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According to Reports, Google is Creating a Rival to Apple’s AirTag Tracker

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Everyone compares Google Pixel phones to Apple and its iPhones when we talk about smartphone ecosystems, but what about their accessories?

Both Google and Apple sell a variety of products, including smart speakers and headphones, and in 2021 Apple achieved a surprising success with the release of its AirTag trackers. Now, a fresh piece of information has sparked a new speculation that Google may be about to introduce a very similar tracker of its own.

Developer Kuba Wojciechowski claims that Google is developing a location monitoring tag to compete with products like Apple’s AirTags and Tile trackers.

Wojciechowski found references that suggest Google is working on supporting locating tags in Fast Pair, the company’s mechanism for swiftly pairing nearby Bluetooth devices, and claimed in a Twitter conversation that Google is creating its own first-party tracker to use with the functionality.

Location Monitoring Tag

Additionally, according to Wojciechowski, “Grogu” trackers could support Bluetooth LE and ultra-wideband. Even though Wojciechowski asserts that “Google’s tracker most likely has UWB, it’s not a requirement for the “Finder Network” they’re working on — BLE is enough,” UWB offers much greater precision for locating lost items than Bluetooth, providing the ability to show both distance estimations and directions to a tag.

Apple created the tracking system called AirTag. The purpose of AirTag is to serve as a key finder and assist users in locating personal items.

There is nothing new about wireless trackers; businesses like Tile have been making them for years. Samsung released their own SmartTags to join the fun. But as we have observed countless times before, it took Apple’s involvement for people to start paying attention.

As Google’s Fast Pair gets ready to offer support for a new “locator tag” product type, Android expert Mishaal Rahman earlier today highlighted some of his most recent findings. Developer and leaker Kuba Wojciechowski then played the trump card, Grogu, with everything else out on the table.

Given the privacy nightmare that AirTags turned out to be for Apple, it might be a good idea for Google to spend a little additional time considering some of those potential circumstances and proactively developing defensive mechanisms.

How to Promote Your Podcast: 10 Effective Strategies to Try

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Podcasting has become a buzzword nowadays. There are plenty of paid podcasts focusing on different topics. You can also see an increasing trend in podcast subscriptions. It collectively makes an ideal situation to start a podcast.

Once you start a podcast, you must also focus on its promotion. Without this, all your hard work might go in vain. It is the ideal way to grow your audience.

Promoting your podcast takes a lot of effort, but the results are worth it. When you hit your podcast subscription target, your hard work pays off.

10 Effective Strategies for Podcast Promotion

You are on the right site if you have been looking for some tried and tested tips. Here are some effective strategies leading to successful podcast marketing and promotion.

1. Word of Mouth Promotion

This might be for you if you are looking for a cost-effective and worthwhile promotional strategy. Word-of-mouth recommendation is one of the most effective tactics to gain organic traffic. Firstly, identify your audience and their interest. Ensure your presence in events where your target audience is present.

Conduct and attend events, conferences, and seminars relevant to your podcast. When you have your target audience in one place, it is easier to spread your message. Make a proper strategy to interact with people to boost your podcast subscription.

2. Submit to Podcast Directories

If you want to reach out to more audiences, you need to be present on all popular podcast directories. Not all of your target audience would have an Apple podcast subscription. There are several other directories with as many audiences.

You must make your podcast available on those platforms. Do not only focus on popular directories but also less popular ones. You might find the ideal listeners outside of the Apple podcast subscription. Making your podcast available on these platforms will be more effective and specific.

3. Share on Social Media

The use of social media for marketing and promotional strategies enhances its effectiveness. Nowadays, most people use social networking sites. Create social media accounts for your podcast to ensure an active presence. Connect with your current and potential audience to enhance their engagement.

Create discussion opportunities to know about their feedback. You can also post short teasers of the upcoming podcast. If used properly, social media can do wonders for your paid podcast promotion.

4. Collaborate With Podcasters

With the abundance of podcasts, finding other podcasters to collaborate with has become easier. This strategy benefits both parties in attracting listeners. It will help you grow your connections with others. You can join podcasting networks and support groups to connect with like-minded podcasters.

Collaborating includes inviting other podcasters to your show. You may also appear as a guest on other podcasts. It is a unique learning process with cross-promotion of collaborating partners. The increased exposure gets you more organic and referral traffic.

5. Create a Website

You need a website for your podcast if you want to enhance the effectiveness of your promotion strategies. It offers more benefits than you think. Create an SEO-optimised website and keep updating it with the latest content. You can publish podcast transcriptions on this website.

Usually, people start a podcast to promote their business or website. If this is the case, make sure you update your website regularly. Make all the episodes easily available for people on a web page dedicated to your podcast.

6. Create a Newsletter

A podcast newsletter is a great idea to stay connected to your audience. It is one of the most effective marketing strategies with the most favourable results. The best part about newsletters is that they are easy to create, even using free tools. Use your website to add a landing page for your newsletter.

Make it attractive with a clear call-to-action (CTA). It will help people easily subscribe to your newsletter to receive timely updates. Do not forget to add links to your content.

7. Urge People to Subscribe and Review

This might seem an ordinary tip, but it yields amazing results. Ask people politely to subscribe to your podcast. Once you get plenty of subscribers, it is easier to keep them updated. They also get to know about your latest published podcasts.

Another thing is to urge them to share their feedback. Invite them to review your podcast and share it on social media platforms. The more subscribers do it, the more people will know about it. Share these reviews on your social media platforms also.

8. Announce Giveaways and Contests

Who does not want to win? When you offer a reward or a giveaway, it encourages more people to learn about your podcast. You may ask them to subscribe and share it to participate in the giveaway.

Try to align the prize with the theme of your podcast. Run giveaways often but not too frequently. Use social media posts to reach out to the maximum audience. You might get new subscribers along with engaging the existing ones.

9. Use Influencer Marketing

Influencer marketing is popular nowadays. There are many social media influencers with a high number of followers. They endorse or promote a product, business, or idea. People tend to trust them more than the traditional advertisement.

Reach out to an influencer with a huge following and relevant to your podcast content. They will promote your podcast, and you can give them a shout-out. They might sometimes charge a fee or some other compensation in return for their posts. Choose an influencer wisely if you opt for this marketing strategy.

10. Create a YouTube Video

The idea of promoting your podcast means increasing its availability. When it is available on all popular platforms, you can expect a greater audience. It also offers many other benefits. You can get auto-generated closed captions for your video. This compensates for the need for transcription as well.

Many viewers prefer video podcasting over audio podcasts. Creating a YouTube video captures such an audience. Moreover, you get exposure to the large YouTube user community. If you find video recording challenging, you may add a static picture along with the audio podcast.

Wrapping Up

Promoting your podcast is not difficult when you are equipped with all the tips and tricks. Efficient planning is the key to making your promotional strategies a success. It is as important as any other function, such as recording, editing, and publishing. Hopefully, these 10 promotional strategies will help you boost your podcast significantly.

6 Best Automated Home Systems

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Through the utilisation of hubs, the very finest home automation systems currently on the market give you unprecedented control over the smart gadgets in your home.

To further enhance the safety and convenience of your home, these hubs give you centralised management of several appliances and features, including the Internet, heating and cooling, lighting, and more.

Given this, I propose we examine the six best home automation systems available for the modern smart house.

1. Schneider Electric Wiser Smart Home System

Best Deals: Visit Schneider Electric Wiser Website.

Pros:

  • Simple integration of intelligent systems
  • Solution for the modularisation of smart and automated homes
  • Save on Energy
  • Excellent interoperability with other types of systems

The Scheider Electric Wiser App has several useful features, such as a unified app for controlling various aspects of your home, including lighting, temperature, shutters, and security systems. In connection with this, Scheider Electric Wiser App features cutting-edge technology that will assist you in lowering your overall energy consumption while retaining the same level of comfort.

The Wiser system is simple to install, in addition to being modular and adaptable. Your data and privacy are both treated with the utmost respect and are fully protected at all times. Scheider Electric Wiser App generally provides a better experience than its competitors.

2. Amazon Echo

Best Deals: Go to Amazon

Pros:

  • Excellent compatibility
  • It is simple to set up and use
  • Option for precise voice command input
  • Numerous positive characteristics

Amazon’s Alexa voice-detection technology is used in the Echo home automation system, which comes in various forms, including the Echo Auto for automobiles, the Echo Show for televisions, and the Echo Spot for alarm clocks. Everyone can be integrated with the original Echo or the Echo Dot, which offers a more wallet-friendly option. Because it has omnidirectional microphones and speakers, the Amazon Echo makes it simple to connect with the device from any location in the room.

3. Google Nest Hub

Visit Home Depot for the Best Deals

Pros:

  • Google Services are Integrated.
  • User-friendly visual user interface.
  • Excellent congruence between us.
  • Responsive voice commands.

Cons:

  • Concerns about privacy.
  • The screen is quite small.

The Google Nest Hub provides information on local events as well as the weather, as well as traffic, and road conditions. It also responds to commands in the form of music. On the other hand, the Nest Hub is distinguished by its user-friendly graphical interface, which can be accessed via a tablet device. In addition, it is highly compatible with the other systems in your smart homes, such as the lighting, heating, and security systems.

4. Wink Hub 2

Pros:

  • It is possible to automate settings.
  • Highly adaptable.
  • includes a portable application.

Cons:

  • Some controls are restricted.

Wink Hub 2 is a top home automation system since it can do much. Downloading the app and linking it to your home’s smart gadgets are all required to start the setup process. Perhaps most impressive is its support for “If Then, This, That” protocols. That is to say, your smart home’s automation system can be programmed to carry out granularly tailored instructions.

5. Samsung’s SmartThings

Pros:

  • Powerful battery backup.
  • The configuration process is fully automatic.
  • Mobile application.

Cons:

  • The user experience is restricted.

Samsung SmartThings is a smartphone app for home automation that is compatible with other Samsung goods, such as smart buttons and sensors. It has a backup battery in case of a power outage at your house, it’s compatible with other gadgets and it can be customised using the IFTTT service. The most significant drawback is that some people may find the software difficult to use.

6. Apple’s HomeKit

The Apple Homekit Website Has the Best Prices.

Pros:

  • Excellent adaptability.
  • Top-notch hardware support.

Cons:

  • Only compatible with Apple devices.

Those who are exclusively concerned with Apple products may find the Apple Homekit a suitable alternative. It may be less flexible than competing home automation systems, but Apple’s Siri voice control is light years ahead of the competition. This is a solid alternative for Apple users seeking a smart and automated home.

5 Good Reasons to Use PDF Format for Public-Facing Documents

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PDFs are great tools to use. They work well for legal information, as well as public-facing documents. They are also easy.

However, they do have a couple of downsides that can make them frustrating to use if you don’t know how to work around them.

Keep reading to learn the best way to overcome almost all PDFs limitations, as well as the benefits of using PDFs.

1 Way to Overcome PDF Limitations

There are a couple of problems with PDFs.

  • Editing PDF files usually costs money and needs specialised programs.
  • Sometimes, the text in a PDF acts as an image, making it hard to edit. 

However, they are both solved the same way. All you have to do, to avoid paying large fees and having to buy specialised software, is to change a PDF into a word document, or something similar. If you don’t know how to change a PDF to Word, you don’t have to worry. It is easy.

Simply find a trustworthy website that will convert them for you, upload the document, and convert! Then, you can edit and adjust your PDF easily and for no cost to you. Plus, since Microsoft has PDF tools included in their program, the files are easy to transfer back into a PDF when you are done.

As you can see, there aren’t many downsides to using a PDF. Once you learn how to get around the specialised software, you can use PDFs and edit them at will.

5 Reasons to Use PDFs

There are a lot of benefits to using PDFs. There is a reason that they are used in many settings and situations.

1. PDFs can be transferred from user to user without any formatting changes. 

Sometimes, when you use documents, like Word, or PowerPoint, you may find that on another computer, or when opened with another program, the formatting drastically changes. Fonts will be different and pictures will move, completely ruining your public-facing document. Thankfully, with PDFs, things stay where they should, no matter what.

2. PDFs work on every operating system

No matter what operating system your computer uses (Linux, Apple, Windows), PDFs work the same. This is nice if you are working with multiple people and teams that use different software and operating systems.

Adobe is usually even installed on all computers anymore. This means you don’t even have to worry about

3. It is easy to Compress PDFs

Compressing PDFs is easy and painless, and you don’t even have to go through the process of zipping and unzipping the documents. Compressing documents is useful for not taking up all the space in your computer.

It also helps you to send more documents without having to worry about size limitations.

4. All PDFs are compatible with any update

Another great feature of PDFs is that they are compatible with all updates. Sometimes, with programs like Word, you may find that the document won’t open for you as someone is using an outdated program or is more up-to-date than you.

With PDFs, you don’t have to worry about that. Since they are always compatible, you could have a very old version of Adobe and never have to worry about how the document will be read by others.

5. It is easy to secure PDFs

Securing PDFs is easy. They can be secured with a password. That way, you can transfer sensitive documents via unsecured channels like email or messaging apps without worrying about the information being spread or stolen.

It’s also just as easy to remove the password if you don’t need it anymore.

Spicy Trademark Law Suit Over Descriptive Marks

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A trademark is a type of intellectual property consisting of a recognisable sign, design, or expression that identifies products or services from a particular source and distinguishes them from others. The trademark owner can be an individual, business organisation, or any legal entity.

Trademark law protects a trademark if it is primarily unique and non-descriptive of the goods or services for which it is being used. For example, you cannot register the mark Computer to sell computers or computer related products, you have to name it differently, such as Apple, Microsoft, Dell, Ubuntu etc. This is one of the basic tenets of trademark law.

Sky Enterprise Private Limited is engaged in the business of processing, manufacturing and marketing of various types of spices, condiments and masalas.

It has, inter alia, registered the marks “Star Zing”, “Black Chinese Pepper Masala” and “White Chinese Pepper Masala”, in Class 30 for spices. A cursory glance at these marks would portray that Star Zing is the brand and the other marks are describing the different Masalas sold under this brand.

However, Sky Enterprise, thought differently. According to them, the terms “Black Chinese Pepper Masala” and “White Chinese Pepper Masala” were so closely associated with their brand, such that the customers could identify products described in this manner only with Star Zing.

Sky Enterprise filed a suit against proprietor, Abaad Masala which was found to be using the marks viz., “Black Chinese Pepper Masala” and “White Chinese Pepper Masala” along with its brand name AMZ on their masala packets.

The Defendant argued that the words ‘Black Chinese Pepper Masala’ and ‘White Chinese Pepper Masala’ are used by the Defendant in its trade dress, just as in the case of the Plaintiff, for identifying or indicating the kind, quality, and intended purpose of the goods.

The Court held that the defendant may use the words ‘White Chinese Pepper Masala’ and ‘Black Chinese Pepper Masala’ however, not in this particular sequence. It may use these words in some other sequence or in combination with some other words.

However, this particular combination was associated distinctively with the Plaintiff, and it being the registered proprietor of the marks, was entitled to protection.

Apple and Qualcomm end their “Legal Beef” and drop lawsuits

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The convoluted legal battle between Apple and chipmaker Qualcomm may be coming to an end. The companies said Tuesday that they’re dismissing all litigation against each other. Apple will pay Qualcomm an undisclosed sum as part of the settlement, which includes a six-year licensing agreement between the two.

The settlement also covers suits brought by Apple’s manufacturing partners, which wanted Qualcomm to repay $9 billion—a number that reportedly could have been tripled under antitrust law—that they say the chipmaker overcharged them for patent royalties.

The announcement came while Qualcomm’s lawyer was delivering his opening remarks in a trial of numerous claims and counterclaims that started Tuesday morning in San Diego, according to CNET. Qualcomm told investors last year that Apple would stop using its wireless chips, switching instead to chips made by competitors like Intel.

One potential catalyst for the settlement emerged a few hours later: Intel said it won’t make wireless modems capable of connecting to the coming generation of 5G networks. Earlier this year, Intel had said it would have sample 5G modems ready in 2019, and officially launch the products next year. With Intel no longer an option, that would explain why Apple needed to work out a new deal with Qualcomm. There are few 5G-capable networks operating yet, but Huawei, Samsung, and other smartphone makers have announced 5G-capable phones based on Qualcomm’s wireless chips.

The dispute between Apple and Qualcomm involved the unusual way Qualcomm licenses its technology to other companies. Qualcomm generally charges handset makers like Apple and Huawei around 5 percent of the total price of a phone for the right to use its technology, up to about $20 per device, according to a legal brief filed by Qualcomm. In other words, if you pay $300 for a phone that uses Qualcomm technology, $15 of that might go to the company, even if there are no chips made by Qualcomm in the device. If you paid $1,000, Qualcomm would get $20. Those licensing fees come on top of what a manufacturer would pay for Qualcomm’s chips. Apple referred to this as double-dipping and argued that Qualcomm only got away with it because it effectively holds a monopoly on high-end wireless chip technologies.

Though terms of the agreement were not disclosed, investors viewed it as good news for Qualcomm. Its shares rose 23 percent. Apple shares were little changed.

It’s not necessarily the end of the legal woes that have pitted Qualcomm against regulators around the world in recent years. The company is still awaiting a decision in an antitrust suit brought by the Federal Trade Commission alleging the company uses its dominant position in the wireless chip market to overcharge customers to use its technology.

During the FTC trial, Qualcomm said it doesn’t factor the value of its intellectual property into its chip prices. In other words, Qualcomm claims that it essentially sells the chips at a discount and then makes up for it with the patent licensing fee. It’s an odd arrangement, but it’s one that Qualcomm has had in place for decades, long before it became a major player in the semiconductor industry.

The history of Apple and Qualcomm’s legal beef sounds a bit like a Game of Thrones recap. Apple sued Qualcomm in January 2017, alleging that Qualcomm had withheld $1 billion in royalty rebates in retaliation over Apple’s cooperation with antitrust regulators in South Korea, where Qualcomm was hit with a $854 million fine in 2016.

Qualcomm countersued Apple that spring, claiming that Apple deliberately slowed Qualcomm modems used in some iPhones to cover up slower performance of Intel-made modems used in other iPhones. Apple retaliated by withholding payments for the patent licensing fees its manufacturing partners were supposed to pay to Qualcomm, and by expanding its lawsuit to include the double-dipping allegations. Qualcomm responded by suing Apple’s manufacturers over the unpaid licensing fees and by suing Apple itself for patent infringement.