TikTok marked a 45% jump this summer when it hit one billion monthly active users

(Telecompaper) Belgian operator Citymesh Mobile has asked to give back some of its spectrum in the 70/80GHz band, awarded last year for 5G backhaul...

De Europese zender RTL heeft zijn vooruitzichten voor de resultaten over het hele jaar bijgesteld vanwege de zwakke Duitse reclamemarkt...

(Telecompaper) Swisscom has submitted a second set of remedies with a view to securing the approval of the Italian Competition Authority (AGCM) for its intended...

Enjoy a huge $340 off this portable power source while this deal lasts.

Moody's verhoogt de outlook voor de credit rating van Deutsche Telekom naar positief. Dat betekent dat de huidige Baa1-rating waarschijnlijk in de loop van 2025 omhoog gaat naar een A-rating (A3). Moody's verwacht dat de aangepaste leverage in 2024 daalt naar 3,0x.

Toyota had introduced Festival Limited Edition variants of the Glanza, Taisor and Hyryder a couple of months ago, with free dealer-level accessories. Now, Toyota is offering the same accessories packages at a discounted price on the Glanza, Taisor and Hyryder as part of year-end benefits.  

1. Glanza and Taisor get dealer-level accessories at discounted price
2. Other exclusive year-end offers extend to over Rs 1 lakh

Toyota Special Limited-Edition variants: what’s new?

All three cars essentially come with dealer-level accessories such as chrome highlights for the grilles and bumpers, 3D door mats, door visors and full body covers. These accessories can be availed on all trims of the Glanza, on the lower-spec E, S and S+ trims of the Taisor, and on the S, G and V trims of the Urban Cruiser Hyryder. These, however, cannot be opted for with the CNG variants of any car.

The accessory package on the Glanza is available for Rs 17,381 (down from Rs 20,567); the one for the Taisor costs Rs 17,931 (down from Rs 20,160), while the Hyryder’s accessories package is listed for Rs 50,817 (no change from regular price). These prices are applicable till December 31, 2024.

Apart from these accessories, customers can also avail of other exclusive year-end offers worth over Rs 1 lakh, although Toyota has not specified the exact nature of these benefits. Toyota is likely to have extended these benefits in an effort to clear stocks before the year-end. 

Also See:

Kia Syros name confirmed for upcoming compact SUV

New Honda Amaze exterior design, interior previewed

Toyota had introduced Festival Limited Edition variants of the Glanza, Taisor and Hyryder a couple of months ago, with free dealer-level accessories. Now, Toyota is offering the same accessories packages at a discounted price on the Glanza, Taisor and Hyryder as part of year-end benefits.  

1. Glanza and Taisor get dealer-level accessories at discounted price
2. Other exclusive year-end offers extend to over Rs 1 lakh

Toyota Special Limited-Edition variants: what’s new?

All three cars essentially come with dealer-level accessories such as chrome highlights for the grilles and bumpers, 3D door mats, door visors and full body covers. These accessories can be availed on all trims of the Glanza, on the lower-spec E, S and S+ trims of the Taisor, and on the S, G and V trims of the Urban Cruiser Hyryder. These, however, cannot be opted for with the CNG variants of any car.

The accessory package on the Glanza is available for Rs 17,381 (down from Rs 20,567); the one for the Taisor costs Rs 17,931 (down from Rs 20,160), while the Hyryder’s accessories package is listed for Rs 50,817 (no change from regular price). These prices are applicable till December 31, 2024.

Apart from these accessories, customers can also avail of other exclusive year-end offers worth over Rs 1 lakh, although Toyota has not specified the exact nature of these benefits. Toyota is likely to have extended these benefits in an effort to clear stocks before the year-end. 

Also See:

Kia Syros name confirmed for upcoming compact SUV

New Honda Amaze exterior design, interior previewed

Women are continuing to reshape the dynamics of property ownership. Tax reduction and favourable interest rates are among the perks they receive for their self-reliance

Until now, the M Sport trim was only available on the diesel X1, but now it is also available on the petrol X1

Chandon, the award-winning sparkling wine brand, debuts its still red wine, Aurva, a culmination of six decades of pioneering winemaking across the globe

1. NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab laying off 5% of its workforce  Space.com
2. JPL Workforce Update  NASA Jet Propulsion Laboratory
3. NASA’s JPL to cut 325 positions amid budget tightening  The Pasadena Star-News
4. NASA's Jet Propulsion Lab announces hundreds of layoffs: 'Painful but necessary'  Fox Business

1. US defense contractor to pay former Iraqi detainees $42 million for its role in torture at notorious Abu Ghraib prison  CNN
2. Abu Ghraib torture survivors win US civil case, $42m damages  Al Jazeera English
3. US jury awards $42m to ex-detainees at Iraq's Abu Ghraib  BBC.com
4. How a Troy lawyer convinced U.S. jury to award $42 million to 3 Iraqi prisoners  Detroit Free Press
5. U.S. Jury Awards $42 Million to Iraqi Men Abused at Abu Ghraib  The New York Times

The real estate industry warned that eliminating indexation benefits for long-term capital gains would stunt its expansion, negatively affecting property owners and potentially increasing taxes. While experts thought low returns could still be a problem, authorities disagreed, citing high real … Continue reading →

By 2026, the SM REIT market could be worth over $60 billion. Over 350 million square feet of commercial office space are ready for investment. Among the top cities, Mumbai leads with 75 million square feet of SM REIT-ready office … Continue reading →

Summary: The overhead of performing even simple tasks online is getting larger and larger. I question the security of almost all these supposedly "secure" messaging systems. And I'm tired of the 'Utopia of Rules' mindset pervasive in every organization. It's exhausting how they expect customers to constantly adapt to their needs.

I don't know if you recall the game Kerplunk. It's a classic children's game that has been around for decades. I remember playing it with my sister. The basic setup involves a transparent plastic tube, a number of sticks, and marbles. The sticks are threaded through the tube to form a web or nest at the bottom on which the marbles rest. We'd take turns removing a stick at a time, trying not to let any marbles fall through the web and out of the tube. At some point, the remaining sticks can't hold the marbles and everything falls down.

The modern web reminds me more and more of a big Kerplunk game and I think the marbles are about to fall. What started out as an easier way to do things like shop, bank, and get health care information has become increasingly complex over time. More and more of the email I receive seems to be simply directing me to log into some bespoke system to retrieve a message or engage in some workflow. And even with a password manager, the act of logging in is often a chore with different user interfaces, custom MFA requirements, and weird rules for passwords. Once you're on the system, session time-outs induce their own form of anxiety since stepping away for a few minutes to attend to something else might require going through the whole Kafkaesque process all over again. The modern web has turned into a dystopian theater of the absurd where even reading a simple appointment reminder from your doctor requires several minutes of stress-inducing interaction with baroque systems and processes.

And it's not just doctors, of course, banks, government agencies, hospitals, ecommerce sites, and customer service systems all adopt these special purpose messaging systems. If you ask these organizations why they use bespoke messaging systems, they'll list things like "timely and improved communication," "convenience," and "privacy and security." But the real reason is that it's more convenient for them because these systems are integrated with their backends and make their processes more manageable. There's certainly nothing about them that's more convenient, timely, or better than email for their customers¹.

I also question the privacy and security premise. Email can be insecure. And your email provider can see the contents of your emails. But the messaging system run by your doctor or bank is likely less secure than the email systems run by Apple, Google, and the others. And achieving privacy by making everything incompatible so that you have to use a different system for each correspondent is like chopping off your finger to prevent hangnails.

How did we get here? Bureaucracy. Not just government bureaucracy, but bureaucracy of all kinds. In Utopia of Rules², David Graeber talks about how power imbalances force the less powerful group to perform what he calls interpretive labor, the work of understanding and implementing what's better or more convenient for the more powerful partner. People are not equal participants in online interactions. We don't have the tools to be fully embodied online³. Because of this we are forced to play by the rules organizations online who are digitally embodied with servers, identity systems, customer management systems, and so on. And part of that is being forced to use their inconvenient and anemic messaging systems.

What's the answer? People need tools. I think digital wallets (a bad name for an important tool), autonomic (peer) identifiers with strong cryptography, and verifiable credentials are a huge step forward. These tools provide the means for people to be peers online rather that mere ghosts in someone else's machine. That's why I insist on using the term self-sovereign rather than decentralized to describe these systems. Cogito Ergo Sum.

Notes

1. For a deeper dive into why one-off messaging systems are never as good as email, see Rich Sharing and Personal Channels. Email and other useful messaging systems exhibit a property called rich sharing that makes them much more robust that the simple idea of "sharing a message" would bring to mind.
2. If you're interested in power imbalances and how they come about, I can't recommend Graeber's book highly enough. He had such a keen understanding of this problem and wrote about it in a way that's both informative and entertaining.
3. I talk about this in more detail in Chapter 17 of Learning Digital Identity when I discuss authentic digital relationships.

Photo Credit: Playing Kerplunk from DALL-E (public domain) Prompt: Draw a picture of a boy and girl playing kerplunk that's 1200x500 pixels

Tags: web identity authentication authorization verifiable+credentials

I can’t say how well Toyota will be able to change course in years to come when the company realizes that it’s really time to switch to electric vehicles (BEVs). What I can say is that I’m a bit shocked the company is still dragging its feet to such an ... [continued]

The post Toyota Is Digging Its Own Grave appeared first on CleanTechnica.

A new system called Pomelo has been developed to estimate population densities during emergencies with unerring accuracy using artificial intelligence. The system has been designed to provide a fast and accurate mini census in times of emergency, such as natural disasters or war. Pomelo, created as a joint venture between the International Red Cross, Lausanne Polytechnic and Bin Khalifa University in Qatar, uses large sets of data from remote sensing systems, and uses a neural network to identify likely population...

The post Pomelo – New AI System Offers Benefits For Humanitarian Relief appeared first on The Red Ferret Journal.

Just when you thought it couldn’t get any worse better, news comes that WordPress.com has just embedded an AI feature into it’s blog editing code. The Jetpack AI Assistant is a one click solution for those who want to produce vapid, generic, boring blog posts at the touch of a button. Did we get that right? The assistant provides the full range of GPT type functionality you would expect, including creating nice looking blog structures, and can even suggest fabulous...

The post WordPress.com Embeds AI Function Into Its Post Writing Editor. oh dear appeared first on The Red Ferret Journal.

Fr. Stephen speaks about the difference between feast days as mere events of the calendar and the reality of the Kingdom of God that awaits us in the Feasts.

The post 5 Ways I Use Habits to Stay Creative and Productive When Working From Home appeared first on ProBlogger.

Folks, you’ll know today’s guest contributor author Gretchen Rubin from her bestselling books on happiness, habits, and human nature, her inspiring talks, and her popular daily blog GretchenRubin.com. Gretchen also shares practical, manageable advice on her podcast Happier With Gretchen Rubin. We are thrilled to have Gretchen on ProBlogger today, giving us ...more

The post 5 Ways I Use Habits to Stay Creative and Productive When Working From Home appeared first on ProBlogger.

Frederica reads from the fourth chapter of her book First Fruits of Prayer: A Forty-Day Journey Through the Canon of St. Andrew. This chapter covers days 13 to 16 of Lent, and the entire book will soon be available at Audible.

Fr. Thomas examines the life of the prominent Russian Orthodox dissident, writer and Nobel Peace Prize winner, who passed away just last month (Click here to order the "Solzhenitsyn Reader" recommended by Fr. Tom).

Fr. Thomas Hopko calls the Reformation one of the most impactful periods of Church history on Orthodoxy. Learn about how the Orthodox were influenced by Roman Catholic and Protestant thinking.

Fr. John shares his homily from the Sunday of the New Martyrs of Russia.

Fr. John talks about the importance of repentance from the Gospel of Matthew, chapter 3:1-11.

Fr. John Whiteford helps us to understand how to discern between the evil spirits, who seek our destruction, and those who worship the Holy Trinity and desire our good. (1 John 4:1-6)

Fr. John Whiteford shares the story of the holy new martyr Hilarion (Troitsky).

What is the Orthodox practice of total fasting? How do you keep it and why would you? What are the spiritual benefits of fasting for a period from all food and water for the love of Christ?

Born in 1866, he married and had three children. In 1920, at the age of 54, he and his wife quietly separated and each entered monastic life. Eventually he became the spiritual father of the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, where, as a clairvoyant staretz, he also confessed thousands of laity. He said, "I am the storage room where people's afflictions gather." In imitation of his patron saint, he prayed for a thousand nights on a rock before an icon of St. Seraphim of Sarov. He reposed in the Lord in 1949 and the Church of Russia glorified him in August of 2000. Thus his whole life as a monk was spent under Communist persecution.

Born in 1866, he married and had three children. In 1920, at the age of 54, he and his wife quietly separated and each entered monastic life. Eventually he became the spiritual father of the St. Alexander Nevsky Lavra in St. Petersburg, where, as a clairvoyant staretz, he also confessed thousands of laity. He said, "I am the storage room where people's afflictions gather." In imitation of his patron saint, he prayed for a thousand nights on a rock before an icon of St. Seraphim of Sarov. He reposed in the Lord in 1949 and the Church of Russia glorified him in August of 2000. Thus his whole life as a monk was spent under Communist persecution.

Fr. Adrian and Chaplain Sarah begin their discussion of the differences between "social" visits and "pastoral" visits. See the attached worksheet titled "Pastoral Visits and Social Visits."

Chaplain Sarah and Fr. Adrian continue their discussion about the differences between "social" visits and "pastoral" visits. Please see the attached document pertaining to their conversation.

Fr. Andrew discusses the House of Stephanas which Paul baptized and how we should emulate them.

Dr. Timothy Patitsas speaks at College Conference East, which took place from December 28-31, 2016, at Antiochian Village in Ligonier, Pennsylvania.

The story of Baker Sullivan reveals the importance and significance of the life of prayer.

"There is nothing in this world more glorious, more precious, or more precarious than the human soul." Within the first few hundred years of Christian history, the Roman Empire experienced at least two devastating health epidemics. Fr. John shares with us a powerful example of how the early Christians demonstrated the worth of the soul, as well as a love stronger than fear, as they ministered to those in deep need during these times of great crisis.

Fr. Joseph solicited podcast ideas with the premise: "A priest, married with children, quits -- just walks away from the ministry. Why?" Some answers may surprise you. (By the way, how do we Orthodox define crazy?)

If deception is so deceptive, how does one know if one is being deceived?