Total Cookie Protection in Firefox
3 things we learned from the second season of ‘Founded’
Last year, Google’s Women Techmakers launched “Founded,” a podcast celebrating the real, honest stories of women leaders in the tech industry and their journeys to entrepreneurship. Now, we’re back with a second season that will follow six women in tech with a common goal: to build a successful business.
We’ll hear from women like Hana Hassan, who’s working to diversify tech companies’ hiring practices, and Laura Rodriguez O’Dwyer, CEO of a startup that’s demystifying certain parts of learning languages.
As the host of “Founded,” I’ve learned so much from these incredibly driven women. So to give you a sneak peek to the season, here are three lessons you’ll hear throughout the episodes:
- Just start. In the interviews, you’ll hear that most of the founders we spoke to didn’t have the “perfect” financial or social circumstances to launch a tech startup. What they did have was ambition and drive; the moment they put their foot to the pedal, their ideas took off. Sometimes this take-off was very slow, and sometimes it was fast. What mattered is that they began their journeys and made their ideas a reality.
- Be bold in your ask. You can’t build a company on your own. You’ll need a team, and you’ll probably need other people’s money. These people are investing in you and your vision. To get that investment, you have to make “the ask.” The initial ask might be challenging, but you need to grow your resources and knowledge base if you want to build a company beyond one person and one idea. We heard from people who demonstrated how one relationship, one investor, one supporter could transform a startup’s direction. So never miss that opportunity!
- Stay rooted in a clear sense of purpose. From ensuring financial stability to building and nurturing a team, founding and running a startup is hard work. But a common thread between these founders was they always reminded themselves of why they started their businesses in the first place. What makes them get up in the morning is the same drive that helps them overcome obstacles.
Season two of “Founded” is available now, and you can find it on Google Podcasts or wherever you listen.
Architettura Zen 3: tutte le novità dei Ryzen 5000 su desktop e mobile
PlayStation VR, Sony lavora alla versione per PS5
Sono passati già cinque anni dalla prima commercializzazione di PlayStation VR, il visore per la realtà virtuale targato Sony, e con l’arrivo della nuova e quasi introvabile PlayStation 5 è giunto il momento anche di una versione aggiornata di quella tecnologia ormai vecchia di 5 anni. La buona notizia è che Sony ha confermato di essere già al lavoro sul nuovo PSVR. La cattiva notizia è che non sarà pronto per questo 2021.
Gran Turismo 7 slitta al 2022 a causa del COVID-19
Brutte notizie per i milioni di videogiocatori in attesa del nuovo capitolo della saga di Gran Turismo. La lavorazione di Gran Turismo 7, previsto per questo 2021, è stata rallentata dalla pandemia da COVID-19 e il gioco non arriverà sugli scaffali e negli store digitali prima del 2022.
Our efforts to fight child sexual abuse online
Across Google and YouTube, we are always working to protect our users from harmful content, especially the kind of horrific, illegal content referred to as child sexual abuse material (CSAM). Since our earliest days, we’ve been committed to fighting online child sexual exploitation and abuse both on our platforms and in the broader online ecosystem. We have invested in the teams, tools, and resources to deter, remove, and report this kind of content, and to help other companies do so. But we know this issue cannot be solved by any one company alone, and we’re committed to tackling it with others in our industry and partners who are dedicated to protecting children around the world. Today, we’re sharing more information about our work, including new efforts to combat this abuse, and how we’re supporting organizations that are committed to protecting kids online.
How we identify and remove CSAM
We identify and report CSAM with a combination of specialized, trained teams of people and cutting-edge technology. We use both hash-matching software like CSAI Match (a technology developed by YouTube engineers to identify re-uploads of previously identified child sexual abuse in videos) and machine learning classifiers that can identify never-before-seen CSAM imagery. These tools allow us to proactively scan our platforms for potential CSAM and identify potentially abusive content so that it can be removed and reported — and the corresponding accounts disabled — as quickly as possible. A crucial part of our efforts to tackle this kind of abuse is working with the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children (NCMEC), the U.S.-based reporting center for CSAM. NCMEC tracks reports from platforms and individuals and then sends those reports to law enforcement agencies around the world.
New insights into our work to fight CSAM
We recently launched a new transparency report on Google’s Efforts to Combat Online Child Sexual Abuse Material, where we detail the number of reports we made to NCMEC in the first and second half of 2020. The report also provides data around our efforts on YouTube, how we detect and remove CSAM results from Google Search, and how many accounts are disabled for CSAM violations across our services. We also include information on the number of “hashes” of newly identified CSAM we share with NCMEC. These hashes (unique digital fingerprints) help other platforms identify CSAM automatically at scale. Contributing to the NCMEC hash database is one of the most important ways we, and others in the industry, can help in the effort to combat CSAM because it helps reduce the recirculation of this material and the associated re-victimization of children who have been abused.
Working to combat CSAM across the internet
Because CSAM is an issue that spans beyond any one platform, in 2018 we developed and launched the Content Safety API. Using AI classifiers we built for our own products, the API helps organizations classify and prioritize the most likely CSAM content for review. Today, the API is being used by NGOs like SaferNet Brazil and companies including Facebook and Yubo. Along with CSAI Match, these tools are offered free-of-charge for qualifying organizations and companies. In 2020, the Content Safety API was used by our partners to classify more than 2 billion images, helping them identify the small fraction of violative content faster and with more precision. We encourage organizations who are interested to apply to use CSAI Match or Content Safety API.
For many years, we’ve had dedicated teams working to prevent access to CSAM on google.com by de-indexing and reporting illegal sites and filtering autocompletes for search terms associated with CSAM. Last summer, we redesigned and expanded a feature we’ve been running since 2013 where users who enter CSAM-related queries are shown a prominent message that CSAM is illegal and instructions on how to report this content to their local authorities. We also provide information about local resources to connect users with NGOs that support children or families who may have been victims of abuse. We’re already seeing an impact from these efforts: hundreds of thousands of users each month are clicking through to the reporting hotlines we surface, including the Internet Watch Foundation in the UK, the Canadian Center for Child Protection and Te Protejo in Colombia. And, crucially, we’ve seen when these warning boxes are shown, we’re less likely to see follow-up searches seeking similar material. We will be expanding this feature over the course of this year.
Supporting organizations to fight CSAM globally
The scale and complexity of fighting CSAM online means we must take a global and multi-stakeholder approach. That’s why we’re working together across industry and with leading child safety organizations like the WeProtect Global Alliance, Thorn, the Global Partnership to End Violence Against Children. And we continue to work to empower and support organizations that are creating real and lasting change for children. For example, we’ve funded a three-year Google Fellow at NCMEC to modernize and integrate their systems. We’ve also extended our Ad Grants program to qualifying child protection nonprofits during the pandemic, providing funding and campaign help for organizations like the INHOPE hotline network and ECPAT International. Since 2003, we’ve given almost $90 million in Ad Grants to global child protection organizations. We also supported the Five Country Ministerial Forum Voluntary Principles to Counter Child Sexual Exploitation and Abuse and collaborated across industry to produce a practical guide for companies considering applying these principles. This builds on our work on Project Protect as part of the Technology Coalition.
Working together, we can make meaningful progress in the global fight against CSAM.
Super Cashback: verso la sospensione a causa dei furbetti
A causa dei furbetti che stanno effettuando molteplici transazioni di pochi euro per l’acquisto di uno stesso bene, il governo Draghi è pronto a sospendere il Super Cashback. A parte il rimborso del 10% fino ad un massimo di 150 euro per chi effettua in sei mesi 50 pagamenti elettronici, il provvedimento approvato dal precedente governo Conte prevede anche un extra bonus di 1.500 euro per 100.000 italiani che si distinguono per numero di transazioni. E proprio in questi giorni il nuovo esecutivo si sta occupando proprio dell’assegnazione di questo premio, perché inchieste giornalistiche hanno dimostrato che è al centro di pratiche scorrette.
Microsoft’s Miri Rodriguez on How B2B Marketers Are Embracing Empathy For Better Customer Storytelling #B2BMX
How do B2B marketers who fully embrace empathy build stronger relationships?
Miri Rodriguez, storyteller and internship program head at Microsoft, recently presented the opening keynote at the 2021 B2B Marketing Exchange Experience virtual conference, and asked this important question.
Although this pandemic year at #B2BMX won’t see B2B marketers gathered in the event’s usual sunny Scottsdale, Arizona location, plenty of new attendee opportunities were on tap virtually.
Refresh, renew, remix has been the conference’s theme this year, and to help ease the lack of physical networking #B2BMX included a Spotify music playlist, live music performances, and even various charitable elements.
Miri began by looking back at the history of empathy in B2B marketing, to when empathy was new to the B2B space, especially the practice of considering it a leading component of the digital experience.
Storytelling Uses Empathy to Move Past Numbers and Facts
Storytelling is not just the telling of stories, Miri explained, it’s also a design approach to stories that work on the human-to-human level of business marketing.
Telling stories in such compelling and connected ways that your messages are then also easily and willingly transmitted to your audience’s customers is a goal of B2B marketing that infuses genuine empathy, Miri said, and then began exploring empathy’s important role in brand storytelling.
Miri explained how in her role at Microsoft she began an examination of empathy by looking at what storytelling is not, asking industry brand professionals at many different levels for their insight.
Storytelling isn’t so much information, data, facts, or numbers, but the emotional transfer of that information using memorable characters, plots, and conclusions which all foster empathy, she noted.
The emotional transaction is the glue that binds customers to a brand’s message, making them feel connected at the most human level, Miri explained, and mentioned LinkedIn’s January 2020 report which found that empathy was the platform’s top 2019 theme — one that offers strength to both brands and customers.
“Brands want to transact with people who are showing high levels of empathy,” Miri noted.
[bctt tweet=”“Brands want to transact with people who are showing high levels of empathy.” — Miri Rodriguez @MiriRod #B2BMX” username=”toprank”]Since the pandemic began, empathy has only increased in its importance for B2B brands, and increasingly employees want to work for brands that include high levels of empathy, she noted.
How can you begin leading with empathy?
Miri mentioned the oft-used Bill Gates “content is king” adage as a jumping off point for all that exists beyond content for today’s B2B marketers seeking to infuse greater empathy in their brand storytelling efforts.
One key is finding a universal truth, especially when it’s an actionable emotion that your brand lives by, and Miri suggested that these types of truths often derive from a brand’s mission statement.
What Feeling Is Your Brand Story Sparking?
During her #B2BMX opening keynote Miri also put out the question, “What feeling is my brand story seeking to spark?”
Sometimes examining or even rethinking a brand’s mission can help B2B marketers find these key feelings, she suggested.
In her example from Microsoft, Miri shared how the firm came up with empowerment as its new mission several years back — a feeling that CEO Satya Nadella and the organization have embraced in many ways since.
Miri then asked, “Is your brand leading with a feeling that they can share with their customers?”
She urged B2B marketers to make brand stories easy to consume, which in turn will make them convenient for customers to pass on to their own associates and customers.
Miri also explored cognitive empathy, and the importance of seeing your customer first and foremost as a human. She urged B2B marketers to always keep in mind that there is a human on the other side of the screen, the other side of every email, in a physical room, or wherever you communicate with a customer.
It’s important for B2B marketers to allow themselves to recognize the type of emotional empathy that reaches out and makes connections on a more human level, and Miri shared how marketers can benefit when they retrain their brain to think about your humans instead of your customers.
Having conversations that go beyond the mere facts about a product or service and its features, to instead form deeper and more empathetic connections, will build the kind of trust that makes business transaction elements more meaningful, Miri observed.
She also looked at the type of compassionate empathy that can begin when B2B marketers take the time to assess themselves introspectively, examining personal vulnerabilities.
Empathize by being cognizant of the experiences your customers are going through, and recognize that especially those in the GenZ and millennial demographics frequently make connections that are more on the emotional side with the brands they do business with, Miri noted, and explained that these younger customers also aren’t necessarily buying a product merely for the product alone.
Often they are looking at a brand’s mission before deciding to do business with them, and some will even refuse to work with a brand that defaults to having no public mission or stance on social and other important issues, she said.
Seeing The Humans Behind The Brand
Miri spoke about the importance of allowing B2B customers to see the humans behind the brand, and urged marketers to pay attention to who they’re delivering a B2B brand’s story to, being mindful of the fact that an audience isn’t just your customer in B2B, but also the audiences of those customers.
Miri then asked several key questions:
- Why should your end-user care about your story?
- What insight does your content include?
- Does it educate and otherwise help your customers, beyond simply helping with a particular feature of a product or service?
For every B2B marketing story you set out to tell, Miri recommends first asking yourself who the story is dedicated to, how it can help them, and how it will hopefully make them feel, especially when the story is tied in to one of your brand’s universal truths.
Showing the origin of your brand’s story is important, Miri said, as is reminding your customer why your brand is important to them.
An ideation phase includes finding the solutions your customers want in the formats they prefer, and Miri shared an example from Microsoft in which customers pointed out that they preferred blog content written not so much by marketers but by people directly involved a particular area of expertise.
Low-cost and low-effort story prototyping can also be a great way to test a variety of creative concepts, Miri noted, before moving on to the testing and implementation stages.
Making Genuine Audience Connections That Evoke Emotion
Are your brand storytelling efforts evoking the type of emotion you want to foster with your content? Miri explained that reach and engagement are both helpful in determining which efforts are making genuine connections with your audience.
Miri concluded her insightful and energetic #B2BMX keynote presentation by reinforcing the notion that genuine B2B brand stories always contain a character, plot, story, and conclusion, and that powerful storytelling only happens in the B2B space when marketers tell their stories for their audiences, and not to them — ideally with empathy, creativity, authenticity, and heart.
Empathy in B2B marketing is a topic near and dear to our team at TopRank Marketing, and to learn more about bringing it to life in your own marketing efforts, contact us, and check out the following five recent resources we’ve published:
- 5 Ways to Humanize Your B2B Content Marketing – And Why It Matters
- 28 B2B Marketing Insights To Energize & Humanize Your 2021
- Boosting and Deepening Engagement through Empathy in B2B Marketing
- 5 Ways to Humanize B2B Content Marketing
- Your Guide to Effective Storytelling in B2B Content Marketing
The post Microsoft’s Miri Rodriguez on How B2B Marketers Are Embracing Empathy For Better Customer Storytelling #B2BMX appeared first on B2B Marketing Blog – TopRank®.
Facebook, nuovi tool per tutelare i bambini
Facebook afferma che sta testando diversi strumenti per impedire alle persone di condividere contenuti molesti con raffiguranti i bambini. Uno è un pop-up che dovrebbe apparire alle persone che utilizzano termini di ricerca collegati ai minori, e descriverà in dettaglio le conseguenze della visualizzazione di tali contenuti.
Una nuova opzione per i genitori di preadolescenti e adolescenti su YouTube
Esperienze supervisionate su YouTube
Per i genitori, diverse opzioni di contenuto su YouTube
- Esplora: pensata per i bambini che sono pronti ad abbandonare YouTube Kids ed esplorare contenuti su YouTube, questa impostazione prevede un’ampia gamma di video in genere adatti agli spettatori dai 9 anni in su, ad esempio vlog, tutorial, video di gaming, clip musicali, notizie, contenuti didattici e altro ancora.
- Esplora altro: con contenuti in genere adatti agli spettatori dai 13 anni in su, questa impostazione include un insieme più ampio di video, ma anche live streaming, nelle stesse categorie disponibili per “Esplora”.
- Gran parte di YouTube: questa impostazione comprende la quasi totalità di video su YouTube, ad eccezione di quelli con contenuti soggetti a limiti di età, e include argomenti sensibili che potrebbero essere adatti solamente a un pubblico di adolescenti più grandi.
Nuove funzionalità per le famiglie
L’investimento su YouTube Kids
Videoconferenze: semplicità e sicurezza con Barco ClickShare Conference
Ratchet & Clank per PS4 gratis: ecco da quando
Ratchet & Clank per PS4 potrà presto essere scaricato gratuitamente grazie alla rinnovata iniziativa Play At Home di Sony. Già la scorsa primavera, infatti, la società nipponica aveva offerto giochi a costo zero agli utenti, per intrattenerli durante la pandemia in corso. E dal momento che il coronavirus è ancora lì in agguato, l’azienda ha deciso di incoraggiare il distanziamento sociale regalando nuovi titoli tra marzo e giugno: dal 1 marzo 2021, quindi, i possessori di PS4 potranno effettuare il download gratuito di Ratchet & Clank, anche qualora non fossero abbonati al PlayStation Plus.
Storie di Scienza: le strane ali del signor Lanchester
Il signor Frederick William Lanchester, quello nella foto qui accanto, vi fa risparmiare su ogni volo aereo che prendete e su ogni pacco spedito per posta aerea che ricevete. No, non è il proprietario segreto della Ryanair o di Amazon. Anche perché è morto, povero in canna, nel 1946. Frederick William Lanchester era un ingegnere britannico, classe 1868.
L’ingegner Lanchester era il tipo di persona che affrontava un problema quando il resto del mondo nemmeno sapeva dell’esistenza del problema. Nel 1897, a ventinove anni, stava già risolvendo i problemi dell’efficienza aerodinamica dei velivoli ancora prima dello storico, primo volo a motore dei fratelli Wright nel 1903.
Nel 1897, Frederick Lanchester concepì e brevettò le winglet. Avete presente quelle strane pinne triangolari alle estremità delle ali degli aerei moderni? Quelle. Sono dell’Ottocento. Il brevetto è il British Patent No. 3608, Improvements in and relating to Aerial Machines.
Lanchester aveva già intuito che l’incontro fra il flusso d’aria che passa sopra l’ala e quello che le passa sotto genera invisibili vortici di estremità, che creano resistenza. Aveva anche capito che un piano verticale collocato a queste estremità avrebbe ridotto i vortici e migliorato l’efficienza del velivolo: lo stesso principio per cui le auto da corsa hanno pareti verticali agli estremi degli alettoni.
Questo è Lanchester nel 1894, alle prese con uno dei suoi eleganti modelli di aereo a eliche spingenti:
E questo è uno dei disegni del brevetto di Lanchester, in cui si vede l’ala troncata e dotata di un capping plane o piano terminale (dettaglio e di Figura 12):
Nel suo brevetto, Lanchester parla specificamente di applicare questi piani terminali “allo scopo di minimizzare la dissipazione laterale dell’onda portante.”
Non è che Lanchester avesse già in mente eleganti Jumbo Jet per andare alle Maldive spendendo meno: a quell’epoca il velivolo da ottimizzare e brevettare era un aliante-bomba, da usare in guerra, una sorta di siluro dell’aria. Anzi, a fine Ottocento l’aviazione civile era ritenuta tecnicamente impossibile, visto che mancava un motore sufficientemente leggero. Fra l’altro, Lanchester propose anche di progettarne e costruirne uno, ma gli fu detto che nessuno lo avrebbe preso sul serio e così si dedicò a fabbricare automobili. I fratelli Wright non furono avvisati che quel motore era impossibile e lo costruirono, e il resto è storia.
Lanchester aveva anche definito i concetti fondamentali di portanza, stallo e resistenza aerodinamica, ma le riviste scientifiche britanniche dell’epoca snobbarono e respinsero i suoi scritti. Pochi anni più tardi arrivò la conferma scientifica delle sue intuizioni da parte del tedesco Ludwig Prandtl, padre della meccanica dei fluidi, ma l’apporto di Lanchester all’aviazione fu riconosciuto pubblicamente solo verso la fine della sua vita. Nel 1931 ricevette la Daniel Guggenheim Medal per il suo contributo alla teoria fondamentale dell’aerodinamica.
Frederick Lanchester morì senza un quattrino, fiaccato dal morbo di Parkinson e dalla perdita della vista, poco dopo la fine di una guerra mondiale nella quale i frutti delle sue idee “impossibili” avevano dominato i cieli e deciso le sorti di intere nazioni.
Le sue alette finirono sostanzialmente nel dimenticatoio per settant’anni: provò a riprenderle un altro pioniere tedesco, Sighard Hoerner, negli anni Cinquanta, ma le compagnie aeree erano in piena espansione, il carburante costava poco, si progettavano aerei di linea supersonici e a nessuno interessava risparmiare. Fino alla crisi petrolifera del 1973, che cambiò tutto.
Quell’improvviso ed enorme aumento dei prezzi del carburante spinse la NASA a investire urgentemente in ricerca aerodinamica. Uno dei suoi ingegneri aeronautici, Richard Whitcomb, rispolverò e migliorò le winglet di Lanchester, ispirandosi alle vele delle navi, non solo per risparmiare carburante ma anche per ridurre le pericolose turbolenze lasciate dal passaggio dei grandi aerei di linea.
Questo è un quadrigetto KC-135 dell’aviazione militare statunitense, prestato alla NASA e modificato nel 1979 per valutare gli effetti delle winglet.
Un dettaglio di una di queste winglet:
I risultati furono notevolissimi: oltre il 6% di autonomia in più, corse di decollo ridotte, pause più corte fra il decollo di un aereo e quello del successivo, minor rumore. Le alette furono adottate prontamente dai jet privati e poi dagli aerei di linea in numerose varianti e oggi sono onnipresenti. Questa, per esempio, è una winglet raccordata di un Airbus A350 (credit: Julian Herzog/Wikipedia):
Dietro quel piccolo dettaglio che scorgiamo dal finestrino del nostro volo vacanziero low-cost, insomma, c’è un secolo di storia, ci sono drammi di talenti incompresi e miopi ottusità, e c’è tanta scienza che merita di essere raccontata e ricordata. In particolare c’è tanta ricerca di base: quella che si fa senza sapere in anticipo a cosa serve e che nessuno vuole finanziare perché ritenuta “inutile”.
Credits: Wikipedia; NASA; Princeton.edu; F.W. Lanchester and the Great Divide; NASA; The Shadow of the Eagle. Una versione ridotta di questo articolo è comparsa su Le Scienze nel 2017. Questo articolo fa parte delle Storie di Scienza: una serie libera e gratuita, resa possibile dalle donazioni dei lettori. Se volete saperne di più, leggete qui. Se volete fare una donazione, potete cliccare sul pulsante qui sotto. Grazie!
Street Fighter V, iniziata l’ultima stagione
La quinta e ultima stagione di Street Fighter V è ufficialmente iniziata con l’uscita del nuovo personaggio, Dan Hibiki, e di una serie di contenuti gratuiti per tutti i giocatori di PlayStation 4 e Steam. Oltre infatti al “Maestro di Saikyo”, Capcom ha rilasciato una nuova meccanica di battaglia chiamata “V-Shift”, una nuova fase di addestramento e un bilanciamento di battaglia aggiornato per tutti i personaggi giocabili.
SpaceX diventa un laboratorio per le ricerche anti-Covid
SpaceX, la società aerospaziale fondata da Elon Musk, è diventata un laboratorio per le ricerche anti-Covid. I suoi oltre quattromila dipendenti, infatti, si sono messi a disposizione di un team di scienziati già a partire dall’aprile 2020, per eseguire degli esami del sangue mensili relativi a una ricerca sull’immunizzazione.