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It may be hard to imagine today. But Kansas City was once home to the third largest cable car system in the United States behind only San Francisco and Chicago.

Once known for its expansive transit system before becoming extraordinarily dependent on the automobile Kansas City has a deep and ever-evolving history of public transportation and ridership.

The history of public transit can be simplified into several overlapping eras, according to local historian and retired Metropolitan Community College professor Bill Worley. The first four eras include the mule and horse car era, the cable car era, the streetcar era and the introduction of buses.

The story, however, ends with a back-to-the future twist in the fifth era the reintroduction of streetcars on Main Street in 2016.

The first streetcars in Kansas City were pulled by mules and horses starting in 1869. Locally, mules were more common, Worley said. The cable car era began in the early 1880s in San Francisco. Very soon after, Kansas City began using cable cars in the same decade.

From 1895 to 1912, ridership increased from 31 million fare-paying riders to nearly 120 million riders, according to data compiled in the book A Splendid Ride: The Streetcars of Kansas City, 1870-1957 by Monroe Dodd.

Kansas City became home to one of the most extensive cable car systems in the country, not seeing the last of the cable cars until 1912. After that, streetcars were electrified.

Ridership numbers broken down by type of transportation began in 1922, with 1922 to 1928 data documented in the 1928 Report on the Street Railway Situation published by the Kansas City Public Service Co.

In 1922, only railway revenue passengers were counted, with reports documenting over 136 million revenue passengers the peak of the railway. The number of railway revenue passengers would never be as large again.

Even overall ridership of public transit would not get that high again until 1942 during World War II when it reached nearly 153 million revenue passengers.

The arrival of the motor bus in 1924 introduced a new form of public transportation to Kansas City. In 1925, the first year motor bus data was documented, bus ridership made up only 1% of total revenue transit passengers.

In 1926, the Kansas City Public Service Co. took over running the citys public transportation, consolidating ownership of public transportation. The company began replacing streetcars with buses where it would save money, but the change didnt happen overnight.

From 1926 to 1937, data from Kansas City Public Service Co. reports showed a gradual migration from streetcar users to motor bus users. By 1937, the number of motor bus revenue passengers made up 20% of all ridership.

The introduction of motor buses was accompanied by automobiles, too, and Kansas City was no stranger to the Model T.

Many think of the Model T and think of Detroit, or the nearby suburb of Dearborn where the primary factory was built, Worley said.

And thats true, but they also produced it in 1908 in Kansas City, Worley said. Kansas City was the other Ford manufacturing plant the only other Ford manufacturing in the entire United States at that time.

Unlike the motor bus, automobiles were privately owned and not controlled by bigger companies, like the Kansas City Public Service Co., so only wealthy people could afford cars in the beginning.

The automobile takeover was a slow process, Worley said, since not many people could afford them early on. Initially, they didnt pose an immediate threat to public transit.

Still, it was estimated that the 80% of people using mass transit to enter downtown dwindled to 50% by 1939, according to A Splendid Ride.

In 1937, the trolley bus was introduced, which was a hybrid between the streetcar and motor bus. The first year data was available for trolley ridership was in 1940 with reports of 9,724,027 trolley bus revenue passengers carried, making up 15% of the total riders for the year.

Reports for 1938 and 1939 were not available, but it still only took three years for trolley bus ridership to reach 15%. In comparison, the motor bus did not reach at least 15% until its 11th year of service.

Overall ridership of public transportation was beginning to make a comeback following dips in ridership during the Great Depression.

Streetcar ridership rebounded slightly in the 1940s with World War II. Gasoline was rationed, so the electrified streetcars were unaffected. Meanwhile, both cars and buses required gasoline to run.

The comeback still wasnt enough to save the streetcars. A variety of factors including the growing prevalence of automobiles, construction of new highways and the migration of people to the suburbs ultimately brought an end of the streetcar.

In August 1955, the board members of the Kansas City Public Service Co. unanimously voted to sell all 144 street cars, according to an article from the Kansas City Times from Aug. 13, 1955.

The company was negotiating sales for streetcars to be used in a European city with a rail system of the same gauge as in Kansas City. All of the trolley wires and other equipment would also be sold.

At the time of the article, there were only six streetcar lines still in existence: Country Club, 31st Street, Troost Avenue, 12th Street, Dodson and the Rockhill.

While the decision would save money overall, not everyone agreed with the switch. Another article from the Kansas City Times reported on the City Council meeting when the streetcar decision was introduced. With about 40 people attending, seven spoke against the decision.

One resident who spoke against the decision was Joe Gregg, a University of Kansas City student who brought a petition with 150 signatures all against banning streetcars.

The reasons cited streetcars being more comfortable, quieter and safer. Another resident in opposition, Robert B. Langworthy said of the people who spoke for the proposal, none spoke as a transit rider.

A petition against the removal of the final streetcars was even up to over 11,000 signatures by April 1957, according to coverage from the Kansas City Times. In the same year, the population was 854,000.

In 1957, the last streetcars in Kansas City were removed. Buses became the primary public transit option in the Kansas City area.

A quarter of a century ago, Kansas City had 800 street cars. For the rest of this week it will have 41. Next Sunday, all will be gone, read an article from the Kansas City Star in June 1957. This is the week to say good-by to Kansas Citys street cars.

In 1965 the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority took over transit operations and is still in charge today. From there, automobiles take over, Worley said.

In 1970, total ridership had decreased by over 64% from 1955. From there, data continued to trend down into the turn of the century.

The Kansas City public transportation system, in many ways, looks both different and similar to the way it did when ridership was at its highest.

The new streetcar debuted in May 2016 with nearly 1.4 million unlinked passenger trips for the partial year. Trips peaked in 2019, reaching over 2.2 million unlinked passenger trips.

Without paid fares, ridership is measured using automatic passenger counters placed above streetcar and bus doors counting passengers each time they enter a vehicle regardless of how many vehicles they take. These measure unlinked passenger trips, which are also used by the Federal Transit Administration as the national standard for measuring transportation use.

Free fares are a new part of public transportation, with the new streetcar running from Union Station to River Market being permanently free.

The COVID-19 pandemic reduced streetcar ridership, but it never stopped running.

Now, streetcar ridership is running at about 75% of pre-pandemic rates, according to Donna Mandelbaum, communications and marketing director for the Kansas City Streetcar Authority.

As of May 2022, ridership for the year totaled 529,752 unlinked passenger trips.

Buses also continued to run during the pandemic, even beginning a free-fare program in 2020 that had been planned to gradually take place beginning years prior. The program, according to Dick Jarrold, senior vice president of RideKC, helped keep both operators and passengers safe by limiting contact.

Cindy Baker, interim vice president of marketing and communications for the Kansas City Area Transportation Authority, said they plan to continue the free fare service through at least 2023.

You know, we hope to go beyond that, but we do have to look at a variety of revenue sources and partnerships to continue the program, Baker said.

Bus driver shortages have led to the sort of staffing issues many businesses have seen. Baker said pre-pandemic, there used to be an extra board, or 12 to 15 backup bus drivers. Now, the authority has none.

We are always taking applicants and really looking for folks to apply, go through training and get on there actually helping us deliver the service, Jarrold said. Recruiting has been ramped up significantly.

As for overall transit ridership, trends have continued to decrease over the past few decades, even before the pandemic. The most recent decrease began in 2013 and 2014. Ridership went from 16,166,950 passenger trips in 2012 to 12,044,179 in 2019, getting as low as 9,139,474 in 2021 during the COVID-19 pandemic.

Kansas City has become less dense as a community, which is one cause of the decrease in ridership, according to Jarrold. Many communities in the country follow the trend, too.

We are, as many communities are, autocentric, and invest significantly in roads, highways, etc., Jarrold said. So that, over the long haul, has had an impact on transit and transit ridership.

For now, Kansas Citys public transportation and ridership continue to evolve even through a pandemic.

The streetcar, I think, has changed a lot of peoples ideas about transit and what that means for the future, Jarrold said.

Annie Jennemann is a Dow Jones data journalism reporting intern. She is a graduate student at the University of Missouri.

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Hitching a Ride Through History: The Evolution of Kansas City Public Transportation - Flatland

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June 22, 2022

Space 2.0 represents a major shift in the development of defense and aerospace applications: With artificial intelligence (AI) applications moving aboard, systems must support higher processing and throughput capabilities. On-orbit processing requires an adaptive architecture so that systems can process, analyze, and reconfigure themselves to optimize performance and responsiveness. This, in turn, is driving innovation in organic packaging and reliability. Finally, to build these complex systems, engineers need greater design agility to accelerate development, maintain lower costs, and achieve faster time-to-launch.

There has never been a more exciting time to design for space. Developing and launching systems into space is no longer solely within the reach of governments. The innovation, agility, and vision of private enterprise are ushering in a whole new era: Space 2.0. The shape of space is expanding far beyond traditional defense and aerospace to an expansive range of practical and profitable applications.

Consider SpaceXs low-Earth orbit constellation of satellites to provide broadband connectivity. Because these satellites require less fuel to get into orbit and are less expensive to launch, they can deliver value while having a shorter expected lifecycle of just four or five years. In this time, technology will have advanced and the next generation of satellites will be ready to replace them.

Emerging trends

The tremendous interest in low-Earth-orbit constellations goes well beyond simply connecting the worlds seven billion-plus people. There are countless applications possible with this technology. Using a traditional satellite can take up to a month to process an image. In contrast, a constellation of smaller craft can provide real-time imaging that can be used immediately to help firefighters on the ground, detect and track objects like planes using hyperspectral cameras and synthetic aperture radar, or transform how users navigate the planet, just to name a few examples.

Low-Earth-orbit satellites also can mean shorter missions, which reduces risk and costs. Using satellites in this way means a possible increase in the overall pace of innovation in space, moving to newer process nodes and packaging technologies much earlier. When the payload can be updated every five years instead of every 10 to 20 years, this enables mission specialists to do more with less each successive generation.

Among the major trends is the rise of on-orbit processing, which requires more compute and input/output (I/O) slots; this, in turn, is driving the move toward organic BGA [ball-grid array] packaging and away from legacy technologies like ceramic column-grid-attach solutions. Also seen: a sharp increase in development agility, resulting in faster evaluation, prototyping, and the launch of new technology. (Figure 1.)

[Figure 1| On-orbit processing requires more compute and I/O, which means a shift in packaging requirements.]

Challenges of designing for space

Operating in space presents some of the most challenging barriers to design: First, the environment is extreme and unforgiving, and systems must be ruggedized and designed for no single point of failure. Downtime for maintenance is not an option in space. In addition, designers must deal with challenges such as:

[Figure 2| The challenges of designing for space are detailed.]

Machine learning in space

The foundation of addressing these design challenges is to offload processing from the ground station and bring it on-board. Rather than sending data and images to Earth for processing and introducing all the latency associated with this satellites will process data themselves and send information about what that data means instead. This requires satellites to support AI capabilities in orbit, including object detection and image classification, to start.

A key part of making on-orbit processing viable is understanding that AI is an ever-changing field of research and that machine learning (ML) models require continual optimization. First, ML models can adapt over time to become faster and more accurate. Second, the algorithms themselves change as new breakthroughs are made. Thus, space-based systems need a flexible and adaptive architecture that can change models and algorithms on the fly.

Because ML is involved, programmable software is not enough. ML is compute-intensive and requires hardware acceleration to provide real-time responsiveness. When the algorithms change, the hardware needed to accelerate the algorithms change as well. Thus, an adaptive platform requires a combination of configurable software and hardware that can update in concert with each other. In short, to support on-orbit processing, systems need to be able to process, analyze, and reconfigure from the architecture up through to the application code.

Moving toward organic packaging

Being able to deliver reliable system components that will operate during the long mission life needed and the extreme environments found in space require a completely different level of design, manufacturing, and testing. Quality control must work with design teams from the very start to achieve the levels of reliability required by the government.

For example, Six Sigma, an established and reliable leader in the defense and aerospace industry for over 30 years, is the sole supplier of solder column attachment to ceramic-grid-array packages, primarily used in space applications. While the government has actively sought out a second source, the processes and expertise required to provide the world-class reliability offered by Six Sigma are so rigorous that, to date, no other supplier has been able to achieve certification.

As the industry moves toward new process nodes like 7 nm technology, the dies are too large for legacy space-grade packaging and techniques like solder column attachment. Simply put, the processing requirements for on-orbit AI wont fit anymore. Theres also the significant increase in I/O to consider.

As a result, the industry is beginning to move away from legacy packaging and to organic packing and flip-chip packaging for space-grade products. In addition to being able to support the larger die size and I/O needed, organic packaging reliability has been proven in the commercial market and has a much wider ecosystem of support.

Of course, there are still challenges to overcome: Space development will not shift overnight. It takes years to qualify space-grade products, and the many legacy ecosystems in place will continue to need support. However, the defense sector is interested in having access to the latest technology, and the players understand that innovation means change.

Continued innovation in space-based design and systems

The defense and aerospace industries as well as any company considering space-based applications need technology that can provide the necessary performance, adaptability, and reliability for Space 2.0 applications. New technology alone is not enough, however. As systems become more complex, the difficulty in integrating components becomes more challenging. Even evaluating a simple ML platform can take weeks when developers must integrate components from multiple vendors themselves.

Its critical to understand the demanding requirements developers face while building reliable systems for space.

True innovation and on-orbit reconfigurability will be possible with:

Space 2.0 promises an exciting future. The ability of the private sector to launch its own systems brings new vision to the industry. On-orbit processing will extend the capabilities of space-based systems into viable commercial applications that improve quality of life around the world. True unlimited on-orbit reconfigurability provides the software and hardware flexibility these systems need to implement and accelerate real-time AI capabilities. The move to organic packaging will enable the industry to onboard the processing and I/O required for next-generation systems. OEMs will enjoy the many benefits of design agility as it becomes easier to evaluate, design, adapt, and reuse space-based IP.

Inderjit Singhis the Senior Director of Assembly & Packaging Engineering Group at AMD. He has been inthis role for the last11 years as part of the Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group (formerly Xilinx). He has more than 31 years of assembly, manufacturing, package development, design, reliability, and chip-to-package interaction experiences. He holds a bachelor of applied science degree, majoring in applied physics, from University Science Malaysia.

Minal Sawantis the Director for Aerospace & Defense Products at AMD. Aspart of the Adaptive and Embedded Computing Group (formerly Xilinx), she is responsible for driving the business strategy for AMD A&D solutions and drives enablement of new-generation platforms and architectures. Minal has supported defense, aerospace, and high-reliability markets for over 20years. Minal holds a masters degreein electrical engineering from University of Oklahoma.

AMD https://www.amd.com/en

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An evolution in the industry: Top trends for Space 2.0 - Military Embedded Systems

Enhanced business structure to provide more flexibility and autonomy, promoting value generation and strengthening customer relationships

SO PAULO, June 22, 2022 /PRNewswire/ -- Zenvia Inc. ("ZENVIA" or "Company") (NASDAQ:ZENV), the leading cloud-based CX communications platform in Latin America empowering companies to transform their existing communications with end customers along their life cycle, announced today that will be implementing changes in the corporate structure following the accelerated growth of its SaaS business.

The Company has focused on strengthening its three existing business lines: SaaS, CPaaS, and Consulting. To fully capture the potential created with the successful integration of D1 Smarkio and ongoing integration and optimization of Movidesk and SenseData, ZENVIA is tactically reorganizing its structure to allow for more autonomy when it comes to revenue generation activities by having teams exclusively dedicated to each business line.

As a result, Raphael Godoy, our former CMO, will become SaaS Chief Revenue Officer (CRO). Cristiano Franco will be CPaaS CRO, and Luca Bazuro will become the Consulting business line CRO. The Consulting business, resulting from the D1 Smarkio integration, will now support the adoption of Zenvia's SaaS and CPaaS products by the corporate market.

Raphael, Luca, and Cristiano will report to Cassio Bobsin, ZENVIA's founder and CEO. Rogrio Perez, former CX Services Executive Director, will now report directly to Raphael Godoy.

Shay Chor, current Investor Relations Officer, will become ZENVIA'S Chief Financial Officer (CFO), combining financial, legal, and investor relations departments, and will report directly to Cassio Bobsin. Mariana Cambiaghi will remain as Finance Executive Director, responsible for accounting, financial controls & processes, and treasury. Mrs. Cambiaghi will report directly to Shay Chor, as will Laura Hirata, who remains the General Counsel.

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Additional ZENVIA's executive team members reporting directly to Cassio Bobsin include Gabriela Vargas, who will become Chief Marketing Officer (CMO), comprising Strategy, Business Excellence, and Institutional Marketing; Lilian Lima, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), responsible for IT and Products; and Katiuscia Teixeira, Chief Human Resources Officer (CHRO), to lead People and Culture areas.

"This new organizational chart follows a natural and much needed evolution of our company's structure following the tremendous growth recorded in value-added solutions. We have strengthened our strategy as a customer experience platform and will now have a business structure dedicated to each respective target market. This strategic decision will unlock the true potential of what we have accomplished in the past two years, and will ignite us to continue creating unique experiences for the end consumer," said Cassio Bobsin, ZENVIA's CEO.

"I am honored to have the opportunity to further support ZENVIA's transformation and am confident that we will maintain the track record of delivering excellent results as we have done since the IPO, despite the challenging macro environment. We believe that this organizational change will better position us for a strong business expansion, especially in the SaaS area, and that our teams' size and structures are adequate to support this growth," says Shay Chor, ZENVIA's CFO.

About ZENVIAZENVIA is driven by the purpose of empowering companies to create unique experiences for customer communications through its unified end-to-end platform. ZENVIA empowers companies to transform their existing customer communications from non-scalable, physical, and impersonal interactions into highly scalable, digital first and hyper contextualized experiences across the customer journey. ZENVIA's unified end-to-end CX communications platform provides a combination of (i) SaaS focused on campaigns, sales teams, customer service and engagement, (ii) tools, such as software application programming interfaces, or APIs, chatbots, single customer view, journey designer, documents composer and authentication, and (iii) channels, such as SMS, Voice, WhatsApp, Instagram and Webchat. Its comprehensive platform assists customers across multiple use cases, including marketing campaigns, customer acquisition, customer onboarding, warnings, customer services, fraud control, cross-selling and customer retention, among others. ZENVIA's shares are traded on Nasdaq, under the ticker ZENV.

Forward-Looking StatementsThis press release contains "forward-looking statements" within the meaning of the "safe harbor" provisions of the Private Securities Litigation Reform Act of 1995. These forward-looking statements are made as of the date they were first issued and were based on current expectations, estimates, forecasts and projections as well as the beliefs and assumptions of management. Words such as "expect," "anticipate," "should," "believe," "hope," "target," "project," "goals," "estimate," "potential," "predict," "may," "will," "might," "could," "intend," variations of these terms or the negative of these terms and similar expressions are intended to identify these statements. Forward-looking statements are subject to a number of risks and uncertainties, many of which involve factors or circumstances that are beyond Zenvia's control.

Zenvia's actual results could differ materially from those stated or implied in forward-looking statements due to several factors, including but not limited to: our ability to innovate and respond to technological advances, changing market needs and customer demands, our ability to successfully acquire new businesses as customers, acquire customers in new industry verticals and appropriately manage international expansion, substantial and increasing competition in our market, compliance with applicable regulatory and legislative developments and regulations, the dependence of our business on our relationship with certain service providers, among other factors.

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ZENVIA announces evolution of its business structure - Yahoo Finance

Roger Federer wearing prototype of THE ROGER Pro during Wimbledon 2021 (Getty Images)

Every once in a while a tennis shoe comes along and becomes an instant, timeless classic.

It resonates with tennis players and fans alike capturing the true essence of style, culture and that moment of sport history in the making.

This year, we have seen the launch of one the Greatest of All Times very own signature shoe hitting the streets (or tennis courts). Roger Federer has got it on with On and created THE ROGER Pro. The labels first ever high-performance tennis-specific footwear.

So, whats so special about this? And why does it deserve a place in the tennis shoe Hall of Fame?

Prototyoe of THE ROGER Pro which took two years in the making and appeared at Wimbledon in 2021 (On)

Well, they have been developed by the man himself with the brand who, until now, have specialised in running.

On the technology front, a 100 per cent carbon fibre speedboard is engineered into the midsole to absorb shock upon ground impact and give a boost of energy return to prepare you quickly for your next move and shot.

(On)

The thin channelled cross hatch grip on the outsole has been designed to limit squeaking on hard courts.

Aesthetically, in true Federer style the finished product has super smart no nonsense clean lines (as you would expect) to complete the whole package and make this hotshot a sure fire winner.

Even though Roger Federer will unfortunately be absent from Wimbledon this summer, we see no reason why these ground breaking tennis shoes will not become a sought after and beloved collectors item, earning themselves a place in the history books.

Ive snapped up two pairs. One to enjoy a game or two and the others to store away somewhere safe and well protected for 30 years.

(Evening Standard)

Starting with the humble canvas clad Dunlop Green Flash plimsole in the mid 1930s, these shoes were worn by Great Britains Grand Slam Champion Fred Perry who won Wimbledon three times in the iconic footwear. This original trailblazer has since snowballed and can now been seen as part of todays Gen Z street style.

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Fred Perry on the prestine grass courts during The Chanpionships in 1936 (Getty Images)

Skipping forward a good few decades Adidas signed up Stan Smith in 1978 to endorse its first ever leather tennis trainers (which were original created in the mid 60s and named after Robert Haillet, a French tennis player who retired from the sport). The shoes have remained a stalwart in the brands collection and evolved into the fashion footwear they are today.

Bjorn Borg winning Wimbledon in 1980 (Getty Images)

On the cusp on the late 70s and early 80s, Nike entered the arena with its Wimbledon shoe sporting the labels iconic Swoosh sign. John McEnroe wore these in the famous 1980 final on the hallowed turf of SW19. You may remember that famous tie-breaker against Bjorn Borg, who incidentally had his signature Diadora Elite sneakers on show. In turn, these quickly become casual classics.

Andre Agassi in 1990 (Getty Images)

Then the game changer arrived. Andre Agassi stole the headlines in the 90s with his colourful hot pink lava kit, long flowing highlights locks and neon blitzing Air Tech Challenge II pumps from Nike - duly setting a trend for years to come. Technological advances in the marketplace and competition was hot on its heels, which included Reebok and Michael Changs Victory Court Pumps.

When Pistol Pete Sampras smashed onto the centre court scene (circa 2000), nobody could stop him and Nikes Air Ocillate sneakers which he wore for the best part of his career - adding several grand slams to his CV.

This paved the way for Adidas to muscle its way back into the action in 2004 with arguably its most iconic and indestructible Barricade pair to kick of the modern era. Champions including Ana Ivanovic, Justine Henin, Marat Safin, Novak Djokovic and Andy Murray contributed to their popularity and success.

Ana Ivanovic winning the Roland Garros in 2008 (Getty Images)

In 2010, during Rafa Nadals fifth Roland Garros title campaign of clay court dominance (as well as sweeping up all three Masters 1000 tournaments in the same year) and following on from his pirate gear phase, we could only marvel at his Nike Air Max Court Ballistec 2.3s, which catapulted these tennis shoes into the limelight.

Rafael Nadals Nike Air Max Court Ballistec 2.3 at Roland Garros in 2010 (AFP via Getty Images)

Roger Federer then turned up the heat during the opening round of Wimbledon in 2013 with his orange sole Nike Vapor 9s. Officials told him to stop wearing them, as they did not adhere to their strict all white dress code. The following year Nike Air Jordan landed as well as Serena Williamss NikeCourt Flare. Williamss shoe included a unique ankle support collar and the inspiration for this came from Kobe Bryants basketball sneakers.

Serena Williams wearing NikeCourt Flare at the 2014 US Open (Getty Images)

Nowdays, top level professionals such as Dimitrov, Nadal and Murray have had their footwear specially tailored and customised for their own specific needs. Some sneakers you currently see being worn by your fav player on tour are actually from a good few seasons back and cosmetically updated to look like a new incarnation. Others, might be a hybrid or even bespoke made and not for sale.

Andy Murray wearing bespoke Under Armour shoes a the Madrid Open in 2022 (Getty Images)

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Evolution of the tennis shoe: Is Federers THE Roger Pro the greatest of all-time? - Yahoo News UK

Rental industry digital marketing solutions provider, RentPath announced Tuesday it has rebranded to Rent. thats Rent, period.

Rent. was acquired by Redfin in April 2021. Its network of rental listing services include Rent.com, Rentals.com, ApartmentGuide.com and Redfins newly launched rental service. According to Rent. CEO Jon Ziglar, the rebrand will not affect any of Rent.s listing partners.

This is the companys most significant evolution in a nearly 50-year history of serving the rental industry, Ziglar said. This is much more than a name change. It is the outward signal of our evolution from an advertising company to a technology and software driven company.

Along with the rebrand, Rent. also announced the launch of a variety of new features in its listing service, RentMarketplace, including automated profile sync to help manage Google business profiles, 3D floor plans, and request-a-tour functionality on all listings. In addition, the company announced the expansion of its RentSocial marketing through the launch of its Snapchat advertising service, and the launch of RentEngage, an engagement solutions platform that helps with lead nurturing and renter assistance through 24/7 and call center support and email functionality.

Ziglar said the rebrand and the enhanced product suite will help clients, such as property managers, expand their reach and improve their efficiency.

The launch of Rent. is a continuation of the growth and momentum the company has experienced over the last year, beginning with the Redfin acquisition in April 2021, and the restructuring of the business around this new vision, Ziglar said.

Redfin, which acquired Rent. in 2021, announced that it is laying off 6% of its work force or roughly 470 employees. The layoffs come as the Fed implements the largest mortgage rate hike since 1994 and housing market conditions remain uncertain.

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RentPath announces rebrand to Rent., calls move its "most significant evolution" - RealTrends

Lynn Clark has been reappointed interim chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, which is co-administered by Iowa State UniversitysCollege of Liberal Arts and Sciencesand theCollege of Agriculture and Life Sciences.

Clark, a professor of botany, has served as interim chair since June 2021. Her renewed appointment will begin July 1, 2022, and extend through June 30, 2024.

Dr. Clark has a proven track record of outstanding leadership and dedicated service to the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology, which plays a critical role in many well-established and important undergraduate majors at Iowa State, said Daniel J. Robison, holder of the endowed deans chair in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences. Her institutional knowledge of the university and strong commitment to student success have allowed the department to thrive and remain innovative, while attracting and retaining undergraduate and graduate students.

Clark joined Iowa State in 1987 as temporary assistant professor in the Department of Botany, one year after she earned her doctoral degree in botany at Iowa State. In 2003, she advanced to full professor. Most recently, she earned a 2021 Regents Award for Faculty Excellence. From 2008-2021 Clark was the director of theBiological/Pre-Medical Illustration program, a shared program of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences and the College of Design.

Its a distinct honor to continue serving our EEOB faculty, staff and students as interim chair, Clark said. I look forward to building on the progress weve made to our undergraduate programs in biology, environmental science and genetics in collaboration with EEOBs partners in the College of Agriculture and Life Sciences and the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences.

Clarks research is focused on studying bamboos and grasses. A prolific researcher with 200 publications, Clark is the worlds foremost expert on bamboo and its evolution. She has identified more than 130 species of bamboo and is the author of several books on grasses, bamboos and native Iowa plants.

Dr. Clark has been an engaged, thoughtful and productive leader during her first year as EEOB interim chair. She spearheaded the acquisition of faculty talent and oversaw the implementation of department projects that support student research in the biology, genetics and environmental programs, said Beate Schmittmann, dean of the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences. I am confident the department is in capable hands and I look forward to supporting Dr. Clark and celebrating her continued success in this key leadership role.

Clarks vision includes building on the achievements of the departments research and graduate programs.

The strength of the EEOB department lies in the breadth of expertise in our faculty members who look at many different kinds of organisms and ask many different kinds of questions, Clark said. This certainly makes the department successful and unique, and I look forward to maintaining this excellence.

Clark has earned numerous awards including the College of Liberal Arts and Sciences International Service Award and an Iowa State University Award for Outstanding Achievement in Research. She was selected as a Deans Lecturer in spring 2007.

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Clark reappointed as interim chair of the Department of Ecology, Evolution and Organismal Biology - College of Agriculture and Life Sciences

What if your companys sales growth was based on a strategy that you can create a revolutionary team that progresses the evolution of your firm?

There are usually two strategies when it comes to growing a sales team: hire experienced talent or grow new talent.

But theres another way of thinking about your sales team: It should really be a revolutionary or evolutionary strategy.

Youre captivated, right?

Well, hold on to your seat! We are going to shatter some perceptions together!

Some people are uncomfortable with the word revolutionary. It evokes images of hardship or, in the extreme, maybe even violence.

The word evolutionary, on the other hand, tends to imply passivity, a strategy of allowing things to progress somewhat organically.

I tend to lean more toward the go big or go home side of things, the reach for the stars mentality that sometimes requires boss moves. Can you see your company at the top of the leader board? Do you believe so deeply in magic that its impossible not to see it as reality?

Whether you are going against the grain or dealing with the uncertainty of whether an idea or strategy will take your firm in the right direction, you will be driven by your experience. Youll also likely be driven by emotion (positive or negative).

In a recent Business Unusual podcast with Barbara Corcoran, her guest Ed Mylett said something that resonated with me: You gravitate toward your most common emotion, even if its not positive. Getting your confidence is a matter of shifting that. I couldnt agree more! What if a sales growth strategy was based on the confidence that you could create a revolutionary team that progressed the evolution of your firm? I will wait while you read that againrevolutionary sales strategy creating evoluti-onary growth. But how?

Sales growth itself can be like your favorite roller coaster or the dreaded spinning teacups! Navigate the ups and downs by keeping your group moving forward versus the never-ending spinning of building momentum that ends with nothing but whiplash and an upset stomach. If you have been fortunate like me to build high-performing sales teams, you know there is probably more magic than science in doing so. I lean into the magic, the feeling, the artistry of leadership that makes people not only want to work for you but stay working for you. There are any number of highly rated books that all kinds of industries have used to advance their sales organizations, but I would hesitate to tell you there is one tell-all that will be the one for you. Through the years, I have read many of these and applied pieces from each of them. Here are my five magical levers (the order of importance is negotiable):

Anyone on my current team or past sales team has heard me say, As long as you are doing all the things you need to do to accelerate your business, you work for yourself. When you stop doing those, you work for me, and nobody wants to work for me! Its a funny way of saying, Do all the right things and you have my support to take it to any level of success you want!

Revolutionary teams start with a leader who is willing to trust and create accountabilityand be held to those standards as well. You will make mistakes (I make them every day), and sometimes you will even repeat those mistakes. Thats OK. But let me encourage you to own those mistakes up and down the food chain. You will win the respect of your team, you are less likely to make that mistake again because you have acknowledged it as one, and if youre reporting to someone else, you show a willingness to learn and grow.

You may have inferred by now that the evolutionary strategy is less appealing in the fast-paced world of private lending (humbly stated). But it doesnt mean you should altogether avoid a gradual development. It can be an extremely helpful process for things like the pace of hiring, ensuring a balance between sales and ops to create exceptional customer experience, and for measuring twice and cutting once.

Plainly stated, I subscribe to the more magic than science approach in any sales strategy, and I firmly believe when you hire and train the right talent, commit to them in a professional and even personal way, you will build a team that will have others clamoring for your talent.

What is more magical than that?

Dana Georgiou is a seasoned mortgage professional with nearly 30 years of mortgage lending experience, including 15 years of executive management experience in production and operations. Her expertise includes the development of corporate sales growth and strategy, perfecting and implementing solutions to streamline new loan production, and asset management as well as managing large-scale mortgage operation centers.

Georgiou has a deep background in mortgage compliance, including CFPB mock audit efforts. She has worked in all channels of the mortgage business, with the last few years focused on the private lending/business purpose entity lending space. Her proven track record covers operations, credit/risk, and sales and marketing. She is an avid speaker/presenter at numerous mortgage industry events and believes in deep advocacy for education in the private lending space.

Georgiou is a published author, with some of her most recent articles appearing in Mortgage Women Magazine. She sits on the advisory council for the National Alliance of Commercial Lending Brokers and is actively involved with Habitat for Humanity in her local area as a financial counselor helping families achieve their dream of homeownership.

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Revolutionary or Evolutionary? - Think Realty

International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) announces partnership with Minti Labs to drive new fan engagement opportunities through its digital platform.

DAYTONA BEACH, Fla.(BUSINESS WIRE)The International Motor Sports Association (IMSA) has partnered with Minti Labs to launch IMSA Fastlane, a digital fan engagement platform. The platform is designed to connect fans with their favorite teams, racecars, and drivers in an entirely new way. IMSA Fastlane will offer community members the opportunity to own digital assets, showcase collections, unlock VIP experiences, and engage in social events. It will also host the only officially licensed marketplace for members to collect and trade video NFT highlights from IMSAs iconic history.

Hero cards, die-cast replicas, and driver autographs have historically been considered high-value items treasured by race fans and memorabilia collectors. However, as everything in the world has evolved, so have collectibles. Digital assets such as NFTs have recently become popular, and incredibly valuable. The IMSA Fastlane Marketplace will allow users to buy, sell, and trade the digital collectibles produced by Minti Labs. Leaderboards will track collector stats and rank collections based on points. Future plans also include digital games, challenges, and community events.

The popularity of motorsport has seen incredible growth over the last several years due, in part, to digital initiatives like eSports. We see collectibles as another digital initiative that can be paired with real-world experiences and provide exciting opportunities for our fans, commented John Doonan, President of IMSA. Our partnership with Minti Labs also provides us with the technical foundation to deliver additional value and benefits to our OEMs and partners as well.

Motorsport has always been a showcase for cutting edge technology. IMSA Fastlane takes the same approach and is applying it to the fan experience, said Paul Dube, co-founder and CEO at Minti Labs. Digital platforms are reshaping how we think about fan and consumer engagement. It presents a powerful shift whereby the fan has a seat at the table simply by leveraging the limitless meta-utility associated with digital collecting and gaming. By doing so, the fan and league experience evolves into a mutually benefiting and dynamic relationship.

Joining the IMSA Fastlane community is easy. First, sign up for the waitlist to reserve your place in line at http://www.imsafastlane.com. As we approach the launch date, waitlist subscribers will be invited to join the platform in the order they sign up. This means the sooner you apply to join, the sooner you can access the platform. The platform is expected to go live in the upcoming weeks. The first series of digital assets and experiences will be released mid-season. Early community members will gain exclusive access, receive special promotions, and qualify to win unique track-side experiences.

Visit http://www.imsafastlane.com to receive updates, news, and product info.

About the International Motor Sports Association (IMSA):

International Motor Sports Association, LLC (IMSA) was originally founded in 1969 and owns a long and rich history in sports car racing. Today, IMSA is the sanctioning body of the IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship, the premier sports car racing series in North America. IMSA also sanctions the IMSA Michelin Pilot Challenge and the IMSA Prototype Challenge, as well as four one-make series: Ferrari Challenge North America, Idemitsu Mazda MX-5 Cup presented by BFGoodrich Tires, Lamborghini Super Trofeo North America and Porsche Carrera Cup North America. IMSA a company within the NASCAR family is the exclusive strategic partner in North America with the Automobile Club de lOuest (ACO) which operates the 24 Hours of Le Mans as a part of the FIA World Endurance Championship. The partnership enables selected IMSA WeatherTech SportsCar Championship competitors to earn automatic entries into the prestigious 24 Hours of Le Mans. For more information please visit http://www.IMSA.com , http://www.twitter.com/IMSA , http://www.facebook.com/IMSA , http://www.instagram.com/imsa_racing .

About Minti Labs:

Minti Labs Inc. is a full service Web3 company building products that offer boundless experiences. From digital collectibles to gaming to the metaverse, Minti Labs is a gateway to possibility limited only by a brands creativity. The 100+ person team of developers, designers, strategists, and more provide innovators with the capability and experience required for Web3 initiatives.

Contacts

Media: Jeff Neasmith jeff@mintilabs.io

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Minti Labs and IMSA Fastlane - the Evolution of Motorsport Collectibles - - Portada-online.com

Camp Cretaceous is an original Netflix series. With a runtime of 25 minutes, it has been rated at 7.5/10 on IMDB. It is a universal dream-works production.

An animated film designed especially for children, it falls in the genre of action and adventure.

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Produced by Steven Spielberg, directed by Lane Lueras, and written by Zack Stentz, it is a remake of the original films Jurassic Park and The Lost World.

Jurassic World: Dominion, was released on June 10, 2022. It is an American sci-fi film, and a sequel to Jurassic Park: The Fallen Kingdom. It is the final film of The Jurassic Park trilogy. Steven Spielberg once again has outdone the film. All the versions of Jurassic Park deserve applause. Not only does it charm children, but even adults enjoy the movie.

The enduring, collective love for Jurassic Park is immensely hard to explain. The first film was made in 1993. It has been described by reviewers as a platonic ideal of a blockbuster perfectly preserved in amber.

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Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous takes us through a motorcycle chase in the streets of Taos. The protagonists are Sam Veil, Laura Dern, Jeff Goldblum, and a new hotshot pilot De Wand Wise. It has a runtime of 2.5 hours.

Set 30 years into post-dino dystopia, the term refers to the era after the dinosaurs. The new era was riddled with chaos and destruction spread by locusts and tech giants. Biosin, a company run by Dodgson (Campbell Scott), caters to these tech giants.

Darius Bowman (Paul Mikel Williams), Kausar Mohammad (Yasmina or Yas) and Jenna Ortega (Brooklyn), Riani Ridguerz (Sammy), Ryan Potter (Kenji Kon) are the lead characters.

The play is set in Isla Nabur, where six teens join an adventure camp to visit dinosaurs.

The film uses fiction and imagination beautifully to put forward the idea of humans mingling with dinosaurs. It breaks the stereotype of dinosaurs being only savage. Dinosaurs, if dealt with kindness will not harm the human race.

The plot opens with Darius playing a game about dinosaurs on the computer.

Just as he is about to win, he loses and the game is set to be over.

His brother comes in telling him theres more to life than just dinosaurs. But watching how keen his interest was, he decided to hide it from their Mom. Mom did not approve! So Darius had to be secretive.

However, Darius is determined to meet the dinosaurs.

Through the computer game, he is transported into Dino World. In Harry Potter, floo powder is used to transcend physical boundaries. How is that possible? Magic is at play here. That is how its made possible.

The costume design is vibrant. The colour palette of red, green, and yellow, brings life to the story. They are colours of fierceness, passion, freedom, nature, rebirth and renewal, warmth.

The scene shifts to Company Pen, the abode of the dinosaurs.

The teenagers are warned not to leave the premises after 9. However, Darius is all too excited and isnt afraid of taking the risk.

Darius, Sammy and Kenji all sneak out in the middle of the night.

They are walking cautiously, when all of a sudden Kenji drops Sammys phone below the fence.

Overconfident, he jumps down to retrieve the phone not realizing the danger he is in!

Will Kenji encounter dinosaurs? If yes, will he be eaten alive or saved?

Who will help him?

Will the myth about dinosaurs be broken or is it not a myth? Did dinosaurs exist?

The series is a must-watch, especially for children. Not only will it develop their vocabulary, but it will also enhance their creativity and expression.

Jurassic World is no mystery. The Fallen Kingdom, the next in line is set in an era of 65 million years later after the dinosaurs became extinct.

Dominion, the title is self-explanatory. When man tries to establish control over nature. It results in devastation that is irrevocable.

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'Jurassic World: Camp Cretaceous' is the best evolution of Jurassic Park - Daily Minute Mirror

The recent ODSC conference highlighted changes in data science in the last few years including the move to cloud, the need to support increasingly sophisticated workflows, and more attention on security.

RTInsights recently had the opportunity to speak with Sheamus McGovern, Founder and CEO of the Open Data Science Conference (ODSC). ODSC is one of the leading, most comprehensive conference and training organizations dedicated to data science. It brings together experts from the tech industry, academia, and government organizations and a cross-section of data scientists with the various professionals that support AI and big data solutions.

How have you seen the field of data science evolve in the years since you founded ODSC in 2015?

McGovern: I would say definitely the biggest shift since 2015 has been the move off the laptop and onto the cloud. What that really meant was the scale of data science and machine learning could really expand over the last five years. Before, people were working on what we would call small to medium-sized data sets with smaller feature sets. Back then, if you were dealing with 10,000 features, you would think that is a massive data set. Just working with ten features was a challenge.

Data science took a different path to cloud than software development because software development went to the cloud for the purposes of productivity and certainly scalability, but machine learning went there because it was imperative in order to scale within the machine learning workflow.

Now that data science is firmly linked to cloud capabilities and has crossed new scale boundaries. Where are you seeing the most change now?

McGovern: Over the last three years, weve seen a practice evolve that was searching for a label. We were calling it data ops, AI ops, and dev data ops. And then finally, in the last two years, it became known asMLOps.

Related: 6Q4: Demetrios Brinkmann, on the role of community in solving MLOps greatest challenges

Once data science moved to the cloud, the workflows got more sophisticated. So, your workflow had to cover feature engineering, feature modeling, feature deprecation, monitoring, etc. In addition, because youve gone to the cloud now, machine learning and data science were catching up with software architecture and what the software field was doing in terms of DevOps.

And now, were starting to pay attention to continuous integration, continuous monitoring, and real-time monitoring of models and applications. The workflow now encompasses the whole range of real-time event-processing, data analytics, data science, and machine learning. These were emerging on different paths, but now you see software engineering, data engineering, and data science machine learning starting to convergeprimarily because they moved to the cloud.

Would you say that data science is becoming a truly interdisciplinary endeavor?

McGovern: Right. When data scientists were working away on their laptops, they could forget about a lot of the dependencies. Now everything is converging because of the cloud.

How does that affect the traditional role of a data scientist, if there ever was such a thing as a traditional role?

McGovern: When we hear that someone is hiring a data scientist, we ask ourselves, what does that really mean? Theres even a big difference between the related roles of a data scientist and a machine learning engineer. It always seemed to be too narrow a focus. Maybe data science will follow the same trend as software engineering.

Ten or fifteen years ago, we were all programmers. Now there are so many more defined roles. Are you a backend engineer, data engineer, or full-stack engineer? The machine learning and data science field is waking up to the disambiguation because, for example, when you go look for an NLP engineer, you dont see many jobs for that, right?

You do see specialization skills around NLP or computer vision. So, I think theres still a way to go in the specialization of the field as well, but there is still a long way to go before that level of specialization is needed.

On the other end of the spectrum, there are serious gaps, for example, the QA engineer. I have yet to see a role for the AI test engineer. That responsibility is either being put on the software QA side in the IT department or software development team, but you actually need very special skills to test models.

Are there any other gaps that youre aware of in the AI/ML workflow?

McGovern: The project management side of it is becoming very important. We see a lot of companies struggling with the whole concept of machine learning and data science projects. ODSC has developed a co-located event called AIX that looks at AI from the business and industries perspective. There have been many sessions on the need for project management.

Project management, the PMP designation, came out of the construction industry and then very successfully moved to the software industry. Once that discipline was coupled with agile development, it became hugely successful for the software field.

However, machine learning and data science projects start like research projects that, if theyre going to be successful, have to be managed from the get-go as real projects. Having a vague target of porting AI to the cloud is not enough. Adding storyboarding and time/resource estimates is better but still doesnt cover all the aspects.

For example, questions even as basic as where am I going to get the data have to be considered. Is the data already available, or do I have to collect it? Once we get the data, how is our model going to work out? There are more sophisticated questions around loss functions and error rates. Or back to basics againwill it actually work, and how do we prove that out? Thats just the tip of the iceberg.

Thats often what is meant by the phrase operationalizing AI. Can you shed more light on whats involved in bringing projects from the research and sandboxing phase through to production?

McGovern: Companies are coming to their project managers and saying they want a new business solution, for example, a new credit risk scoring mechanism that doesnt rely on static and inflexible algorithms but instead uses machine learning. Great. Where do we get the data? Where do we get the team? How do you put a framework around the complexities of machine learning and data science?

Presently, because we dont have that framework, its difficult to estimate the size of these projects. That leads to problems because then how do you start to measure failure rates? How do you determine how close the end product is to the feature specs? How do you measure the success of outcomes since you are often not sure of the outcomes until you are past the research stage? Research stages lend themselves well to masking failure rates because their goal is to discover a good approach or method, which can then be built into a solution.

Would you say that thats one of the next frontiers people are seeking to cross?

McGovern: That was an important focus for our community last year. This year, we are focused on security and cybersecurity. I was especially interested to see that more is being done in the field of machine learning safety, which is not the same thing as responsible AI, which we are also seeing a lot of interest in. Responsible AI centers on the processes of the data scientists and engineers creating AI systems. Machine learning safety or reliable machine learning centers on the hardening of AI systems against a malevolent actor.

There is a connection to the topic of project management in both of these areas. So, when youre looking at starting new projects, you shouldnt be waiting until the end and asking whether it was an ethical project. Having a responsible AI checklist is the wrong approach. The questions of responsibility and ethics must be asked at the outset and at every step along the way. Some of these questions impact whether the outcomes are even accurate. You can say that a model is not being trained on a wide enough feature set, or the model is being trained on a certain persona with all the assumptions and biases baked into it. One example of this is looking at gender-blind income levels and credit profiles but then assuming the persona is male.

We have to think about responsible AI at the data generation phase, the data capture phase, the feature engineering phase, and the model deployment phase. What happens if your models deprecate? They were ethical at the start, but how are you measuring that they remain ethical?

Ive always thought responsible AI was the result of unintended consequences. No one set out to create a biased model. It is more of an educational, leadership, and awareness kind of issue.

If responsible AI seeks to prevent unintended negative consequences, does reliable AI mitigate intended negative consequences?

McGovern: Exactly. AI safety is slightly different because now youre dealing with malicious actors. Just like with cybersecurity, you are protecting your AI environment and systems from being tampered with. But there might be many more ways to hack AI than a network.

For example, a lot of data training is done with data captured from the web, right? You are mining social media for sentiment analysis on companies, their stock, or their products. This data is, at best poor, but imagine that someone has deployed bots to generate a lot of negative reviews to poison the data. That data is then fed into an AI system and worked into your model with disastrous results. You can sink a companys reputation and even lower its stock value. Digital images are also especially vulnerable. Changing a few pixels on an image can make it look like something entirely different to computer vision software.

Another problem is that reverse engineering an algorithm is not impossible, and its not illegal. There are people with enough time on their hands that will try to reverse engineer your model. You can only guess how they can profit from that. Its the new proving ground for hackers, data science hackers.

So, I predict that just like bad trading caused the crash of a lot of financial houses, in the future, bad AI algorithms will bring down companies through monetary losses or reputational losses. Companies need to be more aware of the risks and take action. Responsible people think responsibly. But AI safety is about robustness, engineering robust machine learning systems that can deal with adversarial attacks.

Well, we took an unexpected dark turn. Tell us about the bright spots and opportunities you see in the world of AI.

McGovern: Yes, lets talk about something much cooler. ODSC now includes a startup showcase. Seeing all the new ideas come into the industry is very exciting. Ive been noticing a really exciting trend with these startups. One of the reasons I started ODSC, an open data science conference, was that from my perspective coming from finance, which is a bit of a closed industry, I loved the whole idea of open source.

People were out there building these unbelievable systems that were better than paid products. I was using both kinds of products as a programmer and found the open-source ones were just better. I couldnt believe these people were spending all their time and effort creating these programs, and I wanted to basically give them a soapbox.

Back in the day, hedge funds were the place to be if you had a Ph.D. Now its AI. I see a lot of the smartest people joining open-source-focused startups. They are actually using their startup funding to build great open-source communities that will build great platforms and tools.

Discover for yourself what is trending in open data science at opendatascience.com and AI Startup Showcase.

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The Evolution of Data Science and Its Changing Role Evident at ODSC - RTInsights