Month: September 2025

The right VR/AR tools help you create engaging content and deploy it across all headsets, boosting your ROI and reach. By understanding your project’s scope, you can identify the best tools for your goals.

Game engines are ideal for creating VR experiences because they provide the tools to build 3D worlds and script all interactions. The industry leaders are Unity, which is user-friendly and uses C#, and Unreal Engine, which offers superior graphical capabilities but requires learning a complex programming language.

AR/VR Interaction Designer: This type of developer is responsible for designing interactive and immersive user interactions, including gestures, voice control, spatial interfaces, and more. They use 3D animation and modeling tools like Maya or Blender to produce their work.

Mobile AR/VR Developer: These developers specialize in augmented reality on smartphones and tablets, developing ARKit or ARCore apps for iOS or Android devices. They also develop cross-platform web-based AR/VR applications with frameworks like PlayCanvas and Amazon Sumerian.

Virtual Training: Virtual environments can offer realistic simulations for training without the risk of physical harm. Architects use VR to design homes, while firefighters and soldiers train in safe, virtual environments to prepare for hazardous situations.

Spatial analytics platforms allow you to measure and analyze user behavior within a VR environment, enabling you to improve your content and products. Cognitive 3D, for example, allows you to collect a wide variety of data from a user’s experience and connect it to an app to drive future decisions.

Tech innovation is the process of creating, developing, implementing, and disseminating new technologies, tools, systems, and processes that enable breakthrough advancements in various fields. It can be driven by scientific research, customer insights, shop-floor experimentation, and more. It can also be fueled by societal needs and challenges. Technology innovations include everything from medical advances that make it easier for doctors to diagnose patients and administer treatment, to renewable energy solutions that reduce carbon emissions and power consumption.

It enables companies to stay ahead of the competition and maintain a competitive advantage. For example, technological innovations in the area of e-commerce have helped Amazon dominate the marketplace by enabling customers to easily navigate and purchase products online, while providing businesses with real-time analytics on customer behavior and product inventory.

Moreover, technological innovations can help address complex societal challenges such as reducing poverty, addressing climate change, and promoting access to healthcare. For instance, the CRISPR gene editing technique allows scientists to create crops that are tolerant of environmental stresses, such as drought and salinity, making it easier to adapt to changing climate conditions and secure food supplies. Similarly, the development of personalized medicine and targeted treatments allows doctors to treat specific genetic mutations in cancer cells, resulting in more effective and safer care for their patients.

However, it’s important to note that not all technology innovations are created equal. It’s vital to select those that align with your strategy and business objectives, are scalable, and realistic to implement. Otherwise, they could end up being nothing more than a distraction that diverts your teams from the projects they truly need to focus on.

Whether you’re an e-commerce business managing heavy traffic during the holiday shopping season or a research firm crunching huge sets of data, you can take advantage of top-tier IT infrastructure without spending a fortune on hardware. This is the power of cloud computing, and it’s becoming more commonplace as organizations seek greater flexibility, scalability, and cost-saving potential from their IT solutions.

The “cloud” started out as a tech industry slang term for the servers and networking infrastructure that make up the Internet. As more and more computing processes moved to these servers, people began to refer to them as “the cloud” in technical diagrams. Today, there are different types of clouds, such as public clouds, private clouds, hybrid clouds and multiclouds. But no matter which type of cloud you use, every cloud abstracts, pools and shares scalable computing resources across a network.

Some of the biggest benefits of cloud computing include the ability to access files from anywhere there’s an Internet connection and the ease of collaboration when working with remote teams. Additionally, switching to cloud computing removes the need for businesses to update and maintain their own servers, saving them money and IT staff time.

There are several types of cloud services available, including infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS), platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and software-as-a-service (SaaS). SaaS is the most widely used cloud service model. It delivers a fully functional software program to the end user, taking care of all updates and maintenance for them.

The news media (print, broadcasting and internet) report on current events and issues. These reports can inform the public about important national and international developments. They can also help readers and viewers make informed decisions about personal or community matters. The news media may promote specific political ideologies and opinions or encourage people to take positive social action during times of crisis.

Some research suggests that the way the news is presented can influence the amount of attention that is paid to lesser-known issues. For example, the public may become more concerned about global poverty or climate change if the topics receive greater coverage in the news media. This is especially true if the news is perceived as objective and credible.

In the past, printed news was phoned into a newspaper or magazine office and manually set in type for inclusion in an edition. Radio and television accelerated this process by allowing the rapid reporting of events as they unfolded. Today, cable news channels bring live news to the home in the same way that newspapers used to do.

When talking with a reporter, be concise and focus on your main points. If a reporter doesn’t seem interested in your idea, respect that and move on. Reporters have many story ideas to pursue and the continual onrush of deadlines makes it unrealistic to pursue every good idea that comes up. The same is true of scholars who are unable to turn every good research idea into a journal article.

Daily update is a key organisational communication tool that fosters alignment and engagement by keeping teammates on the same page about company activities. It can take the form of email notifications, brief meetings, or a team communication platform like tchop(tm). Frequent daily updates help teams stay informed about ongoing projects and responsibilities, while also building stronger connections with each other.

Often, teams experiment with different forms before settling on one that fits their industry and work style. For example, some teams choose to conduct daily status reports during morning meetings. Others opt for a public weekly report that enables employees to reflect on their accomplishments and share ideas with each other. Regardless of the format, daily updates are typically delivered at a fixed time each day to establish a sense of routine and reliability.

To enable daily updates in your Action, configure one of its intents as a triggering intent and set the daily update option as the response for that intent. Add a dialogue to that conversation that prompts users to subscribe and collects their custom parameters (if configured). When you fulfill the daily update intent, reference the values provided by the user during registration in your daily update response. See the instructions below for details on how to do this, depending on whether you use Dialogflow or the Actions SDK.

Once your Action is ready, test it with a Google Assistant-enabled device. To do so, invoke your Action and tap the daily update button in the Assistant notification. Then follow the prompt to register for daily updates and confirm the subscription in the next interaction.

Your internet privacy is the ability to control how your personal information (PI) is collected, used and protected. It is a subset of the larger world of data privacy that covers the collection, use and storage of PI generally, as well as cybersecurity threats to this information.

There are a number of compelling reasons why you should take your internet privacy seriously. From ensuring that you do not share too much PI in the first place to securing your computer, phone or tablet with antivirus software and other security measures, there are several ways to help keep you and your data safe.

The prevalence and ease of collecting, processing and disseminating PI on the Internet presents a Janus-faced challenge for consumers. On the one hand, this information can help retailers develop targeted product advertising campaigns, provide employers with valuable hiring information and assist law enforcement in solving crimes. But, on the other hand, if this information is compromised, it can be used for nefarious purposes such as identity theft and fraud.

The best way to protect your online privacy is to do your homework. Check out websites and apps to make sure they respect your privacy and if not, take your business elsewhere. Consider using an alternative search engine to Google, like DuckDuckGo or Ecosia, and install a ad blocker on your browser. Encrypt your email and use a secure messaging app such as Telegram to communicate with friends. Finally, ensure your devices are updated with the latest patches to close any cyber vulnerabilities.

When a company or brand decides to offer one journalist or media outlet the opportunity to publish their news first, it’s known as an exclusive report. This can be a powerful tactic that can generate more substantial coverage than a widely distributed announcement. However, the weight of an exclusive isn’t something that can be flung around lightly and there are several considerations that PR professionals need to weigh before making this choice.

First and foremost, exclusivity should be reserved for news that warrants it. A big move like an acquisition, a round of funding that’s closing with notable investors, or a new partnership that has the potential to reshape the industry are examples of events that could warrant an exclusive. It’s important to do a little digging before pitching the idea of an exclusive to journalists, and to ensure that the news they cover is aligned with their audience and editorial focus.

Aside from that, it’s also important to think about what kind of timeframe is appropriate for an exclusive. Some journalists may need time to thoroughly research a story before they can write it and others might be under tight deadlines to meet their own publishing schedules. A well-considered exclusive can help PR pros and journalists both get the most out of the relationship, but if it’s a short window, other breaking news might cause them to shift their attention to another article instead of yours. To avoid this, it’s vital to be transparent about the expectations of both parties, including on the record vs off the record, and for attribution versus not for attribution.

Few numbers are as important for business people, investors and policymakers as GDP. It gives us a snapshot of the size of an economy and, when compared to previous data, whether it’s growing or shrinking.

But GDP doesn’t tell the whole story about how a country’s citizens are doing. Increased GDP growth doesn’t necessarily translate into increased income for the average citizen. It could mean that the richest segment of the population is getting even richer, or it could just mean that there are more goods and services being produced overall. It’s also hard to compare GDP across countries because prices differ. One can account for this by using purchasing power parity (PPP), which adjusts GDP figures to take into account the cost of living in different currencies.

Economists use GDP to measure the health of an economy, understand economic cycles and predict future growth. They monitor GDP trends and track the impact of monetary, fiscal and tax policies. They also use it to compare economies and measure the effects of trade agreements.

But GDP is not without its critics. The famous economist Simon Kuznets warned that GDP was a flawed metric because it only measured market activity and excluded many harmful activities like armaments and financial speculation and essential activities, such as caregiving by homemakers. GDP is also difficult to compare across time periods because it uses current prices, not constant ones, so increases in price reflect a rise in the value of what has been produced rather than an actual increase in the quantity of goods and services being produced.

In this era of high-speed breaking news, mastering the art of media alert is more important than ever. While these alerts can help raise awareness, they can also raise ethical issues around sensationalism and triggering fear in audience members. With a little planning, brands can use these tools to meet consumer expectations while still delivering trustworthy, relevant information.

A news alert (also known as a media advisory or a press release) is an announcement of a present or upcoming event intended specifically for journalists and other media professionals. They’re meant to pique the attention of reporters and convince them that your event or initiative is worth their time and coverage. They should include what’s called the “five Ws”: Who, What, When, Where and Why. It’s also helpful to include supporting evidence, such as quotes from people involved or opinions from industry experts.

The best way to distribute your media alerts is by sending them directly to journalists and other media professionals. Ideally, these alerts should be distributed one or two days in advance of the event to give reporters a chance to plan their time and editors to leave space for your story. They can also be distributed via traditional outlets like local newspapers and broadcasters, or through wire services like the Associated Press.

Another tool for monitoring breaking news is Google Alerts, which allows you to set up search terms for any topic or subject that interests you. You’ll then receive an email when new content matching those terms appears online. It’s helpful to limit the number of notifications you receive per day to avoid information overload.

Whether you’re building an app for the first time or expanding your mobile presence, a successful app launch is crucial to your growth. Mobile apps are incredibly profitable with user-driven demand, unlimited branding opportunities, and an endless list of potential use cases. However, app store saturation, increased competition from alternative app stores and third-party platforms, and rising user expectations means that it’s no longer enough to have a great idea and solid code. Achieving a strong app launch is now an essential part of the development process and requires strategic planning across research, measurement, and marketing.

App users take just a few seconds to decide whether an app is worth installing so it’s vital to set your app apart from the crowd and make the most of their attention span. That’s why knowing your audience, defining what sets you apart, and leveraging the power of social media and influencers are all critical for a strong app launch.

It’s also important to begin building your audience before you even start developing your app. Having a dedicated audience to promote your app to upon launch will generate excitement and drive downloads. This can be done through social media campaigns, email newsletters, and word of mouth. Additionally, timing your launch with events related to your app’s industry (like New Year for fitness apps) can create a sense of exclusivity and urgency. You can also build curiosity and anticipation by sharing behind-the-scenes looks at your development journey, teaser images, and countdown posts on social media.