Spotify is an online streaming audio service that allows you to listen to music tracks legally and for free. Now the service successfully operates in 70 countries. Daniel Ek, CEO of the service, said that the company is preparing to start work in Russia in the summer of 2019.
The development team believes that there is a strong potential in the streaming service to conquer the market of music services.
A subscription to a service for USA residents costs $ 10. The cost in Russia is currently unknown.
“We now have more than 159 million active users in 65 countries, 71 million premium subscribers, more than 3,500 employees worldwide and more than 35 million tracks. But we’re just starting… Spotify has a lot more prospects than you thought.”
The service functions as a cloud base and allows the user to select a composition from an extensive media library. Currently, Spotify provides access to over 30 million tracks. Users can search by artist, album, genre. All users have access to many major independent labels. You can also create your own playlists or listen to the radio. You can use the resource with advertising and some restrictions for free. If you pay a subscription, all restrictions are automatically removed.
In Russia, users have long been waiting for Spotify. The service planned to start work here in 2014 and even registered the legal brand LLC Spotify in the Unified State Register of Legal Entities. However, the introduction of the Register was not a guarantee of launch. According to some sources, there were several obstacles to entering the market: the economic crisis, changes at the legislative level, requirements for the storage of users’ personal data, conflicts and disagreements with certain organizations and individuals.
Sberbank CIB analysts have already warned that Spotify will have a significant impact on the Russian music market. But his direct competitors (Yandex.Music and VKontakte (together with BOOM)) noted that they are not afraid of the appearance of a new player on the market and see their competitive advantages over Spotify.
Not only Yandex.Music and VKontakte become competitors. Do not forget about Apple Music and Google Music.
“The growth of the market of legal audio services will be 20–30% per year, Spotify will make a significant contribution to this growth if it starts working in Russia,” said Alexandra Nosach, head of the licensing department for music and video content at Black Star Inc.
According to the report from Deadline, the company decided to reemploy Gunn several months ago. Alan Horn, the Walt Disney Studios president, was meeting with James and Marvel representatives in order to discuss the project. Gunn publicly apologized for his controversial statements in Twitter. Consequently, Horn let him to film the third part of «Guardians of the Galaxy».
Shootings were to start in the beginning of 2019. However, when the director was fired, the project got frozen
It all started in July 2018. At that time James Gunn was accused of his offensive tweets that he had been publishing from 2008 to 2011. The director joked about AIDS, violence and pedophilia. Gunn wrote that he was laughing at sick people, because laugh is the greatest remedy. In addition, he said that he did not mind violence and cannibalism when someone is really hungry. Then, Disney announced that James’s views were contrary to the values of the studio. That is how tha company broke all ties with the director.
Some of Gunn’s offensive tweets
But how did it occur that the last tweet of that kind he had written in 2011, and got caught only in 2018? It’s pretty simple: Gunn’s account was full of not only jokes, but also criticism. Through Twitter, he judged Ben Shapiro, an editor of a conservative political website Breitbart. It got noticed by The Daily Caller website, where its representatives did not like Gunn’s comments. They decided to dig deeper and read the director’s old tweets. There the dirt got revealed.
James Gunn accepted his suspension with understanding and admitted his mistakes. First of all, the director had deleted all tweets with offensive jokes. And then, he blocked his account, however, it got reactivated soon. Gunn confessed that he had been trying to maintain the image of provocator through his statements. He also declared that had changed since then.
«Guardians of the Galaxy» decided to support the director as well. Gunn’s fans signed the petition, which called for permission for the director to return to work on the film.
Signatures of the cast in the open letter in the director’s defence
It all ended where it had started: the director confirmed the news of his return in Twitter. He will film the third part of the blockbuster after the shooting of «Suicide Squad 2». It was impossible to find a replacement for him, despite all the attempts. The third part of «Guardians of the Galaxy» will be filmed by the same director who had shot the first two — James Gunn.
James Gunn with the cast of «Guardians of the Galaxy»
Google Drive is used not only to store files, but also to create documents online. Editor Google Docs has a number of useful features that you might not know about – the text editor keeps many secrets. We talk about the chips and tricks of Google Docs.
Mentions
Google Docs allows you to work on one document together. In order for a person to quickly respond to your question, just put “+ “and select the desired nickname.
Built-in dictionary
You can open a whole dictionary, using the key combination Ctrl+Shift+Y in the text editor. Here you will find the interpretation of the highlighted word, you can clarify the correct accent and gender, in order to avoid mistakes in the text.
Automatic text recognition
The service can recognize printed text in PDF files and images. Right-click on the Open with Google Docs feature. The editor automatically recognizes the text and immediately creates a copy of the document.
Document converter
Any driver’s document can be saved in different formats: Microsoft Word, PDF, TXT or a web-page with HTML-code. Click the Save As button in the File section and select the desired format.
Offline save
Despite the fact that Google Docs is an online text editor, you can work in offline mode here. Just select the checkbox Save documents to this computer … in the settings in order to work without connecting to the Internet. Before you start editing the file, make sure that there is enough memory on your device to save the document.
Advanced Search
In the Tools is hiding another useful feature — Advanced search. It is very easy to lose important data here. The search takes place in your driver’s documents and on the Internet. The function is especially useful if you are looking for pictures on the network — all in one place, you do not need to constantly switch between tabs.
AutoCorrect
In the settings you can adjust the automatic replacement. Google Docs can replace direct quotes with pairs, automatically detect links, recognize lists and suggest contacts in the comments. You can also add additional options and hotkeys.
Instant translation
There is an automatic translation via Google Translate. Simply select a language, and the text editor will save the translated copy of the document on the driver.
Smart link adding
Even if you do not know the exact address of the link, Google Docs will help you find the right resource. Select the desired phrase or enter it in the search bar, using the Ctrl+K command. The service will offer you options for suitable links.
Voice input
You can enter text, edit it, write comments and tips to the document using voice input. To have Google Docs record your speech, turn on the microphone on your computer or phone. Speak clearly and separately. Do not be surprised if errors are found in the text: the program recognizes Russian speech much worse than English.
The success of any presentation depends not only on the idea, but also on the visual design of the presentation. Dynamic effects and animation can attract the viewer’s attention. We share a selection of free services with which you can create interactive presentations.
Prezi
This cloud service allows you to create an interface of a non-linear presentation-a kind of interactive map. All the material is placed not on the usual slides, but on the whole canvas, where you can somehow arrange the inscriptions, pictures, stickers and other objects. Due to the non-linear system in Prezi it is much easier to work with the structure than in standard PowerPoint: at any time, you can return to the passed fragment and change the scale of the workspace.
You can create a presentation from scratch or use one of thousands of customizable web templates. Any element can be replaced — you get only the shell, but you decide what to fill it with. To see what the final presentation will look like, click the Present button in the top corner.
The service supports collective work on presentations, posting projects in blogs, social networks and other Internet resources.
The free version has several limitations: all created publications are available only to users of the service, the presentation cannot be downloaded to a computer — only online viewing is available.
You can sign up for Prezi using your email address or Facebook account.
Slides
You can also create non-linear presentations with Slides online. The service workspace is divided into zones, and all interactive transitions and animations occur between layers.
Projects are created with embedded HTML code, so they can be read on any device. In addition, the service allows you to download HTML-file and any content from the Internet to the project. Slides provides all users with free access to the library, where the pictures and fonts are sorted by tags.
Presentations that are created in Slides are stored on cloud servers and are available for online viewing. You can save a project in PDF format only when you connect a subscription. To save your online presentation to storage, you’ll need to sync it to your Dropbox account.
Powtoon
Powtoon is designed to create animated presentations. The main feature of the service is that the project can be saved in the format of a video or individual static slides.
Powtoon has a large library of multi-format templates: infographics, animation and comics, black and white graphics and business office presentations. All ready-made elements can be edited using the service tools. In addition, the program provides many creative possibilities: audio overlay, visual effects, creating stickers, logos, interactive charts and diagrams.
The free version of the program has limitations: a video no longer than 5 minutes, a Powtoon watermark on the presentation, export of 30 projects. The service does not allow you to download presentations directly to your computer, but the video can be placed on an Internet platform, such as Youtube, and download from there. Ready-made presentations are placed on any websites and blogs using HTML-code.
Sergey Lazarev will be representing Russia at the Eurovision at Tel Aviv for the second time. This Russian artist won the public vote, but based on the results of overall scoring he took the third place in 2016. The European audience was moved by his song «You Are The Only One» and the breathtaking performance with 3D projection. Now, everyone bode him the the success of another artist, Dima Bilan, who managed to win a Crystal microphone with the second attempt.
Which other artists from Russia achieved success and claimed the first place in the main European song contest?
Sergey Lazarev will be representing Russia at the Eurovision again
Alsou «Solo» (2000) — 2nd place
Alsou became the first Russian representative to take a prize place
The first one to have an impact on Europe was sixteen year old Alsou, the youngest contestant in the history of this show, with the song «Solo». Originally, «Solo» was made for male vocals, but the artist was so imbued with the song, so she choose it. The authors, Andrew Lane and Brandon Barnes, corrected the song for the young singer, and she went to thrill Europe. Alsou won the second place, what became a real triumph for Russia.
Tatu «Don’t believe, don’t be afraid, don’t ask» (2003) — 3rd place
Tatu believed in their victory until the end, but took only the third place
The third place was accepted with disappointment. In 2003 the duo actively transferred from Russia to Europe and held a leading position in the charts of many countries of the continent. So the girls were one of the favorite contestants on the show. Julia Volkova and Lena Katina wore shirts with number one, because they were sure in their victory. However, Tatu took the third place, lagging behind the leaders only by 1 and 3 points. Many people assume that their Russian song «Don’t believe, don’t be afraid, don’t ask» was not understood by the European audience.
Serebro «Song #1» (2007) — 3rd place
Serebro became a real discovery of Eurovision
The group’s debut with their «Song #1» took place at “Eurovision-2007”. The unknown trio of Maxim Fadeev was the winner of the national contest. People did not pin their hopes on inexperienced girls, but they brilliantly performed at the final and took the honorable third place.
Polina Gagarina «Million voices» (2015) — 2nd place
Polina Gagarina’s performance turned into a magic fairytale
Polina Gagarina was representing Russian at the Eurovision with the composition «Million voices» which was written by five authors from different countries. The song is about intolerance to the division of people, the importance of love and peace between them. The magnificent dress of the artist became a part of the projected starry sky. Her performance is considered one of the most memorable performances in the history of the Eurovision. During the show, Gagarina was a leader, but lost the victory to the Swedish representative in the final.
Dima Bilan «Never let you go» (2006), «Believe» (2008) — 2nd and 1st places
Dima Bilan brought Russia the only one victory at Eurovision
Dima Bilan was able to impress the Eurovision twice. The first time, in 2006, the artist with the song «Never let you go» took the second place, giving up the victory to a Finnish hard rock band «Lordi». Ballerinas took part in the performance, and one of them appeared in rose petals from the piano in the middle of the song. In his performance, Bilan did his signature jump for the first time, which became the singer’s hallmark.
Dima Bilan managed to win a Crystal microphone with the second attempt. He also brought Eurovision to Russia for the first time in the history of the show. Together with the figure skater Evgeni Plushenko and the violinist Edvin Marton, the artist created a performance for his song «Believe». Putting his health in danger, Bilan performed barefoot on ice while the famous skater could hurt the singer in any time. But the performance was impeccable and very sensual, which touched both the jury and the audience.The outcome was the first and so far the only Russian victory at Eurovision.
Balenciaga fashion house released a new collection for e-tailer Farfetch dedicated to rare animal species. The main goal of this collaboration between the famous French brand and the biggest online platform is to demonstrate endangered species.
New collection from Balenciaga
This exclusive capsule collection consists of clothes, shoes, and accessories for men, women, and children. The clothes are illustrated with Large Pandas, Asian Elephants, North White Rhinoceros and Blue Whales — these species are threatened with extinction right now. While creating this limited edition, the brand did not use leather, fur and down materials. The collection is also complimented by popular models presented in new colors and materials.
A North White Rhinoceros on a shirt from Balenciaga
A presentation of the new clothing line played a big role for Balenciaga fashion house. For the lookbook, two leading luxury companies decided to hold a creative photoshoot. The models were photographed with natural landscapes on the background — this way the designers wanted to stress the acute problem of preserving the environment. To make the album for the collection, the brand blurred the background on all photos in order to emphasise the fragility of nature. While the rare representatives of fauna are depicted clearly.
The lookbook of the exclusive collection from Balenciaga
The fashion house expresses its concern with the current ecological situation. CEO of the label, Cédric Charbit, encourages all fashion connoisseurs to support organizations aiming to save rare animal species. A part of a profit from sales of the limited collection will be donated to The International Union for Conservation of Nature — the Swiss charity organization. Moreover, Cédric Charbit mentioned that Balenciaga shares with the organization the same values.
The lookbook of the exclusive collection from Balenciaga
According to José Neves, the founder of Farfetch, the brand Balenciaga is very popular among users of the online platform. He considers this partnership pretty advantageous, because it will bring new clients. The e-tailer represented exclusive wear which can be purchased only through the company’s web site.
The name of this keyboard layout came from the first six letters of the top row. QWERTY-keyboard originates in the era of typewriters.
The creation history of the familiar layout is not clear enough
Christopher Sholes, an elaborator of the first typewriters, determined to distribute keys in the simple alphabetical order. However, with an increase of the typematic speed professionals began to encounter a number of problems. For instance, the levers of the letters situated close to each other scraped and sticked with the rapid pushing. By trial and error and constant layout modernization the legendary typewriter «Remington 1» was finally launched. Its keyboard became the prototype of all contemporary ones. The blind method of the typemate, which became popular after typing competitions, helped in promotion of this keyboard layout. Edgar McGurrin, the court secretary, won over another contestant. When the winner was asked about the reasons of his triumph, he said he had typed with ten fingers without looking at the keyboard. His rival typed with only eight fingers staring at the keys, and this method considerably decreased typematic speed. Nowadays, one and a half century later, there are some courses where you can learn the blind way of working on the keyboard.
Why we love QWERTY so much when we are able to switch to other layouts?
Nevertheless, today there are disputes about effectiveness of QWERTY-layout. There were some attempts to supplant familiar layout on more ergonomic one. In 1936 university professor August Dvorak noticed a great number of typos in the work of one of his students. At that time the thought had come to his mind – to invent an absolutely new type of latin keyboard based on more convenient position of vowel and consonant letters. After it in the beginning of the XXI century DVORAK-layout was elaborated by Shay Coleman and obtain the name Colemak. As some studies claimed, these layout types enable to work 2-3 times faster. However, QWERTY doesn’t give in to more contemporary rivals, although every user can switch between layouts with the help of several mouse clicks.
From the ancient times people strive for expressing themselves via art, inventing more and more tools for this. Literature, fine arts, statuary, architecture, music, photography, cinema – all of these are media created in a result of technological progress and a drive for sharing new ideas.
Video games is a form of creativity as well, however, they are not construed as a real art yet. Although, a couple of examples can make people doubt in this statement.
Journey
Speaking of aesthetic qualities and audiovisual sequence of video games, we should look a little closer at Journey by thatgamecompany.
An exciting and meditative adventure is a common description for Journey
Journey tells us a story about a nameless figure in a vast desert, traveling towards a mountain in the distance where he expects to find something that he needs for some reason. The game lacks any kind of speech or dialogue what creates space for personal interpretation of the story. The game never tells anything directly, but the surrounding world gradually reveals the veil of secrecy around the place and our main character. All of these creates a unique magic atmosphere of journey where adventures await at every turn.
At the same time a meditative and exciting game Journey has conquered the hearts of most people and earned the recognition of critics.
Cuphead
Another example of a video game as an audiovisual piece of art is Cupheadby Studio MDHR Corp.
Even a promo cover sends us to the 1930s
A visual style of Max Fleischer’s animation of the 1930s, hand-drawn characters and backgrounds, and an unpretentious story about a cupheaded boy attach the feeling of an interactive cartoon to this game.
Cuphead is a synthesis of old-school creative techniques and up-to-date technologies. The game has been fully appreciated by players as well as by critics.
Stanley Parable
Not all of the games can boast a vivid and memorable visual image like previous ones. But the main distinctive feature of Stanley Parable game is its story, or, to be more precise, the absence of it.
The main screen of Stanley Parable
This game can be colloquially called a walking simulator. At first sight, the game is pretty obvious: nothing interesting is happening and the character can only wander around and interact with a short amount of objects. Nevertheless, this kind of games can be very surprising when it comes to a unique way of storytelling.
Stanley Parable’s main character is clearly Stanley, an ordinary office worker who does not have anything to do but pushing the buttons on his monitor. However, one day all his colleagues disappear and the flox of commands on his screen stops.
During the course of the game, speechless Stanley is being guided by a storyteller who voices over all character’s moves and gives him hints of what to do next. The player can either listen to the invisible narrator or disobey his suggestions, on which the guide will immediately react. The game encourages the players initiative to make their own decisions, giving them a control over situations and total freedom. To be completely honest, the reality is that every single step is already planned by creators of the game, but it only means the games plays chicken with people pretty well.
This is the Adventure Line at the beginning of the game. Although, you don’t have to follow it
Stanley Parable is hardly a first experiment with an interactive form of narrative, but it is one of the most successful and highly rated ones in this peculiar genre.
Papers, Please
Even the most seemingly boring professions turn inside out in video games. For instance, the Papers, Please game tells the story of a typical border crossing immigration officer.
Even by looking at logo of the game, we can find a lot of common features
The main character is an immigration officer in the fictional dystopian country of Arstotzka. His motivation is pretty simple: the more people he checks the higher his salary is. Every day the government introduces new rules and changes the list of necessary documents for which you have to closely monitor. If you make too many mistakes during checking you will get a fine.
Very soon there is going to be too many documents that it will be impossible not to miss something
Looking through the documents, the player gradually finds out more and more about Arstotzka and the surrounding world. Although, the work at border crossing post is not that easy as it might seem at first. One character forgets his or her documents at home, or has an important operation, but does not have a necessary pass, another might have all required documents, but he is a suspect in following people he wants to kill. These and many other moral dilemmas give Papers, Please a new depth.
What can be more lame that checking documents the whole day? But this dark, Kafkaian game immerses players into the story and does not let go until the very end.
There should be mentioned much more fascinating projects which go beyond these usual “shooters” and “puzzles”. But, as with any work of art, you better play these games once instead of hearing about them a hundred times.
Yandex has launched a service where it publishes a rating of popular projects that have an extension in the network. The resource reflects the current situation in the advertising and media market.
Analytical service Yandex. Radar tracked only the popularity of browsers and search engines. Now Radar publishes top popular Internet sites. This article describes how the platform works and creates the top.
Rating is based on aggregated and impersonal data.
10,000 projects participate in the ranking. Yandex ranks the lists and forms the top based on impersonal data of its extensions: Browser, Alice, Elements and Metric.
In addition to the ranked list of projects, minimum and maximum indicators of site traffic are shown on the Radar page (displayed when you hover the cursor over the column). More detailed information is available for some projects that allowed Yandex to use Yandex.Metrica and AppMetrica data: the average time that users spent on the site, the daily audience and the percentage of visits. Radar users can see detailed information about the audience of the resource: region of visitors, age, gender, average income and type of device.
Business News Rankings
Projects are filtered by type and subject. For example, to see a site with news about a business, you need to select the type “News” and subject “Business”. Several filters may belong to the same Internet platform.
User can adjust the rating by type and subject of the project.
The uniqueness of “Yandex.Radar” consists in using two attendance scales simultaneously: regular and cross-driver. Information tracking methods affect the realism of indicators. In the standard system, users who open a site on multiple devices are counted twice. Most analytical services use only the standard scale. Cross-driver system tracks users on different devices and browsers and takes into account only one visitor. The cross-driver attendance indicator reflects the real picture of the market.
We spend hours on the social networks, posting posts, viewing profiles of friends and acquaintances, editing photos and videos. Do we use all the features and functions of social networks?
We will tell you about the chips in Facebook and Instagram.
“Trusted contacts” is a function that ensures network security. Each user can designate from 3 to 5 friends as profile coordinators in case the account will be blocked or there will be problems with the entrance. Only selected users will be able to send an email with a URL to restore access. You can configure contacts in the “Security and Login Settings” section.
If you suddenly decide to clean your profile and delete publications, you can save copies of posts, photos and videos. The archive can also include a description of the current settings and personal information placed in your account. The button “Download Page” is available in the “Settings” section.
The function allows you to find a person on the network by mobile phone number if you do not know the nickname. You must enter the desired number in the search bar. Only users who allowed to see their contact information will be displayed in the results. The remaining Facebook profiles will be hidden.
You can play and compete with friends in the Messenger application. Users monitor the progress of the opponent and see the number of points scored on the “Hall of Fame”. More than 50 games are available on Facebook, including Cut the Rope 2, Basketball Against Friends and the Ball pool. You can find them in the Facebook Messenger search bar.
Facebook allows users to recall the history of their relationship with friends. If you added information to the “Marital Status and Relatives” section, you can view the history of friendship on this page. If the relationship is not indicated on the social network, the story will be available on the friend’s page. The “View Friendship” button is located on the cover of the profile.
Instagram users can create their own set of filters for processing from the collection. If you use certain filters in the editor and scroll the rest, select the ones you need in the “Management” section. Filters can be swapped in your set, and you can also create a personal rating from them.
Offensive and inappropriate comments Instagram automatically filters out and removes from publications and live broadcasts. Users can also control this process by making a list of stop words, phrases and emoji. The function “Hide offensive comments” is available in the settings.
Instagram users have the right to tag you on any publication. After that, a photo with a tag will be displayed in your profile. However, you can hide the publication in your account in the “Parameters”. The tag on the friend’s page will not be removed.
If you want to temporarily remove or hide part of publications in your profile, you can use the archiving function. Photos will not be displayed on the page, however you will have access to them. You can archive the publication in the “Parameters” section.
In the “Likes” section, users can follow the actions of the profiles to which they are subscribed. Here you can see your favorite posts, comments and subscriptions. You can find a lot of interesting among the content that users rate. Moreover, the section helps to more clearly define the profile and requests of your target audience. The function does not need to be customized.
