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Photo via Redfin Redfin first quarter results : The Seattle real estate company saw a 40% surge in revenue in the first quarter, reporting $268 million in sales. Its gross profit soared 229% to $42 million, and its net loss was cut nearly in half to $36 million compared to the first quarter of 2020. Its net loss came out to 37 cents per share. The consensus analyst revenue estimate for the quarter was $253 million, while the earnings per share estimate was -34 cents per share. Full results here . What the execs are saying : “After scrambling in the second half of 2020 to hire enough agents and lenders to handle a pandemic-driven surge in demand, Redfin is just about hitting on all cylinders,” said Redfin CEO Glenn Kelman. Key numbers : RedfinNow, the company’s direct home buying and selling service, sold 171 homes in the first quarter. That was the same number as the first quarter of 2020, and was up from 83 in the fourth quarter of 2020. Redfin’s market share in the U.S. residential m

With more than a handful of companies dipping their hands into the business of making True Wireless Earbuds, it is quite rare to see wireless earbuds with a neckband. So, I was quite taken aback when I saw the box of the new Sudio Elva! Is this innovative or outdated? Read on to find out in this review.  Sudio Elva & Sudio Flyg Unpacking the product was definitely a strange experience as there were 2 parts to the product. One being the headphone themselves, and the other the Bluetooth receiver called the Sudio Flyg, which serves as an in-flight Bluetooth adapter.  Accessories Also packed in the box were the USB-A male to female adapter for the Sudio Elva, the USB-C to USB-A for the Sudio Flyg, the usual 5 additional pairs of ear tips, and the manuals for both the Sudio Elva and Sudio Flyg. Another thing that came as a surprise was that unlike its predecessors (the  Sudio Tolv ,  Sudio Fem , and  Sudio Ett ), these particular earbuds did not come with a case. The white version of bo

The news: Seattle travel giant Expedia announced Tuesday that it has agreed to sell its corporate business arm Egencia to American Express Global Business Travel. Both companies offer tools for business travel management. Travel trends:  It’s unclear how business travel will bounce back from the pandemic, with many executives citing cost savings from video meetings and a push to reduce carbon emissions. Expedia’s B2B unit, which includes Egencia, saw revenue sink 64% to $942 million in 2020 as the pandemic roiled the travel industry. B2B made up 18% of Expedia’s total revenue last year. Egencia background: Expedia acquired a French corporate travel firm called Egencia in 2004, changed its name to Expedia Corporate Travel, then rebranded it to Egencia again in 2008. “We are thrilled by the potential transaction and what GBT and Egencia could achieve together, as Expedia Group seeks to simplify our business and be a leader in all of our endeavours,” President of Expedia Business Se

I’ve been in the world of enterprises architecture for years—as a practitioner, a technology builder, a thought leader, and a pundit. What I like about architecture, no matter if it’s traditional enterprise, cloud, edge, or other special-purpose systems, is that there are about 100 factorial ways to solve the same IT architecture problems. Creating the most optimized architecture with the least amount of money and risk really falls back on the experience of the architect more than some canned methodology or automated process. [ InfoWorld’s 2021 Technology of the Year Award winners: The best software development, cloud computing, data analytics, and machine learning products ] There’s a lot at stake. Architectures that are underoptimized and costly may indeed work, but they may cause the business to lose millions a week while most people are none the wiser. Thirty technologies are used where 12 would have worked better, and not designing for change means that business agility suffers.

When the pandemic hit, many leaders responded to the unprecedented global uncertainty by cutting their investments. Dispensing company spend in research and development became the rule. While decreasing expenses is a viable response to a crisis, cutting innovation entirely can cripple your company’s success. Want to Become an Innovation-First Company? Technological innovation helps your business grow faster, perform better, and respond thoroughly to new problems (like a new competitor or a global pandemic). That’s why living in a “survival mindset” isn’t enough to save your business. You must dispense with the fear of failure and believe you can be the disruptor during difficult times. Stay ahead of the curve and know that you will pivot, quickly, when necessary. As a company leader, you have to make technological innovation a companywide objective. Only by  prioritizing transformation  can you truly weather the storm and emerge stronger on the other side. Which Industries Need Techn

For many developers, QA automation engineers, and site reliability engineers participating in agile development teams, the delivery work starts by defining user stories and committing to complete them in sprints. Sometimes, the user story calls for a “back-end” implementation, such as configuring a data integration, coding a microservice API, addressing technical debt, or improving application performance. These are still user stories because their implementations provide business value, but the product owner can specify the target user experience with technical criteria.  When the feature or user story calls for a “front-end” implementation that impacts the usability and requires a design, agile teams must decide when and how to incorporate design thinking, wireframing, user experience, and design specifications into the requirements. To read this article in full, please click here

Instagram has three account types: Personal, Creator, and Business. Personal accounts work for most people, while the two Professional account options are ideal for those who have a business and plan to run ads, promote posts, sell products, and gather analytics. Here’s how to switch between them. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

Microsoft is previewing Azure Web PubSub, an Azure cloud service for building real-time web applications using the WebSocket protocol for two-way communication. Unveiled April 29, Azure Web PubSub enables developers to use WebSockets and a publish-subscribe pattern to build real-time web applications such as live monitoring dashboards, real-time location on maps, and cross-platform live chats. [ Also on InfoWorld: Why Microsoft Azure wins with enterprise customers ] Microsoft said Azure Web PubSub is meant to spare developers from significant infrastructure investment, setup, and maintenance tasks, allowing them to focus on user experiences. Implementing a WebSocket-based real-time experience would otherwise require a developer to set up infrastructure to handle client connections, establish mechanisms for on-demand scaling, and ensure business SLA requirements are met. To read this article in full, please click here

VPNs are a big business worth billions of dollars a year. With so much money up for grabs, it’s no surprise that many VPN providers just aren’t trustworthy. So how do you choose a good, trustworthy VPN? Here are some telltale signs to watch out for before opening your wallet. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

Moving subjects, like your dog running about or your kids playing sports, are some of the hardest things to photograph well. It’s all too easy to end up with bad, blurry photos that show nothing at all. Here’s how to take good photos of moving subjects. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

The optimization of a multicloud architecture, simply put, is the ability to configure the technology to optimize the architecture for the business requirements, as well as to minimize costs. For each dollar spent on cloud technology, you want the maximum value coming back to the business. The truth is that few cloud architectures are fully optimized. I’ve talked about the bias towards complexity as a primary culprit. However, the root cause is waiting to think about architecture optimization until it’s deployed and in operation. By then, it’s too late. To read this article in full, please click here

You can’t navigate business challenges without the right instruments. Done right, analytics initiatives deliver the essential insights you need, as these five articles explore.

Indie game ‘Good Lookin’ Home Cookin” explores the struggles of running a small business with the microaggressions faced by people of color.

A U.K. high court ruling threatens Uber’s business model there and could be a template for regulators across Europe and beyond.

Calls to many businesses now result in recordings about “unusually high call volume.” The reality, experts say, is that there aren’t more calls — but fewer agents answering phones.