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Yashica Vashishtha

Yashica is a Software Engineer turned Content Writer, who loves to write on social causes and expertise in writing technical stuff. She loves to watch movies and explore new places. She believes that you need to live once before you die. So experimenting with her life and career choices, she is trying to live her life to the fullest.

Bitcoin Drags Down the Fellow Currencies with its Own Price Drop

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bitcoin
Image Source: mashable.com

Bitcoin successfully being steady at a higher value for a few months has faced a price drop in its value. Bitcoin is the largest cryptocurrency, and on Wednesday it experienced a sudden plunge in its value, shedding $400 within 30 minutes.

According to the CoinDesk data, the Bitcoin’s price drop has wiped billions of dollars from its market capitalization within minutes. It has also affected the values of other cryptocurrencies including Ripple (XRP), Ethereum, EOS, Stellar and Litecoin, dragging the value of each of them down, losing billions of dollars.

Bitcoin had attained a stability in its value, as recorded at the beginning of the month, the fall it has experienced has hit its 17-months volatility. The volatility comes when the value of the cryptocurrency gets into a state of stability, to end its stable trading. Also, the cryptocurrency trading by the whales (the people holding a huge share of cryptocurrency), also affects the price change of the cryptocurrency.

Bitcoin was having this stable state since September 17. The value of Bitcoin was above $6600, in the past week and has decreased sharply to $6,125. However, after some time of the price drop, Bitcoin recovered its value to an extent and reached briefly to $6,200.

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) had already published a warning that the rapidly growing value of the cryptocurrency assets can create “new vulnerabilities in the international financial system”. The warning came to be true when Bitcoin’s value dropped to 4.65 per cent, over the 24 hour period. Bitcoin, with its price drop, is hardly maintaining any gains this month. In just thirty minutes the cryptocurrency market capitalization fell from $214 billion to $205 billion.

Google Unveils the Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL & a New Chrome OS Tablet

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After much of the leaks of Google’s Pixel 3 phones, finally, Google has launched the new smartphones in an event, held in New York City, yesterday. The new Google collection unveiled at the event includes two new Pixel phones, a new Chromebook and a new Google Home Hub, along with a few accessories.

The new, third generation Google Pixel smartphones, the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, have bigger screens than the last year’s Google Pixel phones. The smartphones have a front and back glass finish, giving them more premium look. Both of the phones possess a Qualcomm Snapdragon 845 processor, and the storage will range from 64 GB to 128 GB, with a RAM size of 4GB. The two phones are water resistant and have no micro SD slot or a headphone jack.

New-Google-Pixel-3-Xl
Image Source: gadgetstouse.com

The Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL, both support wireless Qi charging with a 2915mAh battery and 3430mAh, respectively. The two are also having a similar camera set, a 12.2-megapixel rear camera and a dual 8-megapixel front camera. Having all the similarities the two phones differ in the screen size. The Pixel 3 has a 5.5-inch OLED screen, whereas the Pixel 3 XL has a 6.3-inch OLED display. The starting price for the Pixel 3 is $799, and the Pixel 3XL starts at $899, for its basic model. The Pixel 3 and Pixel XL will be the first phones to receive the latest Android updates, possessing no bloatware.

At the event, Google also launched its first Chrome OS tablet, named as Slate. The 12.3-inch display Google Slate is a laptop that can be converted into a tablet. The detachable keyboard is connected to the tablet through the magnet connectors and is empowered with the internal battery of the tablet, itself. The device has come with a better wide-angle front-facing camera, and has the highest pixel density, as compared to the other devices in the same category.

The tablet will be available in a variant of 4GB, 8GB, or 16GB of RAM, built on an Intel Core m3, i5, or Celeron processors, and the available storage will be up to 256GB. The tablet alone will cost approximately $599, and the keyboard will cost $199. Also, you can get a styler pen worth $99.

Along with the Google smartphones and the tablet, Google also announced the Google Home Hub enabled with the Google Assistant. The Google Home Hub does not support video calling as it does not have any camera, and also, it has a smaller screen. The cost of this gadget will be $149. With all these new gadgets, Google also released the Chrome set, but there was no mention of it in the event. The Chrome set costs $35 and still supports 1080p streaming, but with faster 5GHz Wi-Fi network support.

The pre-orders for all Google’s new gizmos will start from October 11 and will go on sale starting November 1 in India.

Jerry Yang : An Internet Entrepreneur & Founder of Yahoo!

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Destiny and hard work play a vital role in the success of a person. Not neglecting the hard work, to achieve something big, you have to be at the right place at the right time. The Taiwanese-American Internet entrepreneur, Jerry Yang had his circumstances, that brought him from Taiwanese to California, when he just knew a single word from Engish, i.e. Shoe. It took him only three years to master the language. As soon he became proficient with English, his aptitude proved his excellence in other fields too.

Early Life

Yang was born on 6 November 1968, as Yang Chih-Yuan in Taipei, Taiwan, to an English professor mother. He lost his father at the age of two. Yang was just ten, when his mother, along with him and his younger brother, moved to San Jose, California, in 1978. His mother taught English to the other immigrants, and the two children grew with their grandparents.

Jerry Yang
Image Source: South China Morning Post

Yang joined the United States Educational System in San Jose, where he excelled at every other subject. His remarkable performance made his teachers to put him in advanced classes for gifted students. He attended the Stanford University, where he earned the bachelor’s as well as the master’s degree in electrical engineering, just in four years. In 1989, at the university, he met his future partner and a fellow Stanford student, David Filo.

Founding Yahoo!

During the time, Yang was studying at the Stanford University, the internet was making its base in the city of San Jose. Yang became familiar with this new technology and decided to learn more about it. In 1994, he along with his friend David Filo created a web directory, that included the names and addresses of other websites. The two, named the website, as Jerry and David’s Guide to the World Wide Web. After a few months, it became popular and was renamed as Yahoo Inc.!! Within a few months, the website gained 100,000 unique visitors.

With the increasing popularity, Sequoia Capital became its first official investor by investing $2 million in the venture. Yang and Filo becoming the Chief Yahoo appointed Tim Koogle as the first CEO of the company. Within one year of Yahoo’s launch, it gained the attention of other venture capitalists too, gaining more and more fundings.

In 1998, Yahoo was the most popular starting point for web users, and by 2004, Yahoo had its own search software. In 2007, Yang replaced the second CEO of Yahoo, Terry Semel and served as the CEO for two years. In 2012, Yang left Yahoo.

Share in Alibaba

In 1997, Yang had gone for a trip to China, where he met the founder of Alibaba; Jack Ma. At the time Jack Ma was working as a government employed tour guide and had taken Yang to the Great Wall of China. Their meeting included a conversation based on the development of the web. And after a few months, Jack Ma started working on Alibaba.

In 2005, Yang made Yahoo buy a 40% stake in Alibaba paying $1 billion. Yahoo, under Yang’s direction also bought the assets of Yahoo! China, for $700 million. Later, there was an alteration in the shares, as Yahoo sold a small portion of it, later buying another portion from the Alibaba stakes, again.

Yang as an Angel Capitalist

In 2015, Yang started his capital venture named as AME Cloud Ventures. According to another venture capitalist, Rob Solomon, Yang was “a great founder, evangelist, strategist and mentor”, having “created the blueprint for what is possible on the Internet. Till date, Yang has funded over 50 startups including Tango, Evernote, Wattpad, Vectra Networks Inc.

Personal Life

Yang is married to Akiko Yamazaki, whom he met during his student-exchange program to Japan, in 1992. The two are currently living in Los Altos Hills, California. Yang is the member of the boards of many technology companies and is also involved in philanthropy.

Yahoo Back into the Chat Business with its New Yahoo Together App

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As they say, “It’s never too late”. Yahoo has followed this phrase by launching its new messenger app. Yahoo launched ‘Yahoo Together’, a messenger app, on Thursday, shutting down its older Yahoo Messenger, due to the reduced usage of the app. Yahoo Together is a Yahoo and Oath’s product that it was testing a few months ago, as the invite-only Yahoo Squirrel app. Now, the Squirrel app is out of beta, and Yahoo has launched the same as the Yahoo Together app.

Even, after the data breach happened, on Yahoo’s messenger, in 2013, Yahoo has gathered some courage to enter back into the business. Yahoo and Oath, together have made an effort in the field of chatting, when there are so many messenger apps already available online.

Yahoo Together
Image Source: 9to5mac.com

The Yahoo Together is similar to other chatting apps, except providing more organized experience for the group chats. The app is having way more similarity with the enterprise level chat apps like Slack than any other simple chat apps. But, the app is specially designed for the personnel groups, like family and friends. The look and feel, as well as the custom reactions below the messages, seems to be directly adopted from Slack only.

Like Slack, it supports private and public group chats, that has been named as Topics. One can easily share audio and video files, on these group chats. The Activity View feature of Yahoo Together shows the user every time his/her name is mentioned in the chat. Like any other chat app, the user can mute the notifications for a particular group or a person.

The only feature that differentiates the app from other chatting apps is the smart reminder feature that notifies the user about different events, or of any particular message in the group, by sending the group members a notification about that message. Also, there is no voice calling feature as well as no third-party app integration, available in the app.

The app is created by the Yahoo’s old Communications Team, but with better functionality and features. Although with the chat apps like What’s App, Facebook Messenger and Slack, already available online, the launch of another chat app from Yahoo have raised many questions on its success, in such a competitive environment, Yahoo’s effort is commendable. But, the app surely needs a lot of improvements to survive in the market.

Mercedes Showcased the Third-gen Merc B-Class at the Paris Motor Show 2018

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The Paris Motor Show 2018 has started, and every automobile company is all set to showcase their new products and inventions in the event. In between the Mercedes has already unveiled its new Mercedes-Benz B-class MPV, as the fourth member of the Mercedes’ range of eight new smaller cars.

The Benz B-class is a hatchback silhouette, made under the internal codename W247. Having a similar shape as its predecessors, it has come with better interiors and fresh sheet metals outside. The vehicle is based on the A-class platform, with new engines, autonomous tech and powertrain options.

Merc MVP
Image Source: yahoo.com

The B-class has adopted the older multi-beam LED headlamps from the A-class and has the split tail lamps at the back. This time, it has avoided the strange side sculptured look from the previous models of the series, giving the car a cleaner and upfront profile. The new Mercedes MPV is 1,557mm taller, 4,359mm longer, and 1,786mm wider, having a wheelbase of 2,929mm and a reduced drag coefficient of 0.24. The roof of the B-class is slightly lower and the wheels of the car range between 16 inches to 19 inch for the different variants.

The overhangs are also shorter, offering more interior space for people and cargo. The Merc MVP has been embedded with the voice recognition, augmented reality features and Mercedes Me connectivity. Similar to the S-class, it also includes the safety features and the driver aid for semi-autonomous driving.

The different variants of the B-class will offer five engines, two petrol and three diesel type, ranging from the 136-horsepower gasoline B180 to the 190-horsepower, 295 pound-foot B220d. Both types of engine cars will have a 7-speed automatic gearbox.

There has been no announcement of the launch of the B-class in India yet. But, we can expect the availability of this new Mercedes model in India, in the coming year, maybe after the launch of A-class hatchback or the A-class sedan.

Susan Wojcicki : The Second Chief Executive Officer of YouTube

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From being a mother of five children to making a name in the list of the Most Powerful Women of biggest forums like Forbes and Fortune, Susan Wojcicki has become an inspirational example of women empowerment. A part-time painter, doodler, and a scholar from the University of California, Wojcicki is responsible for Google’s most beneficial deal- YouTube. The current CEO of YouTube oversaw the potential of the user-uploaded content, and convinced Google’s board members, to give her idea the green light, and steal the deal.

Early Life

Susan Wojcicki was born on 5 July 1968, to a physics professor, Stanley Wojcicki, and Esther Wojcicki, an educator, in Santa Clara, California. Her father served at the Stanford University, so she along with her two sisters, Janet Wojcicki and Anne Wojcicki, spent most of their childhood in the university campus.

Susan Wojcicki
Image Source: flickr.com

Wojcicki completed her high school from Gunn High School, Palo Alto, California. In 1990, she graduated from the Harvard University with primary subjects, history and literature. Later, she attended the University of California, to pursue a master’s degree in economics, followed by an MBA from the UCLA Anderson School of Management.

During her graduation, Wojcicki took Computers as a subject and grew an interest in it. Her interest led her to drop the long-term plan of pursuing a career as an educator and choose a career in the technical field.

Early Career & Joining Google

After her MBA, Wojcicki started working in the marketing team at Intel in Santa Clara, California, in 1999. Later, she became the management consultant at Bain & Company and R.B. Webber & Company. In the year 1998, the founders of Google, Larry Page and Sergey Brin, used Susan’s garage in Menlo Park, as their first Google office. In 1999, she joined Google as the first marketing manager and the 16th employee of Google. She was also among the first Google Doodle team and has been a part of Google’s most important projects, like Google Images, AdWords, DoubleClick, and Google Books.

Wojcicki continued working in the marketing department of Google, becoming the senior vice president of Advertising & Commerce department of Google. In 2007, Google acquired DoubleClick by paying $3.1 billion, on the suggestion of Wojcicki.

CEO of YouTube

During the rise of YouTube, Wojcicki foresaw the scope of it and advised Google to take over it, merging the Google Video into it. Hence in 2006, Google acquired YouTube for $1.65 billion. Within less than a decade of the acquisition of YouTube, YouTube valued at $160 billion, 100 times more than the initial investment of Google.

In February 2014, Wojcicki was appointed as the second CEO of YouTube. After she became the CEO, the number of logged in users per month raised to 1.9 billion, watching videos on it one billion hours a day. Her leadership rose, up to 30% female employees in the YouTube office. She also imposed some policies on the content of YouTube to prevent hate speech and violent extremism.

Personal life

On August 23, 1998, in Belmont, California, Wojcicki got married to Dennis Troper. The two are parents of five children. Wojcicki and Dennis Troper move philanthropy through the Troper Wojcicki Foundation. She has been a supporter of Women’s computer education. She even advocated for the paid maternity leaves for women and gender discrimination. In 2017, Wojcicki was ranked at number 6 in the list of Forbes World’s 100 Most Powerful Women.