Our series on the 4PSA Cool Summer Internship continues. Last week, David told us about his first task as an intern at 4PSA – building a synchronized file folder for Hubgets.
Today, you’ll find out how Andrei, intern in the Backend team, made his first contribution to Hubgets by adding a contact import function to the app.
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The Internet went up in flames a few hours ago when Google announced a major shift in its organizational structure: the creation of a parent company called ‘Alphabet’ with the purpose of better managing the many branches spawned by Google in various fields (like the driverless car project). Alphabet will have one CEO and one President, while the subsidiaries (Google among them) will each have their own CEOs.
Co-founder Larry Page wrote in a blog post on Monday that Alphabet is merely an effort to make Google and all the projects that emerged from it over the years “cleaner and more accountable.” Parent company Alphabet will not be a consumer brand, Page said. In fact, the purpose of creating it was to allow each separate company to evolve individually and pursue its own branding. So, let’s answer some of the most pressing questions regarding Google’s surprising decision.
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When something looks like it cannot be done, it generally cannot be done. But it’s not because it’s impossible. Rather, it’s because it will probably not even be attempted.
Had this been the case all the time, we’d probably still be living in caves and hunting with spears. But, because of our drive for new knowledge, key members of our species broke their comfort zone to invent the future. Think aeroplanes, smartphones, cloud computing, 3D printing, etc. All these seemed impossible before those select few innovators made them a reality.
Everyone has that one great idea at one point in life. Envisioning a product for the future is one of the best things you can do with your daydreaming time, but the real challenge is getting it done. For a product that hopes to change the world, you might have to consider creating your own startup.
We hear about startups in the news all the time. In fact, they are mentioned so often these days that it seems everyone’s doing it. But in reality only a handful of entrepreneurs go through the motions like they’re supposed to. For instance, did you know that writing down every detail as it hits your head can turn out to be crucial for the success of the product? How about re-launching more than once? These practices, as well as many others, are vital to building a successful institution that can generate retention and revenue.
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Global energy demands are expected to soar by 2050, making it imperative that we tap newer, more efficient power sources as the planet’s fossil fuel reserves continue to run dry. The Sun is our #1 source of renewable, clean energy and researchers at Northwestern University and the U.S. Department of Energy’s Argonne National Laboratory have invented a new way of harvesting it.
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The U.S. is ditching copper landlines in favor of IP telephony (about time!), but the FCC is requiring providers to notify customers of such plans three months in advance, as well as supply backup power sources needed in case of an outage. IP telephony has major advantages over legacy phone networks, some of which we will outline in this article.
The regulatory body issued its announcement yesterday, addressing service providers with the following claims:
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Evolution is synonymous with progress, and for good reason too. In order to push your species forward, you have to be at least as good as your ancestors. Fail to adapt to changing times and you will perish. Many living things have opted for collaboration to ensure their survival. From ants to apes to us humans, leveraging brains and muscle in groups yields great results.
Of the illustrious minds of the 1800s, none saw this more clearly than Charles Robert Darwin, the greatest contributor to the theory of evolution.
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Cementing the belief that communication is vital in building and retaining a team, a study conducted by human resources firm SHRM reveals that employees rate their relationship with their immediate supervisor among the top five job satisfaction contributors.
Specifically, 54% of employees in the survey indicated that a good relationship with their team manager or supervisor was “very important” to their job satisfaction. Middle-management cited this aspect more vocally than the executive ranks (probably because the C-suite doesn’t get bossed around as much).
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Who says Unified Communications is slow to take off? In an analysis of the North American hosted IP telephony and UC&C services market, Frost & Sullivan reports that 2014 saw 8 million installed users, with a projection of 41.9 million users installed by 2021. That number will be mostly small and medium businesses (SMBs). Next in line will be large, distributed organizations looking to streamline their communications infrastructure and IT operations, while managing a remote workforce.
As it transitions from the early-adopter to mass-adoption stage, the North American hosted Internet Protocol (IP) telephony and Unified Communications and Collaboration (UC&C) services market is seeing growth rates accelerating. This is mainly due to an increase in customer awareness of cloud communications benefits. Providers are now compelled to differentiate their products through innovative features as scrutiny of service quality and reliability has increased. Vendors’ focus is gradually switching to refining their UC offerings, after successfully convincing SMBs to adopt the technology.
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We love it when communication flows. Everything we do at 4PSA revolves around communication and collaboration, so we believe strongly in the power of using these as tools for building teams and businesses. But sometimes, shutting up can help too.
According to a study published in the Journal Of Social & Personal Relationships, blocking communications with negative people can increase your productivity and even boost your IQ. It’s the kind of research that seems to reach an obvious conclusion, but most of us are oblivious to these teachings our entire lives.