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An Amazon fulfillment center in Spokane, Wash. (GeekWire Photo) The news: An Amazon fulfillment center worker died Thursday after being found in the bathroom of a warehouse in Bessemer, Ala. Bloomberg first reported the news and said the worker collapsed at the facility, citing unnamed sources. Amazon said it was a personal medical incident and there were no known pre-existing conditions. The company is offering grief counseling and support for employees at the site. Statement from Amazon: “We’re deeply saddened by the passing of a member of our team, and our thoughts and deepest sympathies are with his loved ones during this difficult time.” — Amazon spokesperson Maria Boschetti Bessemer warehouse:  The fulfillment center was the site of closely watched unionization effort last month. Amazon’s Bessemer warehouse workers eventually declined union representation by a large margin , with 1,798 employees against union representation and 738 in favor. The defeat ended what was the most s

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 Is this innovative or outdated?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 Beats X is one of the newest (as of posting) wireless earbuds from the Beats lineup. Since Apple has taken over Beats, the company has only been going up. It took a pretty long for me to get my hands on this but I finally managed to. (YAY me!) I got the Beats X in blue as it’s a pretty unique colour. This is my 2nd Beats product and really, the unboxing experience was awesome!!! Straight away you are greeted by the earpiece itself and underneath it was the manuals, the extra eartips of various size, as well as earhooks of various sizes if you require a more secure fit. Behind all the eartips and earhooks was the case and a charging cable. Unlike the previous wireless products made by Beats, this charger has a lightning adapter, so all those Apple users should be glad. My only slight complain is that the case is a dust magnet and it gets dirty super easily. Now moving on to the earpiece… Syncing the Beats X to my iPhone was a breeze. The moment I turned on the Bluetooth on my phone

I recently got a Dell XPS 15 9500 for work and have come to really enjoy it. I have been a MacBook Pro guy for years but I needed a windows machine and felt that this was the right fit for me. I have read a lot of great reviews on this laptop and I am happy with the purchase let me explain why.   Design   I love the design coming from a MacBook Pro user every day to a Dell XPS 15 I can see how people can make the transition the touchpad is just like the MacBook Pro with the same gestures and  large style of the MacBook Pro. The keyboard is designed as well  to be similar to a MacBook Pro with the short reach allowing you to type faster I love using it. The keyboard sports the power button and fingerprint combo sensor.   Screen   I love the 15 .6 inches 4K display with very minimal bezels I think the screen looks amazing  with clear color and contrast. The touch screen part I am still getting used to I do not really use it that much but I am sure I will get used to it or find a reaso

Many of us watched the Apple event yesterday and we all noticed Apple make the announcement about Apple Podcast Subscriptions. Many people have talked about how this might be a big game-changer for the podcast world but really it’s about Apple playing catchup or at least taking podcast subscriptions mainstream. I would like to point out that Spotify is in a different market. Spotify offers exclusives that are only available on their platform. The difference is Spotify exclusives are free to all who download the app you do not need to pay for Spotify Premium to listen to podcasts. For example, Joe Rogan’s show is still free you just have to go to Spotify to get it and have to use their app to listen to his show. The same goes for many others that Spotify owns. Many companies have premium podcasts Relay.fm, Twit.TV and PodcastOne just to name a few. They offer a way to pay on their websites then offering a premium feed. Many podcast companies already offer the tools to make this happen

We recently invested in Nest Protect alarms for our home. The Nest Protect is a fire and carbon dioxide detector all in one. My wife and I have a vintage home and we have always been a fan of the smoke alarm systems that are wired together so if one alarm goes off, they all go off to help alert the entire household. If you have just one or two detectors in a home and they are not wired together you may not hear the one downstairs the Nest Protect solves this issue. Just like Sono’s speakers the Nest Protect creates its own little network so if one goes off, they all go off and if for some reason your internet goes down, they can still trigger all the devices. Since they are wireless there is no need to run wiring. Nest Protect does have a wired version and if we were remodeling or building a new home from scratch, I would do those so this way I do not have to worry about replacing the batteries on the Nest Protect every few years. The hardwire ones still do have a battery backup in th

Insomnia or sleeplessness is a major health issue that can deteriorate the conditions of your health. Ideally, an adult should have an uninterrupted sleep for seven to eight hours every night, but people with sleep disorders will not achieve that. Is it Possible to Cure Insomnia for Good? One of the major reasons behind insomnia iS  stress and anxiety . You should consult an expert to get this treated. Apart from that, you can also do the following things to help yourself relax and get that much-needed sleep and rest. Meditation Mindful meditation has proven to offer multiple health benefits as well as helping you sleep well. It promotes a good lifestyle and helps you to get a peaceful sleep at night. It can also help to reduce your anxiety level, increase concentration, and give a boost to your immunity system. You can meditate twice a day for 15 minutes in a calm and peaceful environment. If you want a head start, join a meditation group. It is a great practice that will strengthen

By Daniel Webster Photo: Kjetil Ree Bill and Melinda Gates during their visit to the Oslo Opera House in June 2009. Bill and Melinda Gates, announced Monday that their marriage is over. The billionaire couple are massive donors through their $50 billion Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, which spends more than $5 billion a year on philanthropic causes like US education and worldwide disease eradication.  Bill Gates Photo: United States Department of Health and Human Services Bill Gates is one of the world’s most famous billionaire philanthropists, who inspired other billionaires to donate their money to charity. Bill Gates has been a leading public health expert during Covid The couple made their announcement in posts on Twitter . Melinda Gates added her maiden name, French, to her Twitter profile. “But we no longer believe we can grow together as a couple in this next phase of our lives,” according to their joint statement. A Gates Foundation spokesperson said that the philanthropy

The news:  Amazon on Tuesday unveiled Alexa Show Mode, which turns select Lenovo Windows 10 PCs into Echo Show -like displays. The feature was first unveiled at CES earlier this year and is activated by saying “Alexa, open Show Mode,” or by clicking on the Show Mode button on the Alexa app. It’s part of Amazon’s push to get its Alexa voice technology everywhere, and an expansion of Alexa for PC . It also further signals the fading consumer relevance of Microsoft’s own voice assistant, Cortana. Amazon in March released an “Alexa for Xbox” app.

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

In 1981, Commodore released the VIC-20, a low-cost mass-market home computer that served up great video games and taught a generation of kids how to program. It sold millions of units and inspired a generation of programmers. Here’s what made it special. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

By default, Adobe Photoshop displays large animated tooltips (called “rich tooltips”) when you hover over tools. They’re handy at first, but can quickly become annoying. Here’s how to turn them off. Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

Two popular classes that you will use frequently when working with strings in .NET Core are the String and StringBuilder classes. You should be aware of the best practices when using both these classes to build applications that minimize allocations and are highly performant. This article discusses the best practices we can follow when working with strings in C#. To work with the code examples provided in this article, you should have Visual Studio 2019 installed in your system. If you don’t already have a copy, you can download Visual Studio 2019 here . Note we’ll also use BenchmarkDotNet to track performance of the methods. If you’re not familiar with BenchmarkDotNet, I suggest reading this article first. To read this article in full, please click here

Grilling season is upon us! So, it’s time to pull out that old firebox and get it ready for a summer full of greasy burgers and flame-kissed steaks cooked your way. First, though, you’ll want to inspect all your grilling tools and accessories. Read This Article on LifeSavvy ›

The brand new release of Ubuntu 21.04, the Hirsute Hippo, will be released today, April 22, 2021. It’s an interim release of the popular Linux distribution, with only nine months of support from Canonical. So is it worth upgrading to? Read This Article on How-To Geek ›

Microsoft has big plans for the next major release of its signature Visual Studio IDE . Among the promised improvements, Visual Studio 2022 promises to be 64-bit, faster, more lightweight, and more approachable. Due in a first public preview this summer, Visual Studio 2022 will be built for a range of users spanning from learners to experienced developers building industrial-scale solutions. Visual Studio 2022 will be a 64-bit application, no longer limited to about 4GB of memory in the main devenv.exe process. Moving to 64-bit will reduce component memory usage and optimize Visual Studio’s 32-bit design. To read this article in full, please click here

SortedDictionary, SortedList, and SortedSet are collection classes that store key-value pairs and can be sorted based on the keys. A SortedSet is a collection that is maintained in sorted order. A SortedList is a collection that lets you retrieve the keys and/or values using indexes. A SortedDictionary lacks indexes but offers faster insertion and removal of unsorted data than a SortedList. This article talks about SortedDictionary, SortedList, and SortedSet, how they differ, and how we can work with them in C#. To work with the code examples provided in this article, you should have Visual Studio 2019 installed in your system. If you don’t already have a copy, you can download Visual Studio 2019 here . To read this article in full, please click here

Node.js 16 was released on April 20, adding Apple Silicon binaries and additional stable APIs to the popular JavaScript runtime. The release is the first to ship with prebuilt binaries for Apple Silicon . While Node.js will provide separate tarballs for the Intel and Arm architectures, the MacOS installer will be shipped as a “fat” (multi-architecture) binary. Node.js 16 follows the October 2020 release of Node.js 15 . To read this article in full, please click here

Parallelism is the ability to have parallel execution of tasks on systems that have multiple cores. Support for parallel programming in .NET was introduced in .NET Framework 4. Parallel programming in .NET allows us to use system resources more efficiently and with better programmatic control. This article talks about how we can work with parallelism in .NET Core applications. To work with the code examples provided in this article, you should have Visual Studio 2019 installed in your system. If you don’t already have a copy, you can download Visual Studio 2019 here . [ Also on InfoWorld: Introducing Microsoft .NET 6 ] Create a .NET Core console application project in Visual Studio First off, let’s create a .NET Core console application project in Visual Studio. Assuming Visual Studio 2019 is installed in your system, follow the steps outlined below to create a new .NET Core console application project in Visual Studio. To read this article in full, please click here