What Is VR/AR Development?

Virtual Reality (VR) creates immersive computer-generated simulations that can be viewed with the aid of special headsets. AR overlays digital information on a display of the physical world, typically via a smartphone or tablet camera. Examples include the mobile video game Pokemon Go and augmented navigation systems like Apple’s car dashboard feature.

VR/AR development involves programming, graphic design, user experience (UX) strategy, and ensuring that applications run smoothly on mobile devices with the latest hardware capabilities. Programmers can use open-source or proprietary tools and frameworks to simplify the programming process. Some developers choose to specialize in specific types of VR/AR software or platforms. For example, a 3D artist might focus on creating 3D assets for the gaming or simulation industries while a UX designer may be better suited to designing mobile apps with intuitive user interfaces and interactions.

AR/VR technologies have a wide range of potential business uses. For instance, AR-enabled retail shopping experiences allow customers to try on products virtually before making a purchase. This boosts customer satisfaction and conversion rates. In manufacturing, AR/VR solutions help speed up product development cycles by allowing teams to perform realistic simulations and tests.

The main challenges associated with AR/VR development are related to cost and availability of equipment. The technology can be expensive to purchase and maintain, especially when paired with specialized VR headsets. Also, many users experience motion sickness or discomfort when using VR hardware. Finally, some users are resistant to the new augmented reality experience and can feel uncomfortable with technology that tracks their movements or captures their image.

How to Leverage Tech Innovation to Deliver Results

Tech innovation is a critical component of successful business growth. Whether it’s a steam engine fueling the industrial revolution or microprocessors enabling the current Generative AI boom, technology innovation has transformed business operations, from customer engagement to internal management. To stay ahead of competitors, tech innovators must understand how to leverage emerging technologies to deliver results.

Providing Advantage for Users

Technological innovation enables companies to offer more personalized experiences, products or services that are more valuable, or solutions that address unmet needs. It can also be used to streamline internal processes, increase operational efficiency, or reduce costs by automating and optimizing tasks.

Technology innovation plays a vital role in addressing complex societal challenges. By leveraging innovative tools and platforms, companies can find solutions for issues like poverty alleviation, environmental sustainability, health care access, and disaster response.

Increasing the Value of Existing Products or Services

Using current technological innovations can lead to a better understanding of customer needs and behaviors, or help companies achieve cost reduction goals by adopting new production methods or streamlining existing activities. These changes can also strengthen a brand image as an innovative company and improve market positioning.

To avoid getting lost in the hype, tech leaders should focus on exploring only those innovations that directly support their innovation strategy and scale effectively. This means skipping the buzzwords and asking hard questions: Does this solution solve a real problem? Will it make our organization more efficient? If the answer isn’t a clear yes, it may be time to move on.

Different Types of Cloud Computing

Cloud computing allows companies to access scalable software, applications and storage resources hosted by third-party service providers over the internet. It’s an efficient way to eliminate upfront costs and maintain flexibility and agility without sacrificing security. There are several different models, types and services to choose from based on your needs.

With Software as a Service (SaaS), the cloud vendor hosts and manages the hardware, operating systems and application software. Also referred to as hosted software or on-demand software, this model offers businesses reduced expenses and simplified maintenance.

In Platform as a Service (PaaS), the provider creates and maintains all the infrastructure necessary to run an application, including compute, storage and networking services. This includes virtual machines, load balancers and web server software management. Developers then deploy applications on the infrastructure to deliver a seamless user experience. PaaS enables you to scale up and down quickly as demand increases or decreases, so you only pay for what you use.

With Function as a Service (FaaS), the service provider spins up virtual machines to execute application code in real-time as events trigger. They are then automatically cloned and re-allocated as needed, allowing you to scale up or down rapidly to meet demand and eliminate the need for physical hardware or VM management. This is a more lightweight approach than traditional serverless computing, which doesn’t provide any control for the customer or allow them to re-provision or restart services.

Hybrid cloud is a strategy where data and applications are shared between a private cloud and one or more public clouds. This provides greater flexibility and scalability by enabling you to store sensitive information in your private cloud and utilize scalable resources of the public cloud for other applications. In addition, thanks to interoperability standards, applications running on a multicloud are able to work with infrastructure located in other clouds or on premises.

What Is News Coverage?

News coverage refers to the reporting of current events, either in written or broadcast formats. It includes all types of media, including newspapers, news websites, TV programs, and radio broadcasts.

Breaking news coverage involves the immediate reporting of significant, often unexpected, events as they happen, with a focus on providing real-time information to audiences. It requires journalists to use on-the-scene reporting, effective live reporting techniques, and social media platforms to disseminate accurate and timely updates. This type of coverage often presents unique challenges including the need to quickly verify facts, manage potential safety concerns in chaotic situations, and address misinformation.

Whether it’s through news headlines, social media posts, or a rerun of an old news story, we are bombarded with information about natural disasters, wars, and political unrest around the world. This constant exposure can take a toll on people’s mental health, according to Don Grant, PhD, an expert in the field of trauma and recovery who works with teens and young adults through Newport Academy treatment centers and his private practice.

A major contributor to this stress is framing and bias – which are ways in which the news media emphasize certain aspects of an event while minimizing others, and can impact how audiences interpret those events. This can include how economic news is framed, with research suggesting that negative framing leads people to expect worse economic conditions than would otherwise be the case.

How to Configure Google Assistant for Daily Update

Daily update is an Assistant feature that sends users notifications at a pre-scheduled time. To configure your Action with daily updates, select the intent and follow the prompt to subscribe (which can be given mid-conversation or as a suggestion chip when the user exits successfully).

When a user invokes an intent that you’ve configured as a daily update, they receive a notification on their device that they can tap to see content from your Action. If they tap the update notification, they will then be reminded to engage with your Action at their scheduled time each day.

To test your daily update-enabled Action, invoke it on a device with the Google Assistant app and check to see if you’re getting the right notifications at the right times. If you have questions about using this feature, reach out to us.

When setting up your daily update-enabled Action, make sure you show the user the benefit of subscribing to your daily updates before offering a prompt to register. If you don’t do this, your users may unsubscribe after a few days because they won’t feel that they get enough value from your Actions.

Internet Privacy – Protect Your Privacy Online

Internet privacy is a growing concern for many consumers, and rightfully so. The internet is a dangerous place where people can be attacked by hackers looking to steal information that could lead to financial losses or compromise business systems. Internet privacy is a subset of data privacy, which concerns how personal information (PI) is collected and used online.

PI can be anything from your date of birth or employer to the content you view on social media. When we share this information online, it leaves us open to cyberattacks and exploitation from snoopers, hackers and advertisers alike. It can even result in being sent unwanted emails and spam.

Some individuals have a casual interest in internet privacy and may be comfortable with the revelation of certain personal details like their IP address or non-personally-identifiable profiling, which is often an acceptable trade-off for convenience. Others desire much stronger privacy and are willing to work towards achieving complete anonymity on the internet, which can be accomplished through tools such as virtual private networks, encrypted messaging apps and anonymous browsing modes.

It can be challenging to protect one’s online privacy, but it is possible. Taking simple steps such as using a VPN to encrypt web traffic and only using HTTPS encrypted sites will help to protect against the most common attacks. Using one email address for important communications and another for social media can also help to keep spam emails down and avoid oversharing. Lastly, not sharing information on public Wi-Fi is a good way to prevent snooping on your device.

How to Execute an Exclusive Report

An exclusive report is a piece of news that doesn’t make it to other publications. This strategy can be used to ensure that a brand’s announcement is heard above the din of competing stories and to build a strong relationship with journalists.

However, this tactic can be difficult to execute effectively. It requires a unique angle, compelling information and relevant context. It also takes time to turn around the story, particularly if an embargo is involved. In many cases, it can take months to prepare for an exclusive, so it is important to consider carefully how and when to use this tool.

Joseph notes that PR pros should only use an exclusivity strategy for genuinely newsworthy moments. It’s also important to be mindful of how and who to pitch to in order to avoid a negative outcome. “Batching or denying another publication the opportunity to publish an exclusive can not only deter future interest in a story, but it may burn bridges that can take months, if not years, to rebuild,” she says.

To be successful with an exclusive, PR teams should select journalists and media outlets that align with the company’s target audience and goals, have a history of covering similar topics and have the capacity to quickly turn around a story. They should also create clear agreements about an embargo timeline to avoid hiccups and ensure that the story is accurate and high-quality. And they should be prepared to provide additional assets, such as high-resolution images, if needed.

What Is GDP?

GDP is the total amount of value produced in a country during an accounting period. The most common definition is that of the Organization for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD), which defines it as the sum of all market transactions in goods and services.

Purchasing power parity (PPP) exchange rates are used to adjust for differences in price levels between countries when comparing GDP. This makes it easier to identify genuine growth, rather than changes in prices.

The four main components of GDP are consumption, investment, government spending and exports. Consumption expenditure by households is the largest component, reflecting the fact that consumer confidence has a significant impact on economic growth. Business investment, which is a crucial driver of growth, reflects the money businesses spend on new equipment and other assets to improve productivity.

Finally, government spending reflects the money a nation’s authorities spend on things such as building schools and roads. This excludes transfer payments, such as unemployment benefits and pensions, which don’t involve the direct purchase of products or services.

Because GDP is measured in a nation’s currency, it needs to be adjusted for differences in price levels when comparing GDP from different years. This is known as rescaling and is carried out by multiplying the original GDP figure by an inflation index, such as the Consumer Price Index (CPI). The resulting rescaled GDP figures are then divided by the country’s population to give the per-capita measure.

Mastering the Art of Media Alert

News alert is a type of Google service that sends an email when content containing specific keywords appears online. It’s an efficient way to monitor conversations about a client, competitors or industry keywords and can help you stay up-to-date on relevant topics as they unfold. It also raises important ethical considerations around sensationalism and ensuring that verified information is prioritized in a time of crisis.

Mastering media alert is an essential skill for PR professionals to elevate their impact and captivate audiences. This article shares 13 valuable tips for crafting compelling and engaging media alerts that will set you on the path to success.

A media alert, also known as a media/news advisory, is an announcement of an event that’s designed specifically for journalists and to convince them that it’s a genuine news story worthy of coverage. It can be a one-page announcement sent to local journalists or a press release distributed through wire services. Check out this sample media advisory from a local Lights On Afterschool event for some inspiration.

When crafting your media alert, start with the five Ws—Who, What, When, Where and Why. Make sure to include all of the important details about your event, including a captivating headline that grabs attention and explains why this is a story worth covering. You should also include contact information for someone from your organization who reporters can interview or find more info from. This will save them time and allow them to get started writing their story right away.

Why App Launch is So Important to Mobile Marketing

A great idea for an app can revolutionize an industry, solve a problem, or simply make your life easier. But turning that idea into an amazing mobile experience requires careful planning, cross-functional execution, and smart measurement at every step. That’s why app launch—the moment when your app becomes available for download—is a critical juncture on the journey from concept to user adoption.

In the highly competitive app landscape, it’s not enough to just get your app launched; you need a solid marketing plan to drive awareness and growth from day one. A successful mobile app launch depends on many factors, including defining who your audience is, nailing the timing of your release, engaging with users from the start, and using early feedback to optimize and improve.

From initial engagement to sustained retention, Orangesoft can help you craft a launch strategy that’s rooted in real user needs and optimized at every stage. We’ll partner with you to define your vision and turn it into a product that users love—so that your app can be a true revenue generator from day one.

Choosing the perfect launch date is a big decision for developers and marketers alike. Announcing a launch date creates excitement and builds anticipation, but it’s important to be sure that your app will be ready when you roll it out. If possible, tying your app launch to an event or holiday, like New Year or National Pizza Day, will help to generate buzz and create a sense of exclusivity for your audience.