Sunday, May 5

Author: Linda Ashok

As the Founding Editor of StartuptoEnterprise.com, Linda is interested in emerging tech startups operating in the intersection of innovation, profitability, and social impact. Her primary focus is Europe & China followed by the US & India.
Loneliness Industry: Robotics, Social Networks, Cuddle Shops & More
9Jun By Linda AshokNo Comments
Business

Loneliness Industry: Robotics, Social Networks, Cuddle Shops & More

There was a time when loneliness was considered a mental disease of a person with social anxiety. Then came a time when the porn industry capitalized on the loneliness of men and women. Now, with some altruism, loneliness is stuffed in a toy you can cuddle for self-care. As of August 2021, the loneliness industry is a thriving marketplace of robotics, social networks, cuddle shops, and more. In 2018, the UK appointed Tracey Crouch as the Minister of Loneliness. Tracey said, "Nobody should feel alone or be left with no one to turn to. Loneliness is a serious issue that affects people of all ages and backgrounds and it is right that we tackle it head-on." In 2021, Japan's PM Yoshihide Suga appointed Tetsushi Sakamoto as the Minister of Loneliness. While Canada still deliberates on a strategy...
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Dead Google Products Explain the Stem Cell of Success
7Jun By Linda AshokNo Comments
Technology

Dead Google Products Explain the Stem Cell of Success

Much like humans, consumer products and technology solutions have a lifespan. They come into being and then deprecated over a period. It helps if you know the origin of success is in its ancestral failures. 166 Dead Google products and services succeeded by better alternatives through Google's home innovation or market acquisition. If you are a startup founder or an entrepreneur with an excellent stint in failures, here's an opportunity to reevaluate your product life cycle.  So, between 2006 and 2021, Google had 166 dead Google products across APIs, Apps, Hardware, Operating Systems (OS), SAAS solutions, etc. Some of the products include Google Hangouts (2013-2021), Translator Toolkit (2009-2019), Fusion Tables (2009-2019), Google Plus (2011-2019), G-Suite Training (2013-2019), Google Bul...
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Sugarbook CEO Darren Chan on Economic Relief and Expansion Plan
30May By Linda AshokNo Comments
People

Sugarbook CEO Darren Chan on Economic Relief and Expansion Plan

The Basics of Sugar Farming: Sugar Daddies, Sugar Mamas, & Sugar Babies What is a Sugar Daddy? The prerequisites to becoming a successful sugar daddy have a solid bank balance and a heart to pamper his sugar baby. Other addon characteristics include chivalry, respect, and care.  What is a Sugar Baby? A real sugar baby is a young man or woman with a flair for enjoying the finer things in life. They can be students, single moms or dad, or early-career men/woman, but goal-oriented & yet submissive, making it drama-free & yet enjoyable. What is a Sugar Relationship? A sugar relationship is an arrangement between the sugar daddy and the sugar baby, mostly consenting adults, who mutually thrive on each other not limited to companionship, mentorship, financial and emot...
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The Unfatherly Affair of Jeff Bezos with The Washington Post
28May By Linda AshokNo Comments
Business

The Unfatherly Affair of Jeff Bezos with The Washington Post

Talk of the town across global villages, tall, bold, and wage killer, Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos recently filed his departure, has got some past dues.  On buying The Washington Post, he said that the newspaper being in the capital city of the most important country in the world has an incredibly important role to play in this democracy. Today, as Amazon daily workers protest for minimum wage revision, he takes out The Washington Post from his pocket of investments and flashes native ads portraying Amazon's advocacy of higher minimum wage. The Washington Post: The Loss Vending Machine  In 1993, Eugene Meyer bought The Washington Post from a bankruptcy auction for $825,000. 10 years later, as free listing directories disrupted classified ad revenue leading to a decline in revenue for digita...
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Sinopharm Sinovac in the SARS-CoV-2 China-America Game Plan
27May By Linda AshokNo Comments
Business

Sinopharm Sinovac in the SARS-CoV-2 China-America Game Plan

According to a recent study published by a US-based medical journal, China's Covid-19 vaccine Sinopharm has successfully contained Covid-19. This detailed coverage from a late-stage trial appears for the first time in US medical literature. Feels good that finally, there's some sense of transparency that prevailed in China speculated to be the origin of the virus but the last among the world power to come up with the vaccines that too with glitches. According to the study published by the JAMA Network Open, a monthly open-access medical journal published by the American Medical Association, Sinopharm's vaccine-making unit China National Biotec Group Co., prevented symptomatic infections by 72.8% and 78.1% with its two inactivated vaccines developed in line with the previously announced sta...
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Facebook’s Unsupervised Wav2vec-U is a Near Human Genius
22May By Linda AshokNo Comments
Technology

Facebook’s Unsupervised Wav2vec-U is a Near Human Genius

The world speaks roughly around 6,500 languages compared to technology apps that speak only a few, causing great inconvenience in communication between user and product. The Big Tech recognizes 'speech recognition' as an essential function. They are trying their best to tutor their machines to speak and recognize languages to better their business impact. Alexa, Siri, Google Assistant are some of the guys in the field of innovation.  Expansion of the Machine Learning Language Now, since technology is available only to a small fraction of the thousands of languages spoken globally, it is an untapped potential expansion for Facebook and other social media giants. To solve this pressing problem, Facebook got its AI team to develop wav2vec Unsupervised (wav2vec-U). Through this technology, Fa...
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Google AMP Lost to Google News Content Policy & Core Web Vitals
19May By Linda AshokNo Comments
Technology

Google AMP Lost to Google News Content Policy & Core Web Vitals

The Advent of Google AMP & Impact Internet users expect websites to load super fast on their mobiles. It is because most of the time, a website takes several seconds to load on a mobile. Because of the delay in site load, users would abandon sites and impact the session duration and the bounce rate. To resolve this issue, around Feb 24, 2016, Google came up with Accelerated Mobile Pages Project (AMP), an open-source initiative to improve the mobile web experience for every user.  Improved loading time would mean more visitors influencing the website's trust factor to rank on page 1. But, most publishers refused AMP as it stripped rich content to fit the Google server to the extent that it would get difficult for readers to tell apart fake articles and phishing clickbait stories from ...
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NewNew Courtne Smith and Filip Diarra got you a Human Stock Market
18May By Linda AshokNo Comments
Business, United States

NewNew Courtne Smith and Filip Diarra got you a Human Stock Market

Many years ago, at the Kolkata International Film Festival (KIFF), I watched a movie (I don't recall the name) about three Asian school dropouts and how to eke a living; they sold themselves. The most intelligent of the three sold his soul to enjoy maximum luxury. A similar video on Nas Daily about a man who converted himself into a currency more enjoyable than the cryptocurrency grabbed my attention two days ago. Today, it is NewNew by Courtne Smith and Filip Diarra, a dystopian prototype of the future when we all are on sale. So, if you ever fancied controlling someone or being controlled as an asset in the human stock market, you have got  CEO Courtne Smith and Co-Founder Filip Diarra of NewNew to deliver it. Bizarre? Well, the ancestry of this idea to me is very Japanese or East Asian....
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CEO Masaru Tange Gains 5,300% Stock value with 70% Pay Hike.
17May By Linda AshokNo Comments
Business, MEA & Japan

CEO Masaru Tange Gains 5,300% Stock value with 70% Pay Hike.

Japan has always rocked the charts for something bizarre, and this time, it is Masaru Tange, the CEO of Shift Inc. Tange is in the news for whipping up a strategy that skyrocketed his company's stocks. No, he did not do it by underpaying his staff. As per the media, hehe has achieved a 5,300% gain in stock by increasing his staff's salary. Let's dig deeper. Are you feeling guilty for underpaying your staff? Do you think increasing your staff's salary can bolster your market value? Well, you should certainly calibrate your underpaid staff to the market rate, but not expect that to motivate the market to shower you with contracts—Masaru Tange's case is enterprise publicity. So here we are trying something untenable—not separating water from milk but iron filings from a stack of sawdust. ...
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Maximize Covid-19 Work from Home (WFH) Productivity
16May By Linda AshokNo Comments
Business

Maximize Covid-19 Work from Home (WFH) Productivity

And here's the second wave of work-from-home (WFH) spurred by the pandemic. Most organizations are now convinced that WFH is here to stay. While it seems convenient and easy to adopt, one can become distracted, hence default to productivity. For a productive and happy work-from-home experience, check out the six WFH productivity tips. 1. Follow a Defined Working Window Just like how you would organize your day and time in your office environment, organize your work from home routine in the same fashion. Clearly state your working hours, take a lunch, walk around, or recharge break in between. Stick to this routine daily, and you'll be surprised at how productive you can be even while working from home. Consider the series of distractions you might encounter during your work hours and find...
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