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Articles by Shashank Raj
I Turned My Google Sheets Hack Into a Real Tool. It Took Six Months and I Have No Regrets.
A sequel to The Daily Standup Slayer Six months ago I wrote about automating my standups with a Google Sheet, a cron job, and the kind of infrastructure that makes real engineers wince. Nightly runs. A Docker container on EC2. Apps Script that worked until it didn't. The whole thing was duct tape at scale, and I was weirdly proud of it. Then my PM asked me to update the ticket before the standup, not after. The sheet broke. The cron job silently failed for three days.
Finding Balance in AI-Powered Creation
We live in an era where incredible resources are at our fingertips. The idea of having an AI as a teacher, mentor, or even a rigorous critic feels almost unbelievable. I’ve been experiencing this firsthand with a project deeply personal to me – a solution designed to solve a particular challenge I’d been wrestling with. I poured nearly a year into it, meticulously architecting every layer, confident that I'd created something truly bespoke. Initially, I welcomed the assistance of AI.
The Daily Standup Slayer: How This Lazy Manager Automated Everything (Except Meetings)
Let's face it, meetings are the beige walls of the productivity world. You know, endless loops of "what could have been" and "should have been" while everyone wrestles over a shrinking timeframe. Articles debunking their usefulness pile up like unread emails, but the charm of a good standup seems unshakeable for some (cough management cough).
The AI Revolution In Intellectual Property Management: Transformations And Future Considerations
Twenty to twenty-five years ago, the world of Intellectual Property Management (IPM) looked very different. Patent professionals and experts had to navigate the labyrinth of libraries and patent offices physically, poring over thousands of pages to conduct prior art searches and understand the state of the art. These exhaustive processes took months, with projects like Landscape and Freedom to Operate (FTO) analysis demanding extensive timelines.
Intellectual Property As Collateral: A New Era Of Financing For Innovators
trademarks, copyrights, and trade secrets—are derived from innovation and creativity. Recognizing their critical economic value, companies are increasingly adopting sophisticated management strategies to optimize and protect their IP assets. One of the most promising yet underutilized strategies is using IP as collateral for loans, a practice that holds significant potential for high-growth businesses.
Startups - Is Your IP Strategy Fundraising-Ready? - Patent - India
When pitching investors, a strong IP portfolio is table stakes. But simply having patents isn't enough – you need a strategic approach.
Fast-Track Patent Examination For Universities In India
Fast-Track Patent Examination for Universities in India Recently, there have been patent cases in India where request for expedited examination is rejected under Rule 24(C)(4)and such requests were processed in accordance with the provisions contained in rule 24(B), i.e. same as examination requests made normally.
Should I First Publish Or Patent My Research Work?
In a world full of innovative and competitive ideas, every innovator seeks to stay ahead in the competition, therefore, want their research work to come in public domain as soon as it is developed. But the real question is – should they go ahead for paper publication first or patent filing? Does publishing the work beforehand have any effect on the grant of a patent? Usually, these conditions are shredded with confusion and some researchers must pay more attention to it.
Patentability Of DNA Related Inventions : The Indian Context
In that is trying to open different doors of inventions in the scientific community from RNA-Cancer vaccines to genetically modified organisms. The Questions is whether these scientific inventions are patentable or not? It has always been an interesting topic for debate. The riveting issue is to be able to distinguish between naturally existing genetics and the human altered genes. To get a better idea of Indian laws around patenting DNA related Inventions.
Open Innovation – A Brief Introduction - Corporate and Company Law - India
Open innovation denotes a strategic approach where businesses invite not just internal but also external participation in idea generation and problem-solving. It is a process that seeks to harness shared knowledge and insights from various sources, both inside and outside the organization, to spark innovation and generate novel solutions.
Ways To Generate And Enhance The Number Of IPs In Educational Institutions
Innovation is key to a nation's economic growth, and educational institutions undoubtedly lay the foundation for overall technological growth, which in turn boosts the nation's economy. Though the publication of research papers is a common practice in India across many educational institutes, the filing of patents for such innovations is still in its nascent stage. One of the primary reasons for this is a lack of awareness about the enormous benefits one can derive by securing IP rights.
The Extent Of Modification Or Improvement – Patent Of Addition - Patent - India
Introduction: When a patent is filed or granted for an invention, it is important to understand that it does not signify the finality or completion of the invention. In today's rapidly evolving technological landscape, opportunities for enhancements and modifications to the original invention abound. In fact, these advancements can often result in the emergence of entirely novel inventions altogether.
[Update: Back online] AWS suffering outages, affects multiple apps in North American region
Credits: Wikimedia Commons Update: The issue has been fixed now, according to an update on the AWS Service Health dashboard which reads, “We have restored all traffic to Kinesis Data Streams via all endpoints and it is now operating normally. We have also resolved the error rates invoking CloudWatch APIs. We continue to work towards full recovery for IoT SiteWise and details of the service status is below. All other services are operating normally.
Salesforce to acquire Slack Technologies in its biggest acquisition till date: Report
Cloud software company Salesforce is in advanced talks to buy the work messaging software Slack, according to a report by WSJ. The deal, if it goes through, will be the biggest acquisition made by Salesforce till date. The announcement of the deal could be made as early as next week. Slack has a market value of more than $17 billion as of Wednesday morning, and since the news of the acquisition was reported, shares of the company were up by 22 percent.
US Treasury extends deadline for ByteDance's TikTok sale to December 4
Credits: Wikimedia commons The US Treasury has extended the November 27 deadline assigned to TikTok’s parent company ByteDance, which required the chinese tech giant to sell the platform’s American operations to avoid being banned in the country. The deadline has been extended for seven days, and the latest date to sell TikTok in America is December 4.
SpaceX breaks its own record, reuses a Falcon 9 for a seventh time for a Starlink launch
SpaceX is on course to make its satellite broadband network live very soon, as the space agency launches another batch of 60 Starlink satellites into the low-Earth orbit. The launch took place from Space Launch Complex 40 (SLC-40) at Cape Canaveral Air Force Station at 9:13 p.m. EST on Wednesday. Besides the Starlink mission, SpaceX was also successful in breaking its own record by rescuing a Falcon 9 first stage rocket booster for a seventh trip.
Discord about to close a funding round with a $7 billion valuation: report
Credits: Wikimedia Commons The gaming community’s favorite communications service, Discord, is close to the end of its latest financing round that would potentially value the company at up to $7 billion, according to a report by TechCrunch. Discord, so far has raised $379.3 million, and a recent $100 million investment into the company led to an increase in its valuation to $3.5 billion.
Twitter to start providing verification badges to authentic accounts from early 2021
Twitter Verification badge Twitter has announced that it will start its account reverification process once again in 2021, providing ‘blue checks’ to users. In 2017, Twitter had ceased providing verification badges to its account holders, even if they were genuinely noteworthy and a public figure. The decision was taken surrounding an incident in which the social media giant had verified an account belonging to Jason Keller, a white supremacist who organized a rally in Charlottesville, Virginia.
Unacademy adds Tiger Global and Dragoneer as investors in latest round
The edtech boom, largely propelled by ongoing COVID-19 pandemic, isn’t ending anytime soon. And we have yet another instance that validates that. Bangalore-based edtech upstart Unacademy has welcomed two new investors onboard, Tiger Global Management and Dragoneer Investment Group, after a recent financing round. It did not disclose any details but sources claim that the financing round was worth around $75 million to $100 million.
Bitcoin exceeds $19,000 mark, closing in on its previous all time high
The world’s most famous cryptocurrency Bitcoin is on the rise again, and has surpassed the $19,000 mark for the first time since 2017, which was also the year during which the currency hit its all time high. At the time of writing this article, the value of the currency is $19,130 on CoinMarketCap, which is up 160% since January. The current value is closing in on its all-time high at $19,783, which was recorded in 2017.
Online payments tech startup Cashfree raises $35.3m in Series B funding
The Indian banking and payments technology startup, Cashfree, has raised $35.3 million in a Series B funding round. The company plans on using the funds for research and development to further expand its offerings. The latest funding round was led by the London-based private equity firm Apis Partners and also saw participation from Y Combinator and Smilegate who are Cashfree’s existing investors. The Bengaluru-based startup was founded in 2015 by Reeju Dutta and Akash Sinha.
Microsoft Teams will now allow 24-hours of free video and voice calls with up to 300 participants
A gift of gratitude, Microsoft has said that it will lift the time limit placed on video calls from its Teams application, allowing participants to participate in calls that span 24 hours. This development comes days after rival Zoom announced that it will also lift the 40 minutes time limit (temporarily) on the day of Thanksgiving, to help families spend more time with their family in these tumultuous times.
Tesla now worth over half a trillion dollars, Elon Musk now second richest
Credits: Wikimedia commons Tesla stocks’ sky-high flight today has helped the electric-vehicle company reach a new milestone of a valuation of over half a trillion dollars. The company’s net value is estimated to be around $515 billion, a five times increase since the start of the year 2020. And not just Tesla’s net market cap, the founder Elon Musk also saw himself overtake Bill Gates as the second richest man on earth, now only behind Amazon’s Jeff Bezos.
Indian government bans another batch of 43 Chinese apps citing security concerns
The Indian Government continues to hunt down Chinese apps in the country and has now banned 43 more apps claiming they are “prejudicial to sovereignty and integrity of India, defence of India, security of state and public order”.
Twitter will now warn users before they like a labeled tweet
Twitter started showing a warning before users tried to retweet a labeled tweet during the recently concluded US Presidential elections and it looks like the company is quite satisfied with the results. That is probably why it has decided to expand this function to liking a tweet as well, which means that from now on, Twitter will send you a prompt whenever you try to like a tweet that is labeled for being misleading or fake.
Content management platform Quintype raises $3.4 million in Series A funding round
The Bengaluru-based content management platform Quintype has raised $3.4 million in a Series A funding round. According to the company, a part of the Series A funding will be used for its expansion into Southeast Asia, starting from Singapore. The company completed this round recently, which was led by IIFL AMC, a global asset management firm, and a part of India’s IIFL Wealth Management firm. Quintype was founded in 2014 and is currently headed by the CEO Chirdeep Shetty.
Snapchat introduces TikTok like short video feed called 'Spotlight'
Snapchat becomes the latest social media platform to join the TikTok-like short video bandwagon, and has launched its own feature called ‘Spotlight’. Just like the Chinese platform, Spotlight will also have short videos in a vertically scrollable feed format. Snapchat says Spotlight will “shine a light on the most entertaining Snaps created by the Snapchat community”.
Moderna's COVID 19 vaccine to cost $25-$37
Just as the second wave of COVID 19 has started to emerge around the world, several companies, including Pfizer and Moderna, have started publishing results of the trials of their vaccines, bringing hope to the masses. However, from the looks of it, this vaccine may not be as easy to get as everyone would have hoped for, as Moderna’s Chief Executive Stephane Bancel told German weekly Welt am Sonntag (WamS) that it will sell its vaccine to governments for $25-$37, depending upon the order volume.
Twitter to hand over POTUS account to Joe Biden on 20th January: Report
The US Presidential election of 2020 was one of the most exciting affairs to take place in an year that seems to be full with letdowns and cancellations. At the end, former Vice President Joe Biden came out on top, defeating the current POTUS Donald Trump after securing massive wins in Pennsylvania and Nevada.
Netflix announces free weekend 'StreamFest' on December 5 and 6 in India
The Indian OTT market is firing up with some great competition among players like Netflix, Amazon Prime Video, Disney+Hotstar, Zee5, Sony Liv and many more. To come out on top of all, Netflix is making a move that is aimed at attracting unsubscribed users towards the video-streaming platform. It is hosting a two-day weekend offer period on December 5 and 6, where unsubscribed users will get free full access to Netflix’s entire content catalog.
Intel announces NUC M15 Whitebook laptop to help OEMs build premium laptops sans R&D
The Intel NUC M15 Laptop Kit brings Intel’s technical expertise to the whitebook market. Introduced in November 2020, the laptop kit provides Intel’s channel customers with a premium, precision engineered laptop kit. (Credit: Intel Corporation) Intel announced an in-house built Whitebook laptop on Thursday, called NUC M15. However, before you start thinking that Intel is getting into the laptop business, the laptop itself won’t be sold directly by the chip manufacturer.
Twitter fixes performance issues with fleets, feature now available globally
Twitter started rolling out its ephemeral ‘Stories’ like feature called ‘Fleets’ globally on Wednesday, but was met with performance and stability issues, due to which the company had to slowdown the global rollout. Twitter Product Lead Kayvon Beykpour said in a live video on Thursday, that most of the performance issues which caused the delay have been fixed and the company is expecting to complete the global rollout by Friday, according to a report by Reuters.
Apple executive thrashes Facebook over its criticism of restricting targeted ads on iPhones
Apple is locking horns with the Menlo Park-based social media giant Facebook over its criticism of the new restrictions being introduced on the iPhones that will prevent ad targeting without the consent of the users. Jane Horvath, senior director of global privacy at Apple, called out Facebook for having “disregard for user privacy”, in a letter to Electronic Frontier Foundation and other privacy groups.
Google, Twitter and Facebook threaten to leave Pakistan over controversial new censorship law
Pakistan might have its biggest ever social media crisis at hand, as companies like Google, Twitter and Facebook have threatened to leave the nation after Prime Minister Imran Khan granted the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority the power to regulate digital content in the country. The Prime Minister of the country, last week, allowed regulators to have tremendous power over content on social media platforms in the country.
CCI approves Reliance Retail's acquisition of Future Group, lands a huge blow on Amazon
Reliance Retail Venture Limited (RRVL) has received a green signal from Indian regulators to go ahead with its acquisition of the second largest retail firm in India, Future Group. The Competition Commission of India has approved the acquisition of Future Group’s retail, wholesale, logistics, and warehousing businesses by India’s largest retailer RRVL.
Facebook reveals more on its AI program that detects hate speech and misinformation
Facebook published a series of posts on Thursday, detailing, among other things, the platform’s progress in identifying hate speech and misinformation with the advances in its AI technology. All these posts appear to be supplements to Facebook’s Community Standards Enforcement Report, November 2020.
Apple to get rid of the delay that occurs when you open a customized shortcut on iOS 14
What should come as a sigh of relief for iPhone users and especially those who have updated to the latest iOS 14, Apple is going to get rid of the interference by the Shortcuts App when opening another app shortcut from the home screen. Good riddance! The latest iOS launched earlier this year and came with some major and interesting updates and features that provided iPhone users the liberty to customize their home screen.
Twitter is slowing down the global rollout of Fleets to fix performance and stability issues
Twitter announced the global rollout of its transient tweets called ‘Fleets” on Wednesday, but the company’s support team said today that they are slowing down the rollout process to fix performance and stability problems. Twitter currently has over 300 million monthly active users.
IBM to acquire APM start-up Instana to upgrade its Hybrid Cloud services
IBM, on Wednesday, announced its plans to acquire the APM startup Instana for an undisclosed value. The acquisition comes as part of IBM’s effort to advance its Hybrid Cloud and AI Strategy. This comes just a few weeks after the company decided to shift its focus to its hybrid cloud and AI platform, and decided to separate its Infrastructure service unit from its Global Technology Services division, spinning it off as a new company.
Apple agrees to pay $113 million in a settlement over 'faulty' batteries in older iPhones
Flickr User Yutaka Tsutano under CC 2.0 License Apple has agreed to pay $113 million in a multistate settlement for misrepresentation of older generation iPhone batteries and for intentionally pushing iOS software updates which throttled device performance. California Attorney General Xavier Becerra, alongside 33 other states and the district attorneys for the counties of Los Angeles, Alameda, Santa Clara, San Diego and Santa Cruz, announced a $113 million settlement against Apple on Wednesday.
Twitter receives censures from Indian government for failing to take down controversial posts about Supreme Court
A parliamentary panel headed by Bhartiya Janata Party MP from Delhi, Meenakshi Lekhi, has questioned Twitter over its failure to take down tweets by comedian Kunal Kamra criticizing the Supreme Court of India. Comedian Kunal Kamra’s tweets referred to the bail provided by the Supreme Court to Republic Network’s chief, Arnab Goswami. The popular journalist was accused and arrested for abetment in a suicide case.
‘Kitchens Centre’ raises fresh Series A from Village Global for its ‘shared kitchens’ concept
Lakshay Jain-Founder of Kitchens Centre Village Global, an American early-stage venture capital firm backed by entrepreneurs such as Mark Zuckerberg, Bill Gates, Jeff Bezos and Eric Schmidt, has invested an undisclosed amount into Kitchens Centre, an Indian shared kitchen prop-tech startup. The investment was part of the startup’s Pre Series A funding round. “Kitchens Centre’s data-driven approach to property acquisition and sales management ensures maximization of occupancy and unit economics.
Microsoft introduces a new security processor 'Pluton' to prevent cyberattacks on Windows PCs
Credits: Wikimedia commons Microsoft has been trying everything possible to protect Windows-powered PCs from the threat of hacks or data theft, and the American tech giant is finally here with a new chip technology that will make life tougher for hackers.
Google released a Chrome version optimized for Apple's M1 chip, but pulled it down after crashes
Apple introduced brand new Macs based on their own M1 silicon chip during the ‘One More Thing’ event on Nov 10. The company’s in-house built chip is based on ARM’s architecture, and all developers targeting the new devices are working on transitioning from Intel’s x86 to ARM. Google released a new version of their browser Google Chrome with native support for M1 chips, but soon retracted the update reportedly due to unexpected crashes.
Twitter rolls out 'Fleets' globally
Twitter, much like every social media platform there is today, introduced Stories on its platform earlier this year, giving it the title of ‘Fleets.’ And much like Stories on any other platform, it seems like the feature has worked on Twitter as well, as the company has decided to roll it out globally, starting today. The feature was first spotted in March, and has made its way to multiple areas around the world since then, including India. The idea is simple.
Apple introduces App Store Small Business Programme, cutting commision fee for small scale developers
By DMS WIKI – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=90506223 Apple announced its new App Store Small Business Programme today, which is aimed to help small businesses and indie developers grow on its platform. The programme introduces a new structure to Apple’s App Store commission system—the commission rate for businesses and developers who are eligible for this programme will be halved.
Facebook NPE team launches E.gg, an experimental collage maker for iOS users
Facebook New Product Experimentation team has officially launched its new creatives app, E.gg, which will be available to download on the iOS App store across the United States. E.gg is a creative platform where users can create “zine-like, freeform pages from their phone and share them on the web,” which essentially translates to a collage making app.
Mark Zuckerberg and Jack Dorsey to testify before US congress on content moderation
Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg and Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey are back to testifying in a U.S. congressional hearing on Tuesday. And as has been the case with a lot of such previous hearings, this hearing too will be centered around Section 230 and the companies’ moderation practices. The points and arguments that were put forth during the hearing right before the U.S presidential elections, are likely to be brought up again and continued in Tuesday’s hearing.
Huawei sells Honor smartphone brand to Chinese state-backed companies
Credits: Wikimedia Commons After weeks of speculation, Huawei has confirmed that it is selling off its budget smartphone brand, Honor in an attempt to salvage what’s left of its most famous line of smartphones. In a statement made through a local Shenzhen newspaper, the decision was announced that Shenzhen Zhixin New Information Technology Co. has signed an agreement with Huawei Investment and Holding Co. to acquire all business assets belonging to the Honor smartphone brand.
Flipkart acquires AR startup Scapic to build an immersive online shopping experience
One of India’s leading e-commerce giants, Flipkart, has announced the acquisition of the Augmented Reality (AR) startup Scapic today. Flipkart says that the purpose of the acquisition of Scapic is to enhance the e-commerce giant’s “immersive shopping experience capabilities.” The investment value is of an undisclosed amount, and the deal comes soon after the acquisition of the gaming start-up Mech Mocha.
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