA database when a new timezone change event is happening. So, we know that the event happened on November 30, 2022. Then let’s run Chrome version 106 (released September 27, 2022), which is before Chihuahua split, and then run Chrome version 118 (released October 4, 2023). 118 - because currently, I just have this version installed, and it’s far in the future from the event that took place. Run this: new Date(Date.UTC(2023, 6, 15, 13, 0, 0, 0))
  .toLocaleString('en-US', {timeZone: 'America/Ojinaga'}) Chrome version 106 returns 7/15/2023, 7:00:00 AM Chrome version 118 returns 7/15/2023, 8:00:00 AM So same code, same browser, same system time, but different results based on Chrome versions. Btw running this timezone on version 106 throws an error: new Date(Date.UTC(2023, 6, 15, 13, 0, 0, 0))
  .toLocaleString('en-US', {timeZone: 'America/Ciudad_Juarez'}) Invalid time zone specified: America/Ciudad_Juarez because it wasn’t added for the time being. Example #3 : What if we shift OS system time, will it follow timezone historical changes? Question : Yes. Answer : On 31 December 1994, Line Islands (Republic of Kiribati) changed the timezone, they shifted time to the whole day (from UTC-10 to UTC+14). Why did they do that is better to read on the , but it is an interesting case that we can use for the sake of example with the time zones. History web Tech part (proof): I took a city with the name London, no, not the one you are thinking about but the one on Kiribati island - it’s part of a group of islands. If you are curious, then this city is located . here Add a new Location in the Chrome sensors. You can use the settings I’ve set. Latitude: 1.984623759310528
Longitude:  -157.47449242454888
Timezone ID: Pacific/Kiritimati
Locale: en-US Ok, we know that in 1995, everything had changed for that location. So let’s try to check it. But now, we will not change the browser version (actually, it doesn’t make sense; specifically, Chrome didn’t exist at that time). Let’s change the system time (OS time) to somewhere in the middle of 1994, then check what Date object we will get, then shift the system time again to 1996 and do the same procedure. I’m on a Mac, so I go to the System Settings → General → Date & Time → Change the date and time. Ok, this is what the Date object will return for 1994: After changing the year to 1996: You see that in 1996, for the same system date, we are getting a different day, Jul 16 instead of Jul 15. The same effect we can get by using timeZone property of the toLocaleString method Summary From all these above: You shouldn’t hardcode IANA time zones directly in the web application if you map time zones with the specific location assuming it will be persistent forever. Above, I proved that the IANA timezone for the specific point on the map can be changed as well. This is why such an exists. API The Date object is just a timestamp. This timestamp can be treated differently based on where a user agent (browser) is. Timezone changes happen regularly, you can track it . here Knowing the IANA timezone for a specific location on a map, you can get the right date and time with respect to the historical timezone changes.

Your Guide to Time Zones on the Web: Understanding Timestamps and Javascript Dates

HackerNoon Reporter: Please tell us briefly about your background. My name is Taylor Smith and I started a company called with my friend from third grade, Kevin Yip. When we studied abroad in Hong Kong in college, we were inspired by the energy of the city. People just 3 or 4 years older than us were starting fashion lines, restaurants, and investment firms. After a weekend trip to Vietnam with friends, we decided that the most meaningful thing in life was going on adventures and challenging your comfort zones with friends. Blueboard We decided that eventually, we’d start a company around this very concept -- Blueboard is that company. (Personal background: grew up in the Bay Area; my dad worked in the semiconductor industry so I’ve been interested in tech since I was a kid; studied engineering at UC Berkeley; started my career in management consulting; left Accenture to slang solar panels door to door, which slightly concerned my parents; started a diamond/fine jewelry company that eventually reached millions of dollars in sales; then sold that business to start Blueboard with Kevin in 2012) What's your startup called? And in a sentence or two, what does it do? Blueboard helps companies send their employees on adventures (think skydiving, couple’s massages, guitar lessons, or surf camp in Portugal) after they crush it at work.
The name Blueboard comes from the “blue boards” on Sproul Plaza at UC Berkeley -- they had a collection of all of the community’s activities and adventures. Our vision is to build a digital representation of these “blue boards” for every community in the world. What is the origin story? Both Kevin and I experienced really crappy corporate recognition programs in our first jobs out of college. I remember a time at Accenture where I had just wrapped up a big project in Dallas; I had been flying out every week for months; I had gained ~20 pounds and hadn’t slept well in what felt like weeks. My manager called me into his office and told me I did a great job, and then handed me an AMEX gift card. It felt like a slap in the face. After complaining to telling Kevin about this experience, he told me that he’d received over $800 in gift cards from Pwc that year. We decided then and there that we should start a company that helped other companies thank their employees in a much more meaningful and natural way. What do you love about your team, and why are you the ones to solve this problem? Our team is a collection of adventurers and artists who truly live out the company mission: . Everyone at our company plays a role in helping tens of thousands of people get out and about into the world every year. People work their asses off to make this magic come to life, and we’re incredibly thankful and blessed to be surrounded by people who share our values and want to bring our vision to life. to challenge our comfort zones, indulge in our passions, and to try new things If you weren’t building your startup, what would you be doing? Trying desperately to make it as a music producer. Though it feels like my window is closing, I’m still hoping to play at a major festival before I turn 40. At the moment, how do you measure success? What are your core metrics? How many people are we sending . To date, we’ve sent over 60,000 people on adventures across the world, in over 50 countries. And the best part about all of this is that all of these adventures were covered financially by people’s employers! #blueboarding What’s most exciting about your traction to date? That so many diverse companies use Blueboard and think it’s the best way to recognize their employees. At first, we thought that maybe only tech companies in the Bay Area would pay for Blueboard. However, our clients have offices and locations in all 50 states and more than 50 countries! We work beyond just tech companies too - we include restaurants, property management companies, ambulance companies & manufacturers as clients as well. What technologies are you currently most excited about, and most worried about? And why? We’re interested in Apache Beam and the ability to switch between stream and batch data processing with the same code. In our tests though there is some magic going on so we’re trying to see how far Apache Beam deviates from standard python and whether it truly behaves the same in batch vs stream. We’re also excited to move our application over to Kubernetes as we are starting to reach the point where we’re interested in hosting multiple services rather than a single monolith. What we’re most worried about isn’t a specific technology but rather making sure we’re only using new technologies for a specific business case rather than first using a new technology and then trying to appropriate it to a use case. What drew you to get published on HackerNoon? What do you like most about our platform? My cofounder Kevin and I first met David when he was running social media for SmartRecruiters back in 2014. Back then Blueboard was just the 2 of us and it was more of an idea than a company. As a fellow hustler in HR tech, David was always super supportive and had thoughtful feedback and ideas for us to consider. It has been really awesome seeing HackerNoon grow, and hearing about interesting content from friends -- and Blueboard has grown quite a bit since then too! What advice would you give to the 21-year-old version of yourself? You can accomplish anything you want in a lifetime, and the best time to start is right now. What is something surprising you've learned this year that your contemporaries would benefit from knowing? The benefits of living near (or taking time to recharge near) water. I made the move to San Diego earlier this year and instantly felt more relaxed and focused than I’d been for the last several years living in SOMA (SF). I searched to find the reason behind this and stumbled upon a book called Blue Mind. As it turns out, being near water puts your brain into “involuntary attention” mode -- as waves crash or ripples move, your brain engages, but only in a passive way. These random but predictable movements actually help to replenish our brains. (Juxtapose this with the sounds and sights of a city; the chaotic and unpredictable nature of city surroundings forces your brain into “directed attention” mode, which fatigues you) I’d urge other founders and entrepreneurs to make time to recharge as often as possible because building a company is much more of a marathon than a sprint. Vote for Blueboard for Startup of the Year, San Francisco

"Challenge Our Comfort Zones, Indulge in Our Passions" Taylor Smith, Cofounder and CEO at Blueboard

In the event that you have certain rooms or regions in your home where the Wi-Fi signal is moderate or nearly non-existent, you may have a Wi-Fi no man’s land. Does it take everlastingly to stack a page on the PC in your room? Is it practically difficult to watch Netflix in the cellar? No man’s lands and moderate zones can cause your gushing sticks, PCs, and savvy home gadgets to run ineffectively, conflictingly, or in some cases, not under any condition. Think about your Wi-Fi signal like a sound wave, which gets calmer as it voyages and experiences dividers, entryways, and floors. On the off chance that you play music in one room, and afterward travel to the contrary side of your home or go down the stairs to the cellar, you may just have the option to hear the music faintly (or not in the slightest degree). At the point when you turn the radio on, you can hear the sound with less obstruction on specific channels, and it might even play somewhat stronger on a particular channel. On the off chance that you envision your Wi-Fi signal in a similar way, it’s additionally going to debilitate as it goes over longer separations, particularly as it experiences entryways, dividers, floors, apparatuses, and different snags. Do You Need A Wi-Fi Extender? In the event that you have an enormous home, a shut format with a great deal of dividers, or in the event that you have more than one story, a Wi-Fi extender can be a perfect arrangement. It can likewise be useful on the off chance that you have many individuals utilizing your Wi-Fi, or on the off chance that you have a great deal of gadgets on your system. Be that as it may, before putting resources into new gear, you should have a go at moving your switch to a progressively focal area, and particularly getting it far from any close by hindrances or potential wellsprings of electrical or radio recurrence impedance. On the off chance that essential investigating isn’t successful at disposing of no man’s lands, you likely need to investigate a Wi-Fi extender. Notwithstanding broadening your inclusion territory, some Wi-Fi extender items (like work frameworks) can likewise oversee gadget traffic for you. Your gadgets are somewhat similar to vehicles on a bustling turnpike, and the work framework can coordinate traffic, revealing to one gadget to go along these lines and another to go that way. This lets each gadget on your system get the quickest conceivable association, and you don’t encounter clog since you have an excessive number of gadgets attempting to take a similar way. Sorts Of Wi-Fi Extender Products You have a couple of various choices for broadening your Wi-Fi signal. You can utilize a work Wi-Fi framework, a Wi-Fi signal repeater, or a Wi-Fi signal extender, or even a totally different Wi-Fi passage. Every choice has its own arrangement of focal points and drawbacks. Work Wi-Fi Systems A work Wi-Fi framework is otherwise called an entire home Wi-Fi System. It utilizes a focal switch that interfaces with the modem and at least one satellite switches (or hubs) that all go about as passages for the Wi-Fi signal. Along these lines, you can put the various hubs around your home and expand your sign range a long ways past the range you’d get on the off chance that you just had a solitary switch. Work Wi-Fi System Pros You get a huge inclusion zone. You can commonly control work frameworks with a cell phone application. Work frameworks may incorporate additional highlights like parental controls or security programming. Many work systems are perfect or come or furnished with shrewd home stages like Alexa, Google Assistant, or IFTTT. You can without much of a stretch extend your work coordinate with extra satellites. Work systems are self-overseeing. They can regularly design themselves, find gadgets all alone, and locate the quickest way for every gadget. Work systems are self-mending, and the association is normally steady on the grounds that the hubs can consequently rediscover a quick and solid information way. Since work frameworks supplant your current switch totally and the entirety of the modules are intended to cooperate, work frameworks ensure that you won’t need to stress over issues with interoperability. Work Wi-Fi System Cons The framework includes more segments. A work framework for the most part replaces your current switch altogether. A work framework for the most part replaces your current switch altogether. It’s regularly more expensive than only a fundamental switch. Some work frameworks require a membership for the exceptional highlights. Wi-Fi Repeaters And Extenders Terms like “Wi-Fi Repeater” and “Wi-Fi Extender” get tossed around a ton, yet nowadays they by and large mean something very similar in down to earth terms — both are utilized to expand the Wi-Fi signal from a current switch into another segment of your home or office. You may have likewise heard terms like Wi-Fi “sponsors” or “enhancers,” and keeping in mind that there was a period that these depicted marginally various things, with regards to present day purchaser gadgets, they’re all still basically a similar at this point. Wi-Fi Repeater/Extender Pros Since these are good with practically all current switches, it implies that you don’t need to buy anything over the repeater/extender itself.You can commonly keep your current switch.You as a rule don’t have to reconfigure your current switch.It’s one of the most practical arrangements. Wi-Fi Repeater/Extender Cons The extra inclusion range can be constrained. Thus, in case you’re attempting to stretch out inclusion to a whole floor, this may not be the best alternative.Can just include and expand zones that as of now have some Wi-Fi inclusion.The repeater/extender is commonly a generally “moronic” gadget that doesn’t include any highlights past what your switch as of now does, so you’ll get less highlights than you’d get with a work framework. Wi-Fi Access Points Since Wi-Fi repeaters and extenders possibly work on the off chance that you can place them in a territory that as of now has probably some Wi-Fi inclusion, in the event that you have an enormous home and need to bring Wi-Fi to an altogether no man’s land of your home, you’ll have to include a real Wi-Fi passageway. This is a gadget that you design in to your system to make what is successfully a totally new Wi-Fi arrange in an alternate piece of your home, in spite of the fact that on the off chance that you utilize your current SSID your gadgets won’t notice the distinction. Since a Wi-Fi passageway utilizes a wired association, you’ll either need to run Ethernet links to any place you intend to find the passage, or put resources into a Powerline arrange connector to expand your system association over your home wiring. Wi-Fi Access Point Pros You can add inclusion to regions that your current switch can’t reach by any stretch of the imagination. Practically any Wi-Fi switch can go about as a Wi-Fi passageway also, so you have an abundance of choices as far as value, inclusion, and execution. You can keep your current switch, or buy a superior fundamental switch and repurpose your old one as a Wi-Fi passage. The cost will shift contingent upon your necessities, yet since many spending switches make extraordinary Wi-Fi passageways, you’ll likely compensation short of what you would for an entire home work framework. Wi-Fi Range Extender Cons You’ll have to have a wired system association where you need to put your Wi-Fi passage, which implies either running links or purchasing a Powerline arrange connector. Keeping up various switch and passageway arrangements independently can be more confused than an entire home work framework. Double Band Vs. Tri-Band? Nowadays, it’s extremely phenomenal to see switches that lone utilize single-band innovation, since the 802.11ac standard requires in any event one 5GHz band notwithstanding the standard 2.4GHz required to help more established gadgets and shrewd home frill. These are alluded to as double band switches. You’ll additionally run over tri-band switches, which add an extra 5GHz band to permit you to decrease blockage for your quickest gadgets. The 5GHz band is quicker, yet doesn’t have close to as long of a scope as the lower 2.4GHz recurrence, and its range is much increasingly affected by dividers and other strong articles. Be that as it may, since a given Wi-Fi gadget can at present just utilize each band in turn, you don’t get any profit by a tri-band switch except if you have a ton of gadgets that utilization the 802.11ac Wi-Fi 5 or 802.11ax Wi-Fi 6 measures and are vieing for 5GHz data transmission. Thus, tri-band isn’t vital for everyone, so you can at present discover quality double band Wi-Fi extenders and work frameworks also. A case of a brilliant double band framework is Google Nest Wifi. A case of a tri-band work arrange is the Orbi Mesh Wi-Fi System. The Orbi has the 2.4 and 5GHz frequencies, yet it additionally has a third backhaul radio band, which it utilizes as a committed correspondence recurrence between the switch and the satellites to guarantee that you get most extreme speeds over your whole system. Note that in case you’re including a Wi-Fi extender, you don’t have to stress over coordinating your switch as far as the quantity of accessible groups. The kind of Wi-Fi extender you pick ought to be equipped to the gadgets you have to convey Wi-Fi access to, and truth be told, you could even essentially include a solitary band 802.11n Wi-Fi extender on the off chance that you were just worried about broadening inclusion for keen home gadgets, since these never utilize the 5GHz band in any case. Equipment Cost And Setup A decent work framework with a switch and at least one satellites is going to cost you in any event $200, contingent upon the brand and highlights. You can set up the framework yourself, and most work frameworks walk you through the arrangement procedure utilizing an application or speedy beginning aide. With a work framework, you’re typically going to trade out your switch for the work switch (except if you as of now have a switch with work innovation, wherein case you can buy good satellites). With a repeater/extender, you as a rule can keep your current switch, the same number of extenders are all around good. Notwithstanding, it’s a smart thought to check the similarity prerequisites before choosing an item, particularly on the off chance that you have a more established switch. You can DIY introduce a repeater or extender in under 60 minutes, and it normally just includes picking ideal situation, connecting the gadget to a divider outlet, and interfacing it to your system. As a rule, repeaters and extenders are ordinarily an increasingly reasonable choice, and except if you’re searching for bursting quick execution specs, you can discover not too bad ones for around $50. Number Of Devices Despite the fact that this is to a lesser degree a worry with work frameworks, numerous Wi-Fi extenders bolster a particular number of gadgets. With go extenders and repeaters, that number may be really little. You may see a range extender that underpins “up to 15 gadgets” or “up to 20 gadgets.” If you need support for additional gadgets than the item indicates, it’s ideal to go with an alternate choice. On the off chance that you attempt to stack such a large number of gadgets onto an item, it’ll bargain execution and basically invalidate the point. Inclusion Area In the item’s portrayal, you’ll frequently locate an area sum that shows the extender’s inclusion run. Work frameworks will in general offer a bigger inclusion region than essential extenders, and you can undoubtedly discover a work framework that will give inclusion to up to 6,000 square feet. On the off chance that you pick an extender, you can hope to expand inclusion by around 1,200 square feet. Some extenders have littler or bigger inclusion territories, yet 1,200 square feet is entirely normal. In case you’re willing to wire in a Wi-Fi passage somewhere else in your home, you’ll have an a lot more extensive scope of choices, since you can pick anything from a $50 spending switch to a better quality long-go switch, as per your necessities. While picking an item, likewise remember that a work framework speaks to add up to inclusion, while a Wi-Fi extender speaks to extra inclusion. In this manner, on the off chance that you buy a work framework that covers 5,000 square feet, you’re supplanting your switch with a work switch and satellites, so you have 5,000 square feet of inclusion altogether. On the off chance that you buy an extender with 1,200 square feet of inclusion, that inclusion is notwithstanding your switch, so if your switch gives 2,000 square feet of inclusion, you can expect around 3,200 square feet of absolute inclusion—accepting you place the Wi-Fi extender at the very edge of your current switch’s range. Much of the time, you’ll likely wind up with some cover. Previously published at http://kbwebdeveloper.in/reasons-for-wi-fi-dead-zones/

Major Reasons Why You Have Wi-Fi Dead Zones

By Isaac Kohen, Teramind “For programmers, the ultimate office perk is avoiding the office entirely.” — 2017 Quartz Poll While , the number of distributed t teams is growing at an incredible rate, outpacing other industries by a wide margin. In fact, in the needs and desires of computer programmers, remote work ranked as the second highest priority. remote work in all sectors has increased developmen a survey investigating There are many ideal factors to this setup. For instance, remote work can boost productivity while reducing the costs of office space and other accouterments. As a of computer programmers revealed, “a programmer is likely to get just one uninterrupted 2-hour session in a day.” As a result, for many development teams, remote work is an unquestioned reality, but that’s not to say that it’s not without its own set of challenges. study on the habits Especially for project managers, overseeing a distributed workforce can seem impossible. Productivity issues, project timeliness, and communication protocols can slow a team’s progress, making the product more expensive and less efficient. Fortunately, the right can make all the difference. technology Employee monitoring software, once a clumsy product that harkened the ethos of big brother, is having a renaissance in the age of remote work. The newest iterations are sleeker and more competent, offering companies a granular approach to employee monitoring that prioritizes data-driven personnel decisions that impact the bottom line. Ultimately, while employee monitoring software can’t fix all of the problems associated with a distributed development team, it’s an important tool in the company’s toolkit, making specific improvements to the decentralized workflow. Here are just a few ways that employee monitoring software can help companies manage a remote, distributed, multi-time-zone development team. Productivity To be sure, remote work offers an unprecedented opportunity for developer productivity. Computer programming requires immense concentration, and when developers are not required to be in an office, they can choose a work time and a location that is most conducive to their habits. Of course, it also presents an opportunity for employees to disengage, which indicate happens frequently. However, with employee monitoring software, managers can quantify a developer’s work time, and they can verify that programmers are engaging with apps that indicate productivity. some studies More than counting the number of hours worked, managers can gain useful insights into an employee’s work habits, allowing everyone to work more collaboratively and intentionally. Timeliness Software developers frequently operate under tight deadlines, and managers need to remain informed about a job’s progress. When development teams are working across different locations and even different time zones, communicating and evaluating this progress becomes complicated. Therefore, by deploying employee monitoring software across the company, it’s possible to monitor effort into prioritized tasks and to measure progress towards delivering projects within established timeframes. Data-Driven Decision Making Employee monitoring software provides managers with insider access to the quantity and the quality of the work produced. Everything from time spent on project-based applications to customer interactions can be captured using the software, and that information equips companies to be strategic with their personnel. For example, talented programmers who consistently engage in poor client communications can be shifted to a position that is less customer facing, which maximizes the developer’s strengths while also protecting the company. Since distributed development teams will continue to proliferate, improving that process is tremendously important. Without insight into a development team’s work, managers are blind to potential problems until they become disastrous. In contrast, employee monitoring software creates an informed environment that fosters communication, collaboration, and content creation. About the Author: Isaac Kohen is the Founder and Chief Technology Officer of Teramind , a leading, global provider of employee monitoring, insider threat detection, and data loss prevention solutions. Follow on Twitter: @teramindco and connect on LinkedIn .

Hiring Across Time Zones: Leveraging tech to manage remote software teams

We brought a unique coding platform and cohort-based model to the American market. And it didn’t go as planned. Here is why, and how we fixed it. Launching an EdTech product in a competitive and foreign market is challenging — and yet exciting. You never really know if it will work. Even after studying other startups’ failures and successes, analyzing competitors, and tracking market trends, there’s always something unexpected to prepare for. In this article, let’s explore a real EdTech product case: how we changed one of our product’s core features for a new market - and how it turned out. 🛬 A Coding Platform and Structured Cohort-Based Learning Model At the time of launching a product, our team was small, and we’d seen how well the structured, interactive learning system worked in an online learning system. It seemed logical to try the same setup: an interactive coding platform, a cohort-based program with strict deadlines, active support from mentors and tutors, and a strong, structured curriculum. The team did the homework - we analyzed the market, looked at competitors, prepared a plan - and yes, some main competitors already have been offering similar models, with mentoring or cohort elements. Not everyone had a custom learning platform, though, so we thought we had a technical advantage there. So, we launched with a classic EdTech format: students start in a cohort on a fixed date, progress together, and if they fall too far behind, they take an “academic break” and rejoin a later cohort. It made sense to us. It worked well with a lot of markets and users. In the U.S.? It turned out not so much. 💥 What Went Wrong American users didn’t really click with the model. Even though the feedback at first was great and positive, and there were some really strong cohorts where students bonded and made it all the way through together - retention there was over 75% even a year later. But in general, financial metrics and learning analytics clearly showed that there were issues in motivation, retention, and sticking to the deadlines. Different time zones of students and tutors, the need for more flexibility, and the expectation of being able to balance between part-time learning and real life - it all didn’t go well with our initial structure. The coding projects were technically challenging and time-intensive. Deadlines were hard. Students get stressed. And stress led to churn. The academic break system didn’t help as planned -  in fact, it hurt retention badly. It felt like a failure to the students, even if that wasn’t the intention. So, we had to rethink the whole thing ASAP before it was too late. One of the challenges was to implement something new from scratch in the middle of the learning process on the online platform and ruin users’ progress and our promises. It also was quite bounded to the legal side of educational services, and this is something that should be considered from the first place. 🔄 Rebuilding the Learning Model and Switching to Something New From Scratch We ran a full discovery process. We spoke to the teams, independent experts and consultants, students, competitors, and U.S.-based learning designers. We dove into best practices across global EdTech. And based on what we learned, there was a full redesign of our learning model and platform technical opportunities. We shifted from strict cohort-based learning to a flexible model, introducing recommended deadlines as milestones, reducing the emotional pressure of failure. We redesigned the platform logic, the tone of our communications, the way we positioned the product, and the structure of student support. Instead of being tied to a single tutor, students had access to multiple mentors at once - this expanded their network and let them learn from different industry professionals by attending workshops conducted by different experts. We removed “academic breaks” and replaced them with a limited number of “extra weeks” students could request if they needed more time. We even started to notify them ahead of time: “This stage might be tricky — save your ‘ladder’ for later.” Like in a game, and it helped. It made the experience much more personal, more flexible, and much more aligned with American learning culture. Retention was thriving, and we got plenty of positive feedback and boosted financial metrics along with learning analytics. However, it was not something we had to stop at - EdTech is constantly changing, and even now, we implemented plenty of changes to this structure, yet keep providing our users with personalized flexibility, but better managed. 🎯 How to Listen to Vague Feedback and Create a Hypothesis Talking to the users is known as one of the most important parts of product development. And we constantly did it via feedback surveys, customer development interviews, UX research, etc. But the issue was that feedback was sometimes polite but vague. Especially in early interviews, we’d get generic answers that didn’t really help us validate specific hypotheses. For example, when users drop out, they might say “financial reasons.” But... what does that actually mean? Did we not offer the right payment plans? Were they unmotivated? Or maybe they actually didn’t like the course - but didn’t want to say that? What always helped when we were in the dark was that we reviewed their learning experience journeys in detail before going on the UX interview. Sometimes, we could see early predictors of churn or dropping motivation. Or it could be a totally different situation - having highly motivated students and unexpected refund requests with vague answers. It was tough when the feedback lacked specificity. Compared to students from other markets we worked with -  who were often more direct - this felt like trying to read between the lines sometimes. Even exit interviews weren’t always that helpful. So, we had to learn how to listen better. And here is when active listening proved itself as a real deal. On calls, we started tossing in hypotheses like: “So, would a feature like this have helped you stay on track?” And suddenly, they’d open up with way more detail. Another example was to offer students to share their feedback with team members related to the problem - if it was financial, then it was the sales or Product Manager responsible for the payment options. In case of technical or curriculum problems, we sometimes invited several team members on the UX interview - from development and curriculum teams. In addition to the interviews, we completely changed our feedback surveys and rephrased questions - it did make a difference as well as a preliminary step before the exit interview. We also made sure that people involved in the interviews knew the product from within and completed at least a small part of it as if they were students so that they would speak with them using the same language. 🤖 Offering Free Content Wasn’t as Attractive as We Thought Another thing that didn’t land? Letting users self-explore the platform and our product. We’d hoped students would find the course, go through a free trial, check how great and interactive it was, book a call with sales if interested, and enroll. But that path rarely worked, especially since the idea was to “try something with no commitment.” It actually worked way better when a sales representative - admission advisor or career advisor - talked to them first, walked them through career paths, compared programs, helped them reflect on their goals and motivation, discussed financial plans, and saw if there was a match. That human connection created clarity and trust, and self-service never quite matched that. What also worked greatly was offering users to start any program earlier with a very affordable fee (around $100) with platform and expert guidance, career advice, and support from our side. There was no commitment to prolong this fee and turn it into program payment - just to explore the platform with all features - not alone, but with personalized support right from the start. This way, both the company and the user were committed and interested in the outcome, and we guided students all the way long without pressure. Some Final Thoughts You can’t just copy-paste a model from one country to another and expect it to fit perfectly. Even when the format is strong and the platform is solid, culture and user behavior shape everything - from how people learn to how they give feedback and to what they expect from tech. We made a lot of assumptions. We got plenty of things wrong. But we listened, iterated, and rebuilt key parts of the experience - and we were not afraid of doing so. And eventually, it worked. Students responded. Retention improved. The learning journey felt more natural, more empowering, and more engaging. We brought a unique coding platform and cohort-based model to the American market. And it didn’t go as planned. Here is why, and how we fixed it. We brought a unique coding platform and cohort-based model to the American market. And it didn’t go as planned. Here is why, and how we fixed it. Launching an EdTech product in a competitive and foreign market is challenging — and yet exciting. You never really know if it will work. Even after studying other startups’ failures and successes, analyzing competitors, and tracking market trends, there’s always something unexpected to prepare for. In this article, let’s explore a real EdTech product case: how we changed one of our product’s core features for a new market - and how it turned out. 🛬 A Coding Platform and Structured Cohort-Based Learning Model At the time of launching a product, our team was small, and we’d seen how well the structured, interactive learning system worked in an online learning system. It seemed logical to try the same setup: an interactive coding platform, a cohort-based program with strict deadlines, active support from mentors and tutors, and a strong, structured curriculum. The team did the homework - we analyzed the market, looked at competitors, prepared a plan - and yes, some main competitors already have been offering similar models, with mentoring or cohort elements. Not everyone had a custom learning platform, though, so we thought we had a technical advantage there. So, we launched with a classic EdTech format: students start in a cohort on a fixed date, progress together, and if they fall too far behind, they take an “academic break” and rejoin a later cohort. It made sense to us. It worked well with a lot of markets and users. In the U.S.? It turned out not so much. 💥 What Went Wrong American users didn’t really click with the model. Even though the feedback at first was great and positive, and there were some really strong cohorts where students bonded and made it all the way through together - retention there was over 75% even a year later. But in general, financial metrics and learning analytics clearly showed that there were issues in motivation, retention, and sticking to the deadlines. Different time zones of students and tutors, the need for more flexibility, and the expectation of being able to balance between part-time learning and real life - it all didn’t go well with our initial structure. The coding projects were technically challenging and time-intensive. Deadlines were hard. Students get stressed. And stress led to churn. The academic break system didn’t help as planned -  in fact, it hurt retention badly. It felt like a failure to the students, even if that wasn’t the intention. So, we had to rethink the whole thing ASAP before it was too late. One of the challenges was to implement something new from scratch in the middle of the learning process on the online platform and ruin users’ progress and our promises. It also was quite bounded to the legal side of educational services, and this is something that should be considered from the first place. 🔄 Rebuilding the Learning Model and Switching to Something New From Scratch We ran a full discovery process. We spoke to the teams, independent experts and consultants, students, competitors, and U.S.-based learning designers. We dove into best practices across global EdTech. And based on what we learned, there was a full redesign of our learning model and platform technical opportunities. We shifted from strict cohort-based learning to a flexible model, introducing recommended deadlines as milestones, reducing the emotional pressure of failure. We redesigned the platform logic, the tone of our communications, the way we positioned the product, and the structure of student support. Instead of being tied to a single tutor, students had access to multiple mentors at once - this expanded their network and let them learn from different industry professionals by attending workshops conducted by different experts. We removed “academic breaks” and replaced them with a limited number of “extra weeks” students could request if they needed more time. We even started to notify them ahead of time: “This stage might be tricky — save your ‘ladder’ for later.” Like in a game, and it helped. It made the experience much more personal, more flexible, and much more aligned with American learning culture. Retention was thriving, and we got plenty of positive feedback and boosted financial metrics along with learning analytics. However, it was not something we had to stop at - EdTech is constantly changing, and even now, we implemented plenty of changes to this structure, yet keep providing our users with personalized flexibility, but better managed. 🎯 How to Listen to Vague Feedback and Create a Hypothesis Talking to the users is known as one of the most important parts of product development. And we constantly did it via feedback surveys, customer development interviews, UX research, etc. But the issue was that feedback was sometimes polite but vague. Especially in early interviews, we’d get generic answers that didn’t really help us validate specific hypotheses. For example, when users drop out, they might say “financial reasons.” But... what does that actually mean? Did we not offer the right payment plans? Were they unmotivated? Or maybe they actually didn’t like the course - but didn’t want to say that? What always helped when we were in the dark was that we reviewed their learning experience journeys in detail before going on the UX interview. Sometimes, we could see early predictors of churn or dropping motivation. Or it could be a totally different situation - having highly motivated students and unexpected refund requests with vague answers. It was tough when the feedback lacked specificity. Compared to students from other markets we worked with -  who were often more direct - this felt like trying to read between the lines sometimes. Even exit interviews weren’t always that helpful. So, we had to learn how to listen better. And here is when active listening proved itself as a real deal. On calls, we started tossing in hypotheses like: “So, would a feature like this have helped you stay on track?” And suddenly, they’d open up with way more detail. Another example was to offer students to share their feedback with team members related to the problem - if it was financial, then it was the sales or Product Manager responsible for the payment options. In case of technical or curriculum problems, we sometimes invited several team members on the UX interview - from development and curriculum teams. In addition to the interviews, we completely changed our feedback surveys and rephrased questions - it did make a difference as well as a preliminary step before the exit interview. We also made sure that people involved in the interviews knew the product from within and completed at least a small part of it as if they were students so that they would speak with them using the same language. 🤖 Offering Free Content Wasn’t as Attractive as We Thought Another thing that didn’t land? Letting users self-explore the platform and our product. We’d hoped students would find the course, go through a free trial, check how great and interactive it was, book a call with sales if interested, and enroll. But that path rarely worked, especially since the idea was to “try something with no commitment.” It actually worked way better when a sales representative - admission advisor or career advisor - talked to them first, walked them through career paths, compared programs, helped them reflect on their goals and motivation, discussed financial plans, and saw if there was a match. That human connection created clarity and trust, and self-service never quite matched that. What also worked greatly was offering users to start any program earlier with a very affordable fee (around $100) with platform and expert guidance, career advice, and support from our side. There was no commitment to prolong this fee and turn it into program payment - just to explore the platform with all features - not alone, but with personalized support right from the start. This way, both the company and the user were committed and interested in the outcome, and we guided students all the way long without pressure. Some Final Thoughts You can’t just copy-paste a model from one country to another and expect it to fit perfectly. Even when the format is strong and the platform is solid, culture and user behavior shape everything - from how people learn to how they give feedback and to what they expect from tech. We made a lot of assumptions. We got plenty of things wrong. But we listened, iterated, and rebuilt key parts of the experience - and we were not afraid of doing so. And eventually, it worked. Students responded. Retention improved. The learning journey felt more natural, more empowering, and more engaging.

EdTech Startup Ups and Downs: Launching a Product in the USA

EdTech Startup Ups and Downs: በዩናይትድ ስቴትስ ውስጥ አንድ ምርት ለመጀመር

EdTech Startup Ups and Downs: মার্কিন যুক্তরাষ্ট্রে একটি পণ্য চালু

EdTech Startup Ups and Downs: Lanzamiento de un producto en Estados Unidos

EdTech Startup Ups and Downs: Egy termék indítása az USA-ban

EdTech Startup Ups and Downs: 米国で製品を立ち上げる

EdTech Startup Ups and Downs: запуск продукта в США

EdTech Startup Ups na Downs: Kuanzisha bidhaa katika Marekani

EdTech Startup Ups at Downs: Lansahin ang isang produkto sa USA

“EdTech Startup Ups and Downs”: Amerikada bir produkt lansiya

I-EdTech Startup Ups and Downs: Ukusuka kwimveliso e-USA

There’s a man in Quezon City who’s walked the same four-block scrap route for over a decade. No ID. No payroll. But everyone on that street knows him. He’s the one who always shows up. He knows which households throw out copper. Which mornings have better yield. Which buyers underreport weight. He’s an informal economist in flip flops, a master of urban logistics, running on instinct and sweat. But if he gets hit by a truck tomorrow, no system will remember he ever existed. But if he gets hit by a truck tomorrow, no system will remember he ever existed. Multiply him by 20 million. That’s the global informal waste workforce. Coordinating without apps. Surviving without systems and operating critical infrastructure for cities that don’t acknowledge them. Multiply him by 20 million. global informal waste workforce This is the invisible backbone of the urban economy. And it has no record. And it has no record. And it has no record. The Cost of Being Unrecorded The Cost of Being Unrecorded Trash collectors show up every day. Rain, heat, rats. Doesn’t matter. They work. But because no one tracks it, no one counts it. And if no one counts it, nothing else follows. nothing else follows. No bank will touch them. No landlord will trust them. No government will say, “You’ve earned anything at all.” A man can pick up trash for ten years and still be denied a loan—because the system says he’s done nothing. No button says “verify effort”, no checkbox for “lifted 10 tons of metal with bare hands.” A man can pick up trash for ten years and still be denied a loan—because the system says he’s done nothing. And so the cycle holds: You do the labor. The world forgets. You start over again. You start over again. Blockchain Said It Was Built for This. What Happened Was The Opposite. Blockchain Said It Was Built for This. What Happened Was The Opposite. Crypto made promises: Bank the unbanked. Serve the trustless. Remember the forgotten. Instead, it mostly gave us cartoon auctions and self-referential tokenomics. Proof-of-work became a GPU contest. Proof-of-stake turned into who showed up rich. DAOs became Discord clubs run by mods with multisigs. Meanwhile, the people with no ID, no credit, and no system? Still off-chain. Still unverified. Still invisible. Blockchain didn’t get a bad rep because it aimed too low. Maybe it forgot to look down. Blockchain didn’t get a bad rep because it aimed too low. Maybe it forgot to look down. Blockchain didn’t get a bad rep because it aimed too low. Maybe it forgot to look down. Blockchain didn’t get a bad rep because it aimed too low. Maybe it forgot to look down. Waste Is Already Decentralized—But It Can’t Grow Without Proof Waste Is Already Decentralized—But It Can’t Grow Without Proof There’s no company, no contract, no bosses. Just people who show up, know their routes and move what no one else will. Self-coordination? Yes.


Peer enforcement? Absolutely.


Reputation-based access? It’s all they’ve got.


Incentives? Survival-level aligned. Self-coordination? Yes. Self-coordination? Yes. Yes. Peer enforcement? Absolutely. Peer enforcement? Absolutely. Absolutely. Reputation-based access? It’s all they’ve got. Reputation-based access? It’s all they’ve got. It’s all they’ve got. Incentives? Survival-level aligned. Incentives? Survival-level aligned. Survival-level aligned. It runs like a DAO—minus one thing: the ledger. And that’s the problem. It runs like a DAO—minus one thing: the ledger. And that’s the problem. It runs like a DAO—minus one thing: the ledger. And that’s the problem. Even though this operation is ruthlessly efficient, it can’t grow. No logs, no trail, and no compounding value. Every effort disappears by morning. Nothing lasts. Even though this operation is ruthlessly efficient, it can’t grow. Nothing lasts. That’s not failure; it’s what happens when no one writes it down. it’s what happens when no one writes it down. it’s what happens when no one writes it down. The Garbage DAO: A Protocol For The Smelly The Garbage DAO: A Protocol For The Smelly No app, no marketplace. This protocol does one thing: it remembers the labor the world forgot. This protocol does one thing: it remembers the labor the world forgot. A system so small, so resilient, so boring—it outlasts everything. It’s a machine for remembering effort and finally lets that work compound into something more than sweat. A system so small, so resilient, so boring—it outlasts everything. It’s a machine for remembering effort and finally lets that work compound into something more than sweat. It’s a machine for remembering effort What It Has To Survive What It Has To Survive This system has no startup runway, no, onboarding flow, and absolutely zero margin for error. So it has to work when: • You have no signal • Your phone is dying • You share your device with three other people • The scrapyard doesn’t know what blockchain is • Someone’s trying to spoof the system • And nobody cares about the tech This protocol assumes chaos is the norm, not the outlier. assumes chaos What It Has To Deliver What It Has To Deliver If it can’t do all five of these, it’s not worth building: 1. A way to log work without friction 2. A way to verify work happened, sometimes without the need of another human being present 3. A way to tie that work to reputation 4. A way to trigger payout 5. A way to let that record grow into power And it has to do all of it without the collector knowing what “blockchain” means. without the collector knowing what “blockchain” means. 1. Collection Layer — No App, No Problem 1. Collection Layer — No App, No Problem The collector picks up the trash. They log it with whatever they have: • Snap a photo • Scan a QR code • Send an SMS code from a dumbphone No apps. No account creation. Just a trace. The action stays the same. The difference is: now it counts. The action stays the same. The difference is: now it counts. 2. Verification Layer — No Co-Sign, No Coin 2. Verification Layer — No Co-Sign, No Coin Spoofing is real. Trust is fragile. So every pickup needs a co-signature: • Peer + peer • Collector + buyer • Collector + sensor (weight, NFC tag, timestamped bin) This two-party validation locks down credibility without needing a single KYC’d identity. Sybil resistance based on sweat, not social tokens. Sybil resistance based on sweat 3. Storage Layer — Logs Don’t Die When The WiFi Does 3. Storage Layer — Logs Don’t Die When The WiFi Does Logs get stored locally—on-device, kiosk, or even printed QR. They’re batched and synced when signal comes back. Then they’re pushed: • To IPFS or Arweave for permanence • Then anchored to a low-fee chain (Polygon, Celo, Solana—whatever works locally) This isn’t built for uptime. It’s built to fail gracefully, and still remember the work. It’s built to fail gracefully, and still remember the work. 4. Reward Layer — Trash In. Tokens Out. 4. Reward Layer — Trash In. Tokens Out. Once a log is verified, the collector gets paid. Not someday. Not after approval. Automatically, in something like SpaceCoin. The coin of choice should be: Automatically, in something like SpaceCoin. • Stable, programmable, and designed for real-world use • Works across wallets, SMS relays, and low-friction interfaces • Spendable as food credit, airtime, or local cash-out • No volatility. No speculation. Just payout. Labor needs to meet liquidity near instantaneously, or these scavengers are out. liquidity near instantaneously, or these scavengers are out. 5. Reputation Layer — A Resume You Can’t Fake 5. Reputation Layer — A Resume You Can’t Fake Every verified pickup earns non-transferable tokens: non-transferable tokens • Soulbound to a wallet or device • Logged with timestamp, zone, and co-signature • Impossible to fake at scale, impossible to transfer This becomes your reputation collateral. Not for status, but for trust to: reputation collateral • Get higher-paying routes • Settle disputes • Represent zones in governance • Trigger faster payouts If the system forgets you, you’re no one. If it remembers you, you matter. This layer turns memory into economic leverage. This layer turns memory into economic leverage. This layer turns memory into economic leverage. 6. Governance Layer — No Sweat, No Seat 6. Governance Layer — No Sweat, No Seat You can’t outsource governance for a system like this. Governments can’t manage it—they don’t know who’s working or where. Corporations won’t—they don’t see a business model. NGOs try—but they leave when the grant ends. The only people qualified to govern this protocol are the ones who keep it alive. The only people qualified to govern this protocol are the ones who keep it alive. Because they know: • Who’s hauling and who’s faking it • Which routes matter and which ones are pointless • What’s broken, what’s working, and what no whitepaper ever predicted So the protocol says: fine. If you’ve shown up a hundred times, you decide how the next hundred work: If you’ve shown up a hundred times, you decide how the next hundred work: • You stake your rep to claim new zones • You vote with tokens earned through sweat, not speculation • You fix what’s broken—because you’re the one living with it This isn’t “decentralized governance” as idealism. A DAO is the only structure that matches the system’s lived complexity. And if someone’s picking up trash at 3am while the rest of the city pretends it doesn’t exist—they deserve more say than anyone watching from a dashboard. This isn’t “decentralized governance” as idealism. A DAO is the only structure that matches the system’s lived complexity. And if someone’s picking up trash at 3am while the rest of the city pretends it doesn’t exist—they deserve more say than anyone watching from a dashboard. they deserve more say than anyone watching from a dashboard. 7. Treasury Layer — Proof Brings the Payouts 7. Treasury Layer — Proof Brings the Payouts Nobody funds potential anymore. They fund receipts. Once every pickup is logged, verified, and priced—cleanup becomes an asset. That’s when the money comes in: receipts cleanup becomes an asset. • ESG budgets need proof of environmental impact • Cities want pay-per-performance waste contracts • Climate funds will pay to remove plastic and offset carbon • Brands will sponsor zones—if they can prove the work happened But none of them want to wire money to a nonprofit promising to do good. They want verifiable guarantees, priced by the bag. They want verifiable guarantees, priced by the bag. That’s what the treasury delivers. It holds funds in something like SpaceCoin, releases payouts automatically, and logs every transaction—public, permanent, auditable. The more cleanup gets verified, the more capital flows in. Not as charity. As purchase. SpaceCoin Not as charity. As purchase. And for the first time, the more waste disappears, the harder it is to ignore who made it happen. And for the first time, the more waste disappears, the harder it is to ignore who made it happen. And for the first time, the more waste disappears, the harder it is to ignore who made it happen. The Market Everyone Missed The Market Everyone Missed This wasn’t a product waiting to be invented. It was a market already in motion. Decentralized. High volume. Global. All it lacked was a ledger. All it lacked was a ledger. And no one in tech thought to build one. Not because it didn’t make sense—but because it didn’t look like a startup. It looked like labor. It reeked of rot. It had maggots. And that was enough for everyone to look away. And that was enough for everyone to look away. And that was enough for everyone to look away. Redemption In Rubbish Redemption In Rubbish Web3’s reputation crisis doesn’t come from the tech. That’s always been fine. It just got pointed at pixelated monkeys and governance tokens for apps with seven users and nine multisigs. Maybe redemption doesn’t come building for the future, but for filth. The one that lives behind your supermarket at 3am, where the air burns, and the bags leak. Maybe redemption doesn’t come building for the future, but for filth. The one that lives behind your supermarket at 3am, where the air burns, and the bags leak. This is a chance to earn both kinds of street cred: This is a chance to earn both kinds of street cred: The kind that smells. The kind that smells. And the kind Wall Street takes seriously. And the kind Wall Street takes seriously.

Proof Of Waste: Why the Blockchain Belongs In The Dumpster

📰 How Did Bybit Recover So Quickly After a Major Hack? 📰 How Did Bybit Recover So Quickly After a Major Hack? When a major cryptocurrency exchange faces a hack, the aftermath can often last for months, if not years. So how did Bybit—the world’s second-largest crypto exchange by trading volume—manage to regain market confidence and recover trading volume within weeks? Bybit second-largest crypto exchange A new report by digital asset research firm Block Scholes explores the incident and what it calls a “sharp but brief” liquidity disruption on Bybit, analyzing the exchange's market recovery through technical indicators, spot data, and peer comparisons. The data reveals a combination of early infrastructure deployment and tactical innovations aimed at protecting retail traders. new repor A Short-Lived Disruption: The Immediate Aftermath In the wake of the hack, Bybit saw trading volumes drop and order book depth thin out. Block Scholes attributes this to both the security breach and an ongoing market downturn. However, the disruption was temporary. The report states: “While the hack triggered a sharp but brief disruption in volumes and order book depth — particularly in the BTC and ETH markets — bid-ask spreads across major tokens remained largely intact.” “While the hack triggered a sharp but brief disruption in volumes and order book depth — particularly in the BTC and ETH markets — bid-ask spreads across major tokens remained largely intact.” Bybit's ability to keep bid-ask spreads stable despite thinner order books hinted at an underlying mechanism countering the market volatility. That mechanism, the report shows, was already in motion before the hack even took place. What is RPI and Why Did It Matter? Retail Price Improvement (RPI) orders—rolled out just days before the hack—became central to Bybit’s recovery. RPI is designed to provide retail traders a better price execution by building a separate liquidity pool. Institutional and algorithmic traders are excluded from this channel. “Aided by the timely rollout of Retail Price Improvement (RPI) orders, Bybit stabilized liquidity conditions and began to rebuild its share of overall crypto spot trading,” the report noted. “Aided by the timely rollout of Retail Price Improvement (RPI) orders, Bybit stabilized liquidity conditions and began to rebuild its share of overall crypto spot trading,” the report noted. This design allows everyday users transacting through the Bybit interface to access deeper liquidity, often getting a better deal than automated or institutional traders. According to the data, by late March, RPI orders made up more than 50% of the order book depth at key price points in assets like BTC, ETH, SOL, and DOGE. The RPI pool is built with three layers of liquidity—bid and ask—enhancing both price discovery and execution speed. According to Bybit's internal analytics: "RPI orders dominated price zones within 5–10 basis points of the mid-price, accounting for up to 30% of the liquidity in those levels." "RPI orders dominated price zones within 5–10 basis points of the mid-price, accounting for up to 30% of the liquidity in those levels." For retail traders, this translated into tighter spreads and more favorable execution conditions, even in post-incident volatility. Learn more about RPI Orders on Bybit. Learn more about RPI Orders on Bybit Market Share Recovery and Liquidity Metrics Bybit’s share of the spot trading market dropped to 4% following the hack but recovered to 7% by early April, according to Block Scholes. The exchange also restored healthy order book depth and normalized spreads on its major pairs, including BTCUSDT and ETHUSDT. Technical indicators tracked during this period included 3-stall liquidity measurements, a metric that evaluates available depth across three price levels. Block Scholes' analysis shows RPI orders consistently improved liquidity at these levels. “The order book metrics returned to pre-incident benchmarks within a week,” the report said. “The order book metrics returned to pre-incident benchmarks within a week,” the report said. This is a relatively fast timeline in the aftermath of a cyberattack, especially considering the typical hesitancy among market makers and large traders following breaches. View full Bybit data from Feb 24–Apr 1, 2025 View full Bybit data from Feb 24–Apr 1, 2025 Peer Comparison and the Bigger Picture Compared to other exchanges that have experienced similar disruptions, Bybit’s response stands out for its use of technical tools to protect retail order flow. Where other platforms may rely on external liquidity providers or restrict trading after hacks, Bybit took the opposite approach—enhancing access and reducing friction. Block Scholes’ study benchmarks Bybit against peers by analyzing liquidity recovery curves. While the names of competing exchanges are anonymized in the public version of the report, the relative slope of Bybit’s recovery curve suggests a steeper rebound than most. This raises questions about whether retail-focused tools like RPI might become standard across other centralized exchanges. A Smart Play with RPI, But Sustainability Remains the Question Bybit’s handling of the crisis shows the strength of having systems like RPI in place—not just as product features, but as strategic safeguards. The exchange’s ability to quickly normalize market behavior without resorting to heavy PR or marketing spin is notable. Bybit must maintain a careful balance between retail friendliness and institutional participation. The bigger challenge is ensuring that such innovations aren’t just reactive but form part of a proactive resilience strategy. Crypto markets are volatile by design. Exchanges that can evolve their liquidity infrastructure without waiting for crises will likely lead the next era. Final Thoughts Bybit’s recovery provides a compelling case study in crypto market resilience. With the help of technical innovations like RPI, the exchange managed to stabilize order books and regain lost ground in a matter of weeks. The Block Scholes report offers a rare view into how deep liquidity mechanics and strategic tooling can shape post-crisis outcomes in digital finance. In a sector prone to turbulence, the lesson here is clear: infrastructure—not hype—is what carries platforms through the storm. Don’t forget to like and share the story! Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYO Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYO Vested Interest Disclosure: Vested Interest Disclosure: This author is an independent contributor publishing via our business blogging program. HackerNoon has reviewed the report for quality, but the claims herein belong to the author. #DYO business blogging program business blogging program

How Bybit Rebounded from a Major Hack & Regained Market Share: A Dive into Block Scholes’ Report

Cómo Bybit Rebounded de un mayor hack & Regained Market Share: Una inmersión en el informe de Block Scholes

Kuinka Bybit Rebounded suuresta hakkeroinnista ja palautti markkinaosuuden: Sukellus Block Scholesin raporttiin

How Bybit Rebounded from a Major Hack & Regained Market Share: A Dive into Block Scholes’ Reportの記事一覧

How Bybit Rebounded from a Major Hack & Regained Market Share: A Dive into Block Scholes’ ანგარიში

ວິທີທີ່ Bybit Rebounded ຈາກ Hack Major & Regained Market Share: A Dive into Block Scholes' Report

यो बर्ष महानगरको अभियान — सम्पदा संरक्षण तथा सम्बर्धन, पर्यटन प्रवर्धनका लागि पूर्वाधार Next Post

Как Бибит возродился от крупного взлома и восстановил долю рынка: погружение в доклад Block Scholes

How Bybit Rebounded from a Major Hack & Regained Market Share: A Dive into Block Scholes' Report

Picture this: It’s 7:30 AM on a chaotic Tuesday. While you’re scrambling to get the kids ready for school, your AI assistant quietly reorders your coffee supply, snags a discounted Air Fryer from a lightning deal, and books a table at that impossible to get into sushi spot for date night; all without you lifting a finger. This isn’t sci-fi. Meet Amazon Nova Act[1], the AI agent that actually acts. Revealed this week by Amazon’s secretive AGI Labs, Nova Act doesn’t just talk - it does. And it might just make today’s chatbots look like dial-up internet in a 5G world. From "Type This" to "Do That" Most AI tools stop at generating text or answering questions. Nova Act goes nuclear: Automates weekly Sweetgreen orders (no more sad desk salads)
Files expense reports while you sleep
Hunts down price drops like a bargain-obsessed bloodhound
Even handles password-protected tasks (RIP, "Forgot Password?" clicks) The magic? A new developer toolkit that transforms simple commands like “book,” “track,” or “compare” into multi-step actions. Want to plan a work offsite? Nova Act could theoretically: Scout Airbnb locations within budget
Compare flight prices for the team
Block calendars across time zones
Email the final itinerary All while you focus on actual work. Why This Isn’t Just Another "AI Assistant" Sure, we’ve seen attempts at action-oriented AI (cough ChatGPT Plugins cough). But Amazon claims Nova Act solves the #1 problem with automation tools: reliability. During demos, Nova Act nailed tasks competitors flubbed: ✅ 94% success rate interacting with finicky calendar widgets ✅ 91% accuracy parsing dense restaurant menus ✅ Zero accidental purchases of extended warranties (take notes, humans) “If you’re still proofreading your AI’s work, you’ve got a fancy typewriter—not an assistant,” joked Vishal Vora, an Amazon engineer, as Nova Act flawlessly scheduled his team’s PTO requests during a live demo[2]. Real World, Real Impact For individuals: Auto-negotiate Comcast bills (goodbye, hold music)


Reschedule missed doctor appointments


Batch-cancel unused subscriptions For businesses: Auto-fix common IT tickets (“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”) Monitor supply chain inventory in real-time
Scrape competitor pricing without spreadsheets Even bigger? This is Amazon’s first public step toward artificial general intelligence (AGI)—AI that can learn any task, not just preset ones. Their secret sauce? Training models across 100+ domains (travel, finance, healthcare) instead of specializing. The Catch(es) Before you quit your job to let AI run your life: Complex tasks still need training wheels - Planning a wedding? Nova Act might book the venue but forget the vegan meal options. Human oversight isn’t dead yet.
Ethical landmines - Should AI negotiate salaries? Handle medical data? Amazon’s SDK includes guardrails, but the debate’s just starting.
The “Creep Factor” - Letting AI access your bank account and email requires Olympic-level trust. Amazon assures end-to-end encryption, but skeptics will need convincing. The AI Agent Arms Race Amazon isn’t alone: OpenAI’s “Operator”: Can draft emails but struggles with actual sending
Anthropic’s Agent: Great at research, shaky at transactions
China’s $199/month “Manus”: Allegedly buys real estate (we’re skeptical) What makes Nova Act different? Scale. With Alexa in 500M+ devices, Amazon could deploy this everywhere from Echo speakers to Ring cameras. The Bottom Line Nova Act isn’t about replacing humans—it’s about eliminating the administrative sludge that consumes 60% of our workdays. The real question isn’t “Will this work?” but “What will we do with our time when it does?” As Rohit Prasad (Amazon’s AGI lead) put it: “We’re not building a better chatbot. We’re building a better day.” “What would you automate first?” References - [1] https://labs.amazon.science/blog/nova-act [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65giTqW0vC8&t=1s&themeRefresh=1 Picture this: It’s 7:30 AM on a chaotic Tuesday. While you’re scrambling to get the kids ready for school, your AI assistant quietly reorders your coffee supply, snags a discounted Air Fryer from a lightning deal, and books a table at that impossible to get into sushi spot for date night; all without you lifting a finger. This isn’t sci-fi. Meet Amazon Nova Act[1], the AI agent that actually acts. Revealed this week by Amazon’s secretive AGI Labs, Nova Act doesn’t just talk - it does. And it might just make today’s chatbots look like dial-up internet in a 5G world. From "Type This" to "Do That" Most AI tools stop at generating text or answering questions. Nova Act goes nuclear: Automates weekly Sweetgreen orders (no more sad desk salads) Files expense reports while you sleep Hunts down price drops like a bargain-obsessed bloodhound Even handles password-protected tasks (RIP, "Forgot Password?" clicks) Automates weekly Sweetgreen orders (no more sad desk salads) Files expense reports while you sleep Hunts down price drops like a bargain-obsessed bloodhound Even handles password-protected tasks (RIP, "Forgot Password?" clicks) The magic? A new developer toolkit that transforms simple commands like “book,” “track,” or “compare” into multi-step actions. Want to plan a work offsite? Nova Act could theoretically: Scout Airbnb locations within budget Compare flight prices for the team Block calendars across time zones Email the final itinerary Scout Airbnb locations within budget Compare flight prices for the team Block calendars across time zones Email the final itinerary All while you focus on actual work. Why This Isn’t Just Another "AI Assistant" Sure, we’ve seen attempts at action-oriented AI (cough ChatGPT Plugins cough). But Amazon claims Nova Act solves the #1 problem with automation tools: reliability. During demos, Nova Act nailed tasks competitors flubbed: ✅ 94% success rate interacting with finicky calendar widgets ✅ 91% accuracy parsing dense restaurant menus ✅ Zero accidental purchases of extended warranties (take notes, humans) “If you’re still proofreading your AI’s work, you’ve got a fancy typewriter—not an assistant,” joked Vishal Vora, an Amazon engineer, as Nova Act flawlessly scheduled his team’s PTO requests during a live demo[2]. Real World, Real Impact For individuals: For individuals: Auto-negotiate Comcast bills (goodbye, hold music) Reschedule missed doctor appointments Batch-cancel unused subscriptions Auto-negotiate Comcast bills (goodbye, hold music) Auto-negotiate Comcast bills (goodbye, hold music) Reschedule missed doctor appointments Reschedule missed doctor appointments Batch-cancel unused subscriptions Batch-cancel unused subscriptions For businesses: For businesses: Auto-fix common IT tickets (“Have you tried turning it off and on again?”) Monitor supply chain inventory in real-time Scrape competitor pricing without spreadsheets Monitor supply chain inventory in real-time Scrape competitor pricing without spreadsheets Even bigger? This is Amazon’s first public step toward artificial general intelligence (AGI)—AI that can learn any task, not just preset ones. Their secret sauce? Training models across 100+ domains (travel, finance, healthcare) instead of specializing. The Catch(es) Before you quit your job to let AI run your life: Complex tasks still need training wheels - Planning a wedding? Nova Act might book the venue but forget the vegan meal options. Human oversight isn’t dead yet. Ethical landmines - Should AI negotiate salaries? Handle medical data? Amazon’s SDK includes guardrails, but the debate’s just starting. The “Creep Factor” - Letting AI access your bank account and email requires Olympic-level trust. Amazon assures end-to-end encryption, but skeptics will need convincing. Complex tasks still need training wheels - Planning a wedding? Nova Act might book the venue but forget the vegan meal options. Human oversight isn’t dead yet. Complex tasks still need training wheels Ethical landmines - Should AI negotiate salaries? Handle medical data? Amazon’s SDK includes guardrails, but the debate’s just starting. Ethical landmines The “Creep Factor” - Letting AI access your bank account and email requires Olympic-level trust. Amazon assures end-to-end encryption, but skeptics will need convincing. The “Creep Factor” The AI Agent Arms Race Amazon isn’t alone: OpenAI’s “Operator”: Can draft emails but struggles with actual sending Anthropic’s Agent: Great at research, shaky at transactions China’s $199/month “Manus”: Allegedly buys real estate (we’re skeptical) OpenAI’s “Operator”: Can draft emails but struggles with actual sending OpenAI’s “Operator”: Anthropic’s Agent: Great at research, shaky at transactions Anthropic’s Agent: China’s $199/month “Manus”: Allegedly buys real estate (we’re skeptical) China’s $199/month “Manus”: What makes Nova Act different? Scale. With Alexa in 500M+ devices, Amazon could deploy this everywhere from Echo speakers to Ring cameras. The Bottom Line Nova Act isn’t about replacing humans—it’s about eliminating the administrative sludge that consumes 60% of our workdays. The real question isn’t “Will this work?” but “What will we do with our time when it does?” As Rohit Prasad (Amazon’s AGI lead) put it: “We’re not building a better chatbot. We’re building a better day.” “What would you automate first?” References - [1] https://labs.amazon.science/blog/nova-act https://labs.amazon.science/blog/nova-act https://labs.amazon.science/blog/nova-act [2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65giTqW0vC8&t=1s&themeRefresh=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65giTqW0vC8&t=1s&themeRefresh=1 https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=65giTqW0vC8&t=1s&themeRefresh=1

Forget Chatbots, Meet Actionbots: Why Amazon's Nova Act Could Reshape Web Interaction

Xatırladaq ki, “Amazon”ın “Nova Act”ı web interaksiyasını dəyişdirə bilər.

Olvide los chatbots, conozca a los bots de acción: por qué la Ley Nova de Amazon podría remodelar la interacción web

चैटबॉट्स भूल जाओ, एक्शनबॉट्स से मिलें: क्यों अमेज़ॅन का नोवा अधिनियम वेब बातचीत को फिर से आकार दे सकता है

Bliye Chatbots, Rankontre Actionbots: Poukisa Lwa Nova Amazon an ta ka chanje entèraksyon entènèt la

Գիտեք Chatbots, Meet Actionbots: Ինչու Amazon- ի Nova Act- ը կարող է վերլուծել Web Interaction- ը

Dimenticate i chatbots, incontrate gli actionbots: perché la legge Nova di Amazon potrebbe ricostruire l'interazione web

チャットボットは忘れて、アクションボットに出会う：AmazonのNova ActがWebインタラクションを再形成する理由

Чатботтарды ұмытыңыз, Actionbots-пен танысыңыз: Неліктен Amazon компаниясының Nova актісі веб-әрекеттесуді өзгертуі мүмкін

Harroni Chatbots, Takoni Actionbots: Pse Akti Nova i Amazon mund të riformësojë ndërveprimin në ueb

Kalimutan ang mga Chatbots, Kilalanin ang Actionbots: Bakit Ang Nova Act ng Amazon ay Maaaring Muling Hugis ng Pakikipag-ugnayan sa Web

Khohlwa ama-Chatbots, Hlangana nama-Actionbots: Kungani I-Nova Act yase-Amazon Ingakwazi Ukubumba Kabusha Ukusebenzisana Kwewebhu

Over the past 6 months, we benchmarked multiple tracking technologies for mobile, unpowered assets: construction gear, medical rentals, tools, shipping containers, and more. The goal: build a system that reliably tells you: Where is this item now?
When was it last seen?
What’s the cost per asset to do this at scale? Where is this item now? Where is this item now? When was it last seen? When was it last seen? What’s the cost per asset to do this at scale? What’s the cost per asset to do this at scale? We tested: Cellular GPS (LandAirSea, Samsara)
Passive/Active RFID (Zebra, Alien)
BLE Trackers (Tile, One-Key, etc.)
Apple AirTags + programmatic layer Cellular GPS (LandAirSea, Samsara) Passive/Active RFID (Zebra, Alien) BLE Trackers (Tile, One-Key, etc.) Apple AirTags + programmatic layer Only one approach gave us: High-fidelity passive tracking
Minimal labor
Predictable location updates in the wild
Sub-$4/month total cost High-fidelity passive tracking Minimal labor Predictable location updates in the wild Sub-$4/month total cost 🔴 GPS Trackers — Power-Hungry & Operationally Fragile lessCopyEdit[ Asset ]
   |
[ GPS Module ]
   |
[ LTE Modem ]---[ Carrier Network ]---[ Cloud Platform ]
   |
[ Battery ] lessCopyEdit[ Asset ]
   |
[ GPS Module ]
   |
[ LTE Modem ]---[ Carrier Network ]---[ Cloud Platform ]
   |
[ Battery ] What it’s good at: What it’s good at: Real-time tracking when you have cell signal
Fine-grained updates (every 10s–60s) Real-time tracking when you have cell signal Fine-grained updates (every 10s–60s) Failure modes in the field: Failure modes in the field: Battery depletion → dead device in 7–30 days
Indoor/urban canyons → GPS lock fails
SIM provisioning → ~3% failure rate during setup
Techs forget to charge or miswire installs Battery depletion → dead device in 7–30 days Indoor/urban canyons → GPS lock fails SIM provisioning → ~3% failure rate during setup Techs forget to charge or miswire installs Measured in field: Measured in field: Avg install time (non-hardwired): 18 min
Avg labor revisit per year: 5.7x
Location latency indoors: >1hr or failed ping Avg install time (non-hardwired): 18 min 18 min Avg labor revisit per year: 5.7x 5.7x Location latency indoors: >1hr or failed ping >1hr or failed ping GPS works for powered fleets. It breaks down hard for passive assets. GPS works for powered fleets. It breaks down hard for passive assets. Annual TCO per device: ~$400 \  ($150 hardware + $240 data + $50 labor) 🟠 RFID — Great for Warehouses, Not the Field lessCopyEdit[ RFID Tag ]---(Passive)---[ RFID Reader ]
                             |
                        [ Backend DB ] lessCopyEdit[ RFID Tag ]---(Passive)---[ RFID Reader ]
                             |
                        [ Backend DB ] Useful for: Useful for: Inventory control at fixed chokepoints
Bulk scanning in highly structured environments Inventory control at fixed chokepoints Bulk scanning in highly structured environments Limitations: Limitations: No real tracking — just “seen at gate X”
Requires infrastructure at every decision point
0 coverage outdoors, in transit, on job sites
Readers are expensive and fragile (EM interference prone) No real tracking — just “seen at gate X” Requires infrastructure at every decision point 0 coverage outdoors, in transit, on job sites Readers are expensive and fragile (EM interference prone) Cost Breakdown: Cost Breakdown: Passive tags: $0.12–$0.80


Reader infrastructure/site: $2,500–$10,000


Integration overhead: high Passive tags: $0.12–$0.80 Passive tags: $0.12–$0.80 Reader infrastructure/site: $2,500–$10,000 Reader infrastructure/site: $2,500–$10,000 Integration overhead: high Integration overhead: high Unless you control the entire environment, RFID creates visibility gaps you can't close. Unless you control the entire environment, RFID creates visibility gaps you can't close. Annual TCO (real deployments): $8k–$40k/site Annual TCO (real deployments): $8k–$40k/site 🟡 BLE Trackers — “Tracking” That Usually Isn’t cssCopyEdit[ BLE Beacon ] --x--> [ Needs Someone Running App ] cssCopyEdit[ BLE Beacon ] --x--> [ Needs Someone Running App ] Examples tested: Examples tested: Tile Pro
Milwaukee One-Key
Chipolo Business Beta Tile Pro Milwaukee One-Key Chipolo Business Beta Core issue: They rely on proprietary apps running in the background — no real mesh, just marketing. Core issue: no real mesh Mesh Density (urban tests): Mesh Density (urban tests): Tile: 2 updates/week/asset in SF
One-Key: 0 updates outside Milwaukee job sites
Battery life: ~12 months (replaceable CR2032) Tile: 2 updates/week/asset in SF One-Key: 0 updates outside Milwaukee job sites Battery life: ~12 months (replaceable CR2032) Key limitation: Key limitation: If no one’s running the app, the device is invisible. In practice, that means ~99%+ dead zones. If no one’s running the app, the device is invisible. In practice, that means ~99%+ dead zones. No way to manage at scale. No geofences. No asset dashboard. Just a few stale pings, if you're lucky. TCO: ~ $30–$60/year  (still too high for something that barely works) TCO: ~ $30–$60/year  (still too high for something that barely works) 🟢 AirTags — When Paired with the Right Stack, They Win lessCopyEdit[ AirTag ]---(BLE)---[ Any iPhone Nearby ]
                         |
              [ Apple Find My Mesh ]
                         |
                 [ Programmatic Layer ]
                         |
                   [ AirPinpoint Dashboard ] lessCopyEdit[ AirTag ]---(BLE)---[ Any iPhone Nearby ]
                         |
              [ Apple Find My Mesh ]
                         |
                 [ Programmatic Layer ]
                         |
                   [ AirPinpoint Dashboard ] Key technical advantages: Key technical advantages: BLE beaconing interval: ~800ms (adaptive)
U1 chip + BLE triangulation improves spatial accuracy
Global passive mesh: 2.2B+ iOS devices relay encrypted updates
Battery: 2–4 years on CR2032
Range: We observed ~0.2–2.3 miles real-world handoff distance in cities BLE beaconing interval: ~800ms (adaptive) U1 chip + BLE triangulation improves spatial accuracy Global passive mesh: 2.2B+ iOS devices relay encrypted updates 2.2B+ iOS devices Battery: 2–4 years on CR2032 Range: We observed ~0.2–2.3 miles real-world handoff distance in cities Test results: Test results: Urban ping latency: <8 minutes
Suburban latency: ~12–45 minutes
Dense indoor location accuracy: ~10–15m radius
Deployment time: <60 seconds per asset
No SIM, no charge cycles, no field config Urban ping latency: <8 minutes <8 minutes Suburban latency: ~12–45 minutes ~12–45 minutes Dense indoor location accuracy: ~10–15m radius Deployment time: <60 seconds per asset <60 seconds No SIM, no charge cycles, no field config This is the only BLE-based system with actual nationwide mesh reliability. This is the only BLE-based system with actual nationwide mesh reliability. AirTag Comprehensive CR2032 Battery Brand Comparison Based on extensive empirical testing of CR2032 batteries under conditions similar to AirTag operation, here's how different brands perform: Brand

Runtime (Hours)

Runtime (Approx. Months)*

Cost per Cell

Value Rating (Hours/$)



Panasonic

1500

12.5

$1.04

1442



Voniko

1448

12.1

$0.83

1745



Maxell

1444

12.0

$0.58

2490



Toshiba

1325

11.0

$0.64

2070



Harbor Freight

1307

10.9

$0.75

1743



Energizer

1307

10.9

$1.28

1021



Duracell

1298

10.8

$1.81

717



AC Delco

1223

10.2

$0.79

1548



Nightkonic

1186

9.9

$0.24

4942



Murata

1175

9.8

$0.45

2611



Hua Dao

642

5.4

$0.14

4586 Brand

Runtime (Hours)

Runtime (Approx. Months)*

Cost per Cell

Value Rating (Hours/$)



Panasonic

1500

12.5

$1.04

1442



Voniko

1448

12.1

$0.83

1745



Maxell

1444

12.0

$0.58

2490



Toshiba

1325

11.0

$0.64

2070



Harbor Freight

1307

10.9

$0.75

1743



Energizer

1307

10.9

$1.28

1021



Duracell

1298

10.8

$1.81

717



AC Delco

1223

10.2

$0.79

1548



Nightkonic

1186

9.9

$0.24

4942



Murata

1175

9.8

$0.45

2611



Hua Dao

642

5.4

$0.14

4586 Brand

Runtime (Hours)

Runtime (Approx. Months)*

Cost per Cell

Value Rating (Hours/$) Brand Brand Runtime (Hours) Runtime (Hours) Runtime (Approx. Months)* Runtime (Approx. Months)* Cost per Cell Cost per Cell Value Rating (Hours/$) Value Rating (Hours/$) Panasonic

1500

12.5

$1.04

1442 Panasonic Panasonic 1500 1500 12.5 12.5 $1.04 $1.04 1442 1442 Voniko

1448

12.1

$0.83

1745 Voniko Voniko 1448 1448 12.1 12.1 $0.83 $0.83 1745 1745 Maxell

1444

12.0

$0.58

2490 Maxell Maxell 1444 1444 12.0 12.0 $0.58 $0.58 2490 2490 Toshiba

1325

11.0

$0.64

2070 Toshiba Toshiba 1325 1325 11.0 11.0 $0.64 $0.64 2070 2070 Harbor Freight

1307

10.9

$0.75

1743 Harbor Freight Harbor Freight 1307 1307 10.9 10.9 $0.75 $0.75 1743 1743 Energizer

1307

10.9

$1.28

1021 Energizer Energizer 1307 1307 10.9 10.9 $1.28 $1.28 1021 1021 Duracell

1298

10.8

$1.81

717 Duracell Duracell 1298 1298 10.8 10.8 $1.81 $1.81 717 717 AC Delco

1223

10.2

$0.79

1548 AC Delco AC Delco 1223 1223 10.2 10.2 $0.79 $0.79 1548 1548 Nightkonic

1186

9.9

$0.24

4942 Nightkonic Nightkonic 1186 1186 9.9 9.9 $0.24 $0.24 4942 4942 Murata

1175

9.8

$0.45

2611 Murata Murata 1175 1175 9.8 9.8 $0.45 $0.45 2611 2611 Hua Dao

642

5.4

$0.14

4586 Hua Dao Hua Dao 642 642 5.4 5.4 $0.14 $0.14 4586 4586 *Converted from accelerated test conditions to approximate real-world months based on typical AirTag usage patterns Converted from accelerated test conditions to approximate real-world months based on typical AirTag usage patterns Test Methodology: All batteries were tested with a consistent 80μA base load (approximately 16x the typical AirTag sleep current) with periodic higher current pulse loads similar to Bluetooth transmissions. Tests were normalized to account for minor variations in test fixtures. Test Methodology 🧮 Real Cost Comparison (Per 100 Assets, Per Year) Tech

Hardware

Labor

Subscriptions

TCO (Year 1)



GPS

$15,000

$5,000

$36,000

$56,000



RFID

$2,000

$4,000

$0

$6,000+



BLE

$3,000

$3,000

$0

$6,000



AirTag + Platform

$2,000

$500

$47.88 (flat)

~$2,548 Tech

Hardware

Labor

Subscriptions

TCO (Year 1)



GPS

$15,000

$5,000

$36,000

$56,000



RFID

$2,000

$4,000

$0

$6,000+



BLE

$3,000

$3,000

$0

$6,000



AirTag + Platform

$2,000

$500

$47.88 (flat)

~$2,548 Tech

Hardware

Labor

Subscriptions

TCO (Year 1) Tech Tech Hardware Hardware Labor Labor Subscriptions Subscriptions TCO (Year 1) TCO (Year 1) GPS

$15,000

$5,000

$36,000

$56,000 GPS GPS $15,000 $15,000 $5,000 $5,000 $36,000 $36,000 $56,000 $56,000 $56,000 RFID

$2,000

$4,000

$0

$6,000+ RFID RFID $2,000 $2,000 $4,000 $4,000 $0 $0 $6,000+ $6,000+ $6,000+ BLE

$3,000

$3,000

$0

$6,000 BLE BLE $3,000 $3,000 $3,000 $3,000 $0 $0 $6,000 $6,000 $6,000 AirTag + Platform

$2,000

$500

$47.88 (flat)

~$2,548 AirTag + Platform AirTag + Platform AirTag + Platform $2,000 $2,000 $2,000 $500 $500 $500 $47.88 (flat) $47.88 (flat) $47.88 (flat) ~$2,548 ~$2,548 ~$2,548 ✅ Final Notes AirTags on an ios device alone are not sufficient for business use. They lack: Asset naming / grouping


Geofencing


Bulk management


Alerting / integrations


Silent mode (you don’t want customers getting “you’re being tracked” alerts) Asset naming / grouping Asset naming / grouping Geofencing Geofencing Bulk management Bulk management Alerting / integrations Alerting / integrations Silent mode (you don’t want customers getting “you’re being tracked” alerts) Silent mode (you don’t want customers getting “you’re being tracked” alerts) But when paired with a 3rd party platform that solves those (like AirPinpoint) they become arguably the highest-leverage, lowest-friction tracking layer available for unpowered asset fleets. highest-leverage, lowest-friction tracking layer available If you’re trying to track equipment, rentals, forklifts, pumps, dollies, carts, containers, or anything that moves but doesn’t have power — this is the stack to beat. this is the stack to beat

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