Archive for February, 2020

Oppo Smartwatch with curved display teased in images; design mix between Apple Watch and Fitbit Versa 2 – Times Now

Oppo Smartwatch with curved display teased in images 

After a lot of rumours in the last few weeks, a new teaser has emerged which shows Oppo's upcoming smartwatch. The company has teased the new smartwatch on the Chinese social networking website and also Oppo's VP Brian Shen has shared a picture on Twitter as well.

The teaser image shows the smartwatch with a flexible display which brings in a curved design and has also added that the smartwatch could be the best looking watch this year. The teaser shows a gold shiny casing, two buttons on the right side of the frame which could double up as navigation buttons, home button, and the back button. There is a microphone hole in the middle of the buttons which hints at a call feature.

Also, there are rumours that Oppo may release a 5G version of its smartwatch. The teasers also show that one of the buttons will double up as a notification LED light as well.

Other than that, the image shows a silicone strap, but the watch may also arrive with a leather strap as well. The launch timeline is not specific but we could see a probable launch alongside the Oppo Find X2, and the Find X2 Pro which is arriving sometime next month.

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Oppo Smartwatch with curved display teased in images; design mix between Apple Watch and Fitbit Versa 2 - Times Now

How to Get More Instagram Followers In Short-Time? 10 Surefire Ways to Gain Real Instagram Followers in 2020 – Version Weekly

Are you a beginner and wanted to get more following for your Instagram Profile? This is the right page for you. Here is the information about it with a neat explanatory content. Do you feel getting real Instagram followers is a tough task? Of course, it is difficult for beginners (if youre not a popular person). But dont worry, we are here with the best tactics to increase real followers on Instagram.

As we all know that Instagram rapidly outgrew its first perception as a comic for kids and it has become a significant content marketing, networking and audience building for brands, selling, promoting brands or services for business growth.

Also Read: Best Unique Instagram Captions to Increase Girl Following

Instagram is the most famous social media networking platform out of all sites on the planet, count of more than 200 million active users monthly and 1.6 billion likes per day for the 60 million shared images. Is it not a huge number?

Of course, Yes? But this is an average number so imagine how much competition is going on between user to user. Hence, your work should talk about you to gain followers for your Instagram Account.

As of now, Instagram has more than one billion active users and off the charts user engagement levels. 80% of business accounts or actively participating in Instagram, it looks like marketers can be smarter even more to get familiar with Instagram for their business.

Must See: 500+ Top Most Cool & Trendy Instagram Quotes for 2020

It doesnt matter whether you are using Instagram for your own personal account or business. The only matter is good to reach and attention for your content & posts. So, we find out the 10 best tips for you all to grow a real and relevant audience on Instagram.

Are you ready to check out the best 11 proven ways to get a real following on Instagram in 2020? If yes then, go ahead with the below modules.

Here is the list of 10 best actionable ways to boost your IG followers engagement and also to gain a real Instagram audience for your profile in 2020:

One visual marketing tool Tailwind examined above 100,000 Instagram profiles in 2017 in order to know how posting rate affects followers growth and engagement.

As per the outcome after their study, Insta profiles that posted at least one per day and seven per week will gain more followers and get more likes compared to those posts which are posted less frequently.

If you post consistently on Instagram then you will see a positive impact on your posts. For branding, the regular flow of Instagram posts is the best approach to see the best outcomes.

Post Consistency is the key element to gain more attraction from your audience for your posts on Instagram. If you share posts on a regular basis and it may get good engagement, then the Instagram algorithm will recognize your posts and place it at the top of your followers feed. So, follow this useful tip and do postings every day at least one and gain more followers for your IG profile.

Are you confused about When is the best time to post on Instagram? Then, get the detailed info with the help of the link provided here.

Well, Instagram developed new features by keeping the latest technologies into consideration and assisting people to grow their followers easily. Though it was started as a photo-sharing platform, features like IGTV Videos, Live chats, and Stories are rapidly increasing the users attention towards the app.

So, focus on these Live videos and IGTV videos to get real Instagram followers and likesfor your posts & stories. These kinds of benefits will really helpful for branding. People can create interesting videos with unique content about their brand and make their fans engage with the brand and also grow their following.

Below are the few effective reasons to try posting with these new content styles:

Using the right hashtags can help you a lot to reach your audience and increase more followers on Instagram. Its tough to research and choose the correct Instagram Hashtag for branding. So, people need to think creatively and apply hashtags for their posts.

Also, Instagram recognizes the trending hashtags based on your search and helps you to pick any of the popular hashtags to increase your Instagram followers. Even you can research & use relevant & trending IG hashtags that are taken from the free hashtag generator tools for your Instagram Posts.

At the time of posting Instagram permits for a max. of 30 hashtags per post, but TrachMaven discovered that nine tags look like the optimal number to gain the maximum engagement & following. So, look for plenty of relevant hashtags and select the best one out from those tags and utilize them on your posting to get more followers on IG.

Moreover, we have prepared the ultimate guide about Instagram Hashtags to Grow your IG followers and User-engagement.

Are you looking for the best tactic to gain more followers on Instagram? Then, this is the best tactic to implement and let your audience in touch with you. The actionable and organic way to reach real Instagram followers is by writing descriptive longer captions for your posts.

Instagram is all about the visuals with high-quality photography, aesthetic and on-brand photos. But the greatest trend for this year 2020 is authenticity, by using long-form quotes and captions that permit your viewers to know more about you, your brand, and your passion & mission.

If you want a fact behind this tactic then you should know the present average caption length which is doubled more than since 2016, according to some influencer research report.

So, in this decade 2020, our Instagram feeds might be filled with an average caption length of 405 characters, which averages can rapidly become 65-70 words!

Influencers are the best examples of this tactic. So, brands are now taking initiation to use of the trend too especially at the time of raising awareness for the reasons that they stand for.

Must See: How to write a Good Instagram Captions for Your Travel Pictures to get more likes?

Collaboration is the best way to increase your Instagram reach and grow Instagram followers. Collaboration can be either via partnership or sponsorships with other famous stars or influencers. This tactic is a great one for all business Instagram users.

If you can invest more amount of penny for social media sponsorship, then influencer marketing can be the best possible way for you to gain reach & grow followers. You can choose any one of the influencers like from micro-influencer or top influencers, it depends on your brand and benefits that you offer influencers.

Do you agree that Instagram stories are rapidly increasing in popularity, to above 400 million users every day? Most of the people reported that they love viewing insta stories more than the scrolling their Instagram feed so be more creative with your IG stories and experience your followers behind the scenes and tell them the most exciting parts of your day.

Use Instagram stories with more features like question stickers, poll stickers, location, hashtags, quirky GIFs and latest ones is music. You can explore more with the most interesting filter effects and boomerang effects. Stories are a fantastic way to begin the engagement with your followers and explore in a deeper way.

Also Read: How to Find Best Instagram Username Ideas to promote your Business or Personal Account?

The most amazing part of Instagram is geotagging your posts with a particular place or city. If you geotag it then the other users who have used the same geotag can view your photo too so they may potentially follow you since you have a common point and perception.

If you confused to geotag your photos then you can use tagging a location instead of that. These both geotagging your photos and Instagram stories will cover maximum engagement and get more followers on Instagram.

If you see the Instagram algorithm, the major concern is followers engagement when deciding how many users to show a post to.

The more engagement you have per post, the more people will view it in their feed directly.

When you post anything with a unique style them it may have chances to get more engagement beyond what you think. So, be a creative person and design everything in your posts with stylish and impress your followers to engage with you. To reach this point, you need a great practice.

Practice can make you win and here it makes you gain and engage with followers by liking, commenting, & sharing your posts. With more engagement, your posts may even be displayed in the top hashtags posts or in the explore tab, so it reaches even more people and potentially get real followers on Instagram.

One of the most gaining factors that you should consider while posting about your branding content is creating a Contest post. If you host contest posts than you will surely increase your reach on Instagram and it tends to get more new followers. For example, you could invite your viewers to tag your friends and win some exciting takeaways from you after participating in the contests.

By using posting the contest related posts on Instagram, you may reach other people too along with your followers and they may get to know about your brand. So, you can also gain some audience from the contests posts on Instagram.

Along with the contest posts, you can even utilize the call to action prompts to revert your existing followers and new followers and gain attract some of them with your other branding posts and make them follow your account for more updates about your brand.

Also, one more proven way to get a real following for your IG Profile is cross-posting on other social accounts. At last, ensure that your fans should know that youre active on Instagram via cross-posting. As you are using an amazing and user-friendly Instagram platform where it makes simple to share your posts on other platforms such as Facebook, Twitter, and Tumblr, that can be the best tactic to gain some additional exposure.

You can understand how great is cross-posting by reading this next line. As per the study of Buzzsumo, More than one billion Facebook posts from three million brand pages discover that photo posts on Facebook through Instagram attain more engagement compared to natively published images. So, did you get your answers to your questions?

Moreover, you can try embedding Instagram images in your blog posts or add the Instagram feed to your Facebook page for some extra discovery. Use this tactic and experience the huge following on Instagram.

This is the most crucial part you must concentrate while working on your insta engagement. Nothing but making your existing followers happy and observe the results in audience growth. All the above tactics are the best ones to help you make your Instagram followers happy. So the last thing you want to do is look needy, robotic or sales-driven.

Always attempt to manage your IG Account with good thoughts and place it on your post content for your followers because they were your friends on your personal feed. Instagram never keeps dot to its growth so make use of all these tips and trending updates to get followers and increase your brand reach.

Social media is a very powerful marketing platform, so drive to build real & great audiences and get more eyes on your content.

Not only these 10 tactics can assist you to gain more followers, you even can check the following module ie., how to get more followers on Instagram?

If you want to increase your Instagram account followers with real & authentic people, then you must read the following points to get more followers on Instagram:

How to Gain More (Real!) Followers on Instagram? (Other Tips)

Cross-promote your devoted hashtag on all your social media accounts, emails, and on your website.

Get crazy and innovative with your hashtags. Never be boring with your hashtags, create funny, outrageous, or ironic tags to attract the real audience.

Research for the locally relevant and trending hashtags. Also, join the group conversations to get more people who are real for your IG account.

Make the most interesting Instagram Bio URL and use your IG Bio link to drive traffic to all your old and newest content on Instagram.

Write Narrative Captions on your Insta posts or stories to engage people. A Good Storytelling Instagram Captions will aid you to generate more engagement and sharing.

Communicate with top influencers or micro-influencers and try to get into their space and become one of their favorite brand or people.

Dont need a tagged photo of you or your brand on your Insta profile? Edit Tags to conceal images from your IG account.

Modify your settings from time to time so any potential awkward tagged pictures wont display in your profile without your approval.

Compose your own recognizable and unique style of content and images. Discover what your audience is liking most to visit your profile again and do those things to stand out your IG Account and increase your followers.

Must focus on local activities, thats possible only when you visit the places tab and watch the happening things around you, and a city youre aiming in ads or an incident in a specific location.

Use an appropriate call to action prompts to tell people about what you want them to do with your Instagram posts and stories. Also, discover other important and useful ways to gain people to share your content on their profiles.

Give your feedback about the above tactics to grow more real Instagram followers via the comment section below and also share your Instagram experiences or your own tips to gain authentic followers on Instagram with us so we can post them for our website users as real-time experiences.

We always love to hear yours, too and convert the conversation into a post is the best part for us and also it really helps our audience so keep in touch with us daily and know more alerts on Instagram. Bookmark( Ctrl+D) our portal Versionweekly and get more related info about Instagram further.

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How to Get More Instagram Followers In Short-Time? 10 Surefire Ways to Gain Real Instagram Followers in 2020 - Version Weekly

theday.com – New London and southeastern Connecticut News, Sports, Business, Entertainment and Video – theday.com

The Connecticut Association of Boards of Education recognizes a need to embrace diversity so that the folks making policy and teachingreflect the diversity of the students in the seats. It starts at the top with the school boards, notes the nonprofit organization that represents the interests of boards across Connecticut.

According to CABE, only a small number of board members in Connecticut are of color, about 12% African American, 4% Latino, the latter number particularly alarming given the states expanding Latino population.

In Norwich and New London, diverse boards of education do reflect the racial and ethnic diversity of those communities, but not so in Groton. We agree with CABEs observation that local political parties should strive to attract more people of color to run for school boards.

In a recently published Equity Toolkit for Connecticut Boards of Education, the association not only lays out succinctly why diversity is important, but also provides practical steps how school systems can start working toward that goal.

The toolkit defines equity as giving students what they need to be successful, academically and socially. To reach equity, students will need to see themselves in their curriculum and instructional materials.

Its lofty, meritorious goal is to reach a point when there are no systematic disparities in academic outcomes based upon race, ethnicity, gender, economic status, or zip code. The state remains far away from that destination, but getting their begins, as CABE recognizes in quoting the vision statement of the State Board of Education, with the core principle that, with the right supports and rich learning opportunities, every student will meet high academic standards, regardless of a childs life circumstances.

Credit the organization, whose association represents school boards controlled by both Republicans and Democrats, with tackling a subject which, unfortunately, gets dragged into the political culture wars. CABE has long advocated for recruiting great teachers, but also ones who, through minority recruitment efforts, reflect student diversity.

The Equity Toolkit outlines how to begin community conversations that allow people from diverse backgrounds to speak openly about how well, or not, they think students are being served and families supported. The aim is to engage members of the community who are not typically involved in conversations about excellence in education, helping all better understand how the needs of students can be met, and how parents can contribute.

This worthy effort by CABE deserves consideration by local school boards.

The Day editorial board meets regularly with political, business and community leaders and convenes weekly to formulate editorial viewpoints. It is composed of President and Publisher Tim Dwyer, Editorial Page Editor Paul Choiniere, Managing Editor Tim Cotter, Staff Writer Julia Bergman and retired deputy managing editor Lisa McGinley. However, only the publisher and editorial page editor are responsible for developing the editorial opinions. The board operates independently from the Day newsroom.

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theday.com - New London and southeastern Connecticut News, Sports, Business, Entertainment and Video - theday.com

Right Wing Pastor Brags About Trump’s Assault On The Rule Of Law – The Ring of Fire Network – The Ring of Fire Network

During a prayer call earlier this month, Focus on the Family founder James Dobson bragged about the fact that there are godly people working behind the scenes to help push conservative judicial nominees for Donald Trump. Dobson is giddy over the fact that the Judicial Branch of government has been destroyed by Donald Trump because he believes this means that Republicans will finally win the culture wars that they started decades ago. Ring of Fires Farron Cousins explains whats happening.

Transcript:

*This transcript was generated by a third-party transcription software company, so please excuse any typos.

Earlierthis month Focus on the Family. James Dobson joined a monthly prayer call withintercessors for America where Dobson actually praised Donald Trumps effortsto destroy the judicial branch of the federal government. Although of course,Dobson doesnt think its destroying the judicial branch. He thinks itsrestoring it to some kind of former glory that I guess Dobson thinks that ithas during this phone call. Dobson specifically praise the quote, godly peoplebehind the scenes who were feeding Donald Trump these nominees, and we know whothose people are. Its people like Mitch McConnell, people like Lindsey Graham,the Federalist Society and other right wing think tanks funded by corporationswho are feeding these right wing judges directly to Donald Trump who doesntknow any better and just says, yeah, sure. This person, why not? As it standsright now on the district courts here in the United States, 25% of those judgeshave been appointed by Donald Trump.

25%of the district courts are made up of Trump appointees, and here we have thisright wing evangelical pastor bragging about that specifically said theyreliterally changing the nature of the judiciary. Now. Thats something we havesaid plenty of times here except we say it as a warning. Theyre literallychanging the nature of the judiciary. Whereas Jame Dobson comes out and saystheyre literally changing the nature of the judiciary and the reason Dobson ishappy about it is because these right wing judges that Trump is appointing leftand right and nobodys really paying that much attention to, they would finallywin the culture Wars for the Republican party. Were talking about anti LGBTQjudges taking the bench. Were talking about judges who believe that marriageis only between a man and a woman. Judges who believed that Christians are apersecuted minority even though theyre not.

Theseare judges who will side with corporations at every given opportunity andthats the thing we all have to realize about these judges that Donald Trump isputting in place. Its not just the culture war issues. Thats what the mediawill focus on with these judges and they are important. Yes, this is a issue ofequality. This is an issue of treating every human being like they are thesame. These right-wing judges dont want to do that, but they also want toallow corporations to poison our rivers and our streams and our drinking water.As it stands right now, according to the latest reports, there isnt a singleperson in this country that has tap water going into their house that is notcontaminated with cancer causing chemicals at dangerous levels, not one singleperson. Those are issues American citizens dont even realize are happeningbecause theyre not reading these reports.

Theyrenot following these judicial appointees that Trump is putting into place, andhere we have religious frauds like James Dobson telling us that this is a goodthing, telling his followers that they need to pray for the judiciary, pray forthis branch of government, pray that we get these religious people who believewhat we believe on the benches and so far they have been hugely successful withit. A lot of the damage that Trump has done can be undone. A lot of it can beundone by executive order, by the next democratic president, but these judgesis, nothing can be done about that. Not a single thing. Theyre there for life.Jeez, youre doing impeach a president than it is to impeach a judge. So goodluck getting rid of these people. If they dont explicitly break the law, thenit doesnt matter how many bigoted or horrible pro corporate rulings they putout, theyre going to be there for the rest of their lives. And that is whypeople like James Dobson are willing to overlook all of Donald Trumps moralfailings because ultimately hes still just pushing the conservative agenda.

The rest is here:
Right Wing Pastor Brags About Trump's Assault On The Rule Of Law - The Ring of Fire Network - The Ring of Fire Network

Confessions of a former digital champion – Times Higher Education (THE)

My university email account got hacked last week. It happened at 10:00 in the morning. I was still in bed. Thankfully, several colleagues were awake and at their computers. Ten minutes after the attack a phishing email had been reported and my account closed down. Nevertheless, emails purportedly in my name had found their way across the whole university causing annoyance to those who didnt know me and bewilderment (or merriment) to those who did.

Our IT technicians are patient, extremely good at their jobs and, above all, very kind. What did l do wrong? l asked them.

It is nothing that you did. The bots are very clever you may have opened a dodgy attachment and it may have been years ago, they reassured me.

l pictured the university digital support experts reading my emails in order to reconfigure my corrupted account. There were some really nice emails about Virginia Woolf and Sylvia Townsend Warner. Then I had a momentary panic: was there anything that shouldnt have been there? No, squeaky clean I thought, congratulating myself for carefully keeping my work-related and personal accounts separated.

Oh by the way, there is no official university signature at the bottom of the emails youve been sending, the nice digital support technician told me. Weve been asked to remind you, she said apologetically. Ah yes, that email signaturethat l havebeen struggling to set up, but alaswith no success, I think to myself.

I am an emerita professor these days and enjoy supervising and researching as much as l ever did, but l have been reminded of my need for digital literacy virtually every day since l retired. l am a trustee of a local organisation, for example, with a rather good website that someone needs to update. l look pointedly at the floor when this comes up at meetings. I am the only one of us in the room who has no idea how to do this. l am hoping against hope that none of the others will realise this fact. Actually, they all realise it but everyone is much too nice to point it out.

Was it ever thus? No. l, too, was once a digital champion. l remember taking to email instantly, recognising its life-transforming communication potential the very first time l was shown it. The joy of being able to send my own academic writing instantly to a friend anywhere in the world!

I also becomeadept atspreadsheets, something I dont miss in my soi-disant retirement.

In my work in the community there are things about which l care passionately like the failure of the number 18 bus to materialise at the stop outside my house to take me to the Cambridge city centre.

Social media is the place for these types of rants these days. So why, when l know that a digital presence is a sine qua non for anyone who wants to be heard beyond their immediate family and friends, do I resist it? Especially when all universities (quite properly) expect digital literacy from both students and staff; when l know that elections are fought and won on Facebook; when influencers reach millions on YouTube; and my own academic monographs reach a few hundred. Why do l hate the very thought of anyone being able to press a like or dislike button on anything remotely connected with me? My regrets for no longer being a digital champion end here.

The reason, mainly, is internet trolls. Now I am noshrinking violet (sorry, snowflake). Yes, l probably could cope with trolling but only in some circumstances: when l am feeling happy, buoyant, in good health and surrounded by friends. Not when l am feeling depressed, tired, struggling with bereavement, illness and caring responsibilities or with utility companies and household appliances that dont work. A lot of women l know feel this way.

There was the recent story of the academic whose students alerted her to threats on social media. Her university acknowledged that she was in real and present danger. l read in the newspaper that she was to have security guards in her lectures who will accompany her to the lecture hall and check that she is not being followed. The security guards will also sit at the back until the students see them when they arrive. This is unconscionable; truly and unfathomably awful. After reading the article I realised that this is someone l have actually met.

Trolling can affect the victims support network as well. I think of my thoughtful, softly-spoken, sensitive student, for instance, who, as far as l can see, has never done anything to offend anyone and never would. The vitriol she received after posting something online did not just frighten her it frightened both of us. Were the trolls in Cambridge or in Canada? In Norwich or in Nigeria? It spooked me that we didnt know.

If Mary Beard can cope with it so can you, said one well-intentioned friend. She was encouraging me to enter the 21st-century culture wars with what she felt sure would be a new dazzling online presence. Mary Beard? Oh, to be the Cambridge classicist Mary Beard; to be brilliant, confident and indestructible; to have her sharpness of intellect; to be unimaginably wonderful in every possible way. I wish l were Mary Beard. But sadly, l am not.

Throughout my teaching career l kept a box of (usually floral) notelets in my office. There was always a use for them birthdays, congratulations, new babies, promotions but more often than not I associate them with sadness and disappointment; with messages of condolence, sympathy and support. l reach for my notelets and carefully begin to compose a few handwritten sentences to my fellow academic who now has bodyguards to protect her against online trolls. This is not the appropriate time for emails with or without a signature at the bottom. l am trying to remember if the old flowery notelets were really scented with lavender. Or was it Devon violets? But then my memory is nothing like as good as it was.

Mary Joannou is emerita professor of literary history and womens writing at Anglia Ruskin University.

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Confessions of a former digital champion - Times Higher Education (THE)