My Science School

Tap the search bar in Telegram and enter # followed by a keyword to find messages that use that particular hashtag across all your chats. Narrow down search results by username and date range. Also, when you use a hashtag before any word in a message, that word becomes clickable, allowing you to see all the messages relating to that topic.

Like other messaging apps, Telegram's chat list is dynamically sorted by the date of last update, and they limit users to just 5 pinned chats.

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This is fine if you're just chatting with friends and family on Telegram. But if you're one of the many power users and professionals using Telegram for business, communities, and productivity, the 5 pinned chats limit isn't enough.

The chat list gets messy really quickly. We need more organization and sorting for our chats.

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With Telefuel, you can create Workspace and Chat Folders to keep your Telegram organized and in place - and then you can pin unlimited chats into each Workspace and Chat Folder. No arbitrary limits.

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Telegram's chat list is great for normal users, but power users need more. We felt the pain, and built Telefuel to help.

 

Picture Credit : Google

NFT stands for Non-fungible token. It is fuelled by blockchain technology, meaning it is a unit of digital data. What makes NFTS different from bitcoins is that they are non-fungible. An NFT is unique and cannot be replaced with something else. For example, a bitcoin could be traded for another bitcoin but you get the same thing - 10 bitcoins = 10 bitcoins or something worth 10 bitcoins. However, if you trade an NFT, you get something that is completely different - an NFT art piece = whatever rate is paid for it

NFTS can represent digital files such as audio, video, drawings/artwork, a piece of writing, items in a video game and any other forms of creative work. It can be used to commodify digital creations and fetch money for digital creators.

The first NFTs were based on the Ethereum open-source blockchain and appeared around 2015. More recently, NFTs have become hugely popular with collectors and speculators having spent over 200 million dollars on NFT-based artwork in February - March 2021. This, compared to 250 million dollars throughout 2020

How does it work?

Since NFTS are digital data, artists who wish to sell their works as NFTS need to register with an NFT marketplace and then mint digital tokens by uploading and validating their information on a blockchain. This can cost an artist anywhere between 40 and 200 dollars. After this, the artist can list his or her work for auction on an NFT marketplace, similar to Amazon or Ebay.

How is it different?

NFT artworks have been creating a lot of buzz recently, with many shelling out millions to buy pieces. This new trend has given hope to artists who have been uploading their works on sites such as Facebook and Instagram for free to gain exposure and visibility.

However, a piece of digital art can be uploaded or circulated by anyone on the Internet. So what is the benefit for a collector buying an NFT? While the artworks can be reproduced or circulated by anyone, NFT gives the buyer the ownership rights to the original artwork. Like physical art the artist can still retain the copyright and reproduction rights, but the person who has bought the NFT owns the original artwork.

In the limelight

NFT art has suddenly started to trend all over the world after a collector group purchased a digital artwork by artist Mike Winkelmann, known as Beeple for a record-breaking price of 69 million dollars at an auction by Christie's on March 11, 2021.

The piece that fetched the price is titled "Everydays: The First 5000 Days". It is a collage of Winkelmann's sketches that he posted daily and traces the evolution of digital shapes and sceneries through till the beginning of this year.

Winkelmann's work fetched the third highest price ever by any currently living artist, after Jeff Koons and David Hockney

Al artwork

Remember the humanoid Sophia, developed by Hanson Robotics? She has created artworks in collaboration with 31-year-old Italian digital artist Andrea Bonaceto. Sophia's work, titled "Sophia Instantiation" is a 12-second MP4 file showing the evolution of Bonaceto's portrait into Sophia's digital painting. The MP4 file is accompanied by a physical artwork painted by Sophia on a printout of her self-portrait. Her work, which went for auction late last month, sold for nearly 700,000 dollars.

Beyond art

If you thought only NFT art was fetching money, you are mistaken. On Monday, March 22, Jack Dorsey, the co-founder of Twitter, sold his first-ever tweet on the platform as an NFT for 2.9 million dollars! The tweet, which reads, "just setting up my twttr", was posted by Dorsey on March 21, 2006.

 

Picture Credit : Google

With people preferring to stay indoors due to the coronavirus pandemic, many have tuned to e-commerce sites to shop for their needs.

E-commerce is short for electronic commerce. It is the activity of buying and selling goods online. Like you walk into a supermarket near your home, pay money and buy groceries, you can visit an online store, browse its contents, pay money and buy the product. The only major difference is that your product will be delivered to your doorstep in the case of an online store.

What can you buy online?

You can buy just about anything online. There are e-commerce sites such as Flipkart and Amazon that sell a variety of products from televisions and smartphones to books and stuffed toys. There are also specific grocery selling e-commerce sites and apps such as BigBasket. Grofers and Supr Daily, clothing and accessories apps such as Myntra and AJIO, and furniture e-stores such as Pepperfry and Urban Ladder.

Apart from dedicated e-commerce stores, a lot of physical stores have their own websites to reach and service more people.

Tips for shopping online

Here are a few handy tips that will help you make the best use of e commerce sites.

Compare prices: There are many e commerce sites online that sell the same product at different rates. So remember to compare prices. You can also make use of websites that do this comparison for you.

Check for shipping rates: While several products are delivered free of cost, there are some that have an additional shipping fee. Try to browse other e-commerce sites to see if they offer free shipping.

Return policy: Always check for the return policy of a product since you cannot physically assess the product you wish to buy.

Don't fall for sale: Most e-commerce sites offer big sale discounts at certain times of the year. While this would be the best time to buy products, remember to check the original price of the product on its official site or other sites and make an informed decision.

Look for coupons: There are many coupon sites online that give away coupons for free. Browse these sites once before you purchase your product. Never know when you might get lucky with a discount!

Tips to stay safe

It might be convenient to shop online, but the digital world is not free of crimes. Keep these tips in mind when shopping online to stay safe.

Credibility matters: Always shop from credible websites. Ask your friends and family for suggestions and look for reviews of sites online before you decide to buy a product from a site.

Opt for cash on delivery: As much as possible, opt for cash on delivery to ensure you do not have to reveal your card details. Cash-on-delivery will also let you assess the product before you make the payment.

Exercise caution when feeding card details: When using a card or net banking facility online, refrain from calling out the details. Also, remember to never save your card on a website, otherwise it might be misused.

Do not fall for scams: There might be times when an executive from an e-commerce site calls you and says you have won a car, or some other gift. Immediately disconnect the call and inform the customer care as these are scams and ways for scammers to get your card details.

 

Picture Credit : Google

The Internet is filled with a plethora of content. Many of us as students, surf the Internet for reference for our project work. While referring to content online and curating it for ones project work is perfectly fine, many students copy paste the content as is. This amounts to plagiarism, which is considered a form of copyright infringement.

As students, we may be plagiarising content without realising it because not many are aware about the seriousness of it. You might be plagiarising content if you: -

• Copy-paste paragraphs from an article online and pass it off as your own.


• Copy-paste images from articles or Google Search for an image and use it in your project work.


• Use a song or music track in your personal work.


• Use a footage from someone's video for your video or download a random video from sites such as YouTube or Vimeo and use it in your work.

These are just a few common ways in which plagiarism of content takes place. Plagiarism is a strict violation of copyright and based on the seriousness of the infringement, the degree of punishment can vary from a hefty fine to imprisonment.

What is Copyright?

Copyright is a form of intellectual property. It is a legal right created by the law to protect original creations and creators. When a person creates original content, he or she is entitled to have copyright over it and any form of recreation or distribution of their work can be done only with permission.

Copyrights are usually given for books, paintings, music sculpture, computer programs, films, databases and advertisements among others. Copyright in India is governed by The Copyright Act, 1957 which has been amended six times, the most recent being in 2012.

Copyright lasts only for a period of time, and this varies according to the country and other rules laid down in the copyright law.

How to use online content?

So, can you use content from the Internet without plagiarising? Yes, you can. Here are a few ways you can use online content without copyright infringement

Text: You can refer to any article online, but when you want to use content from the article, paraphrase it and write. For example, if an article states "Scientists believe the Mount Everest to be the tallest mountain in the world", you can rephrase it as "Mount Everest is thought to be the tallest mountain in the world according to scientists."

Alternatively, if you are using a quote from an article, you can credit the person who has given the quote as well as credit the article or the source from which you have taken the quote. If it is an online submission, you can even hyperlink the source for the quote.

- Images: When using Google Images, key in your concept and hit enter. Next to the Images, Maps, News tab, you can see "Settings' and Tools Select Tools, click on Usage rights' and choose Creative Commons Licences. This will filter out images that are bound by copyright and display the ones you can use without any credit line or attribution.

There are also several sites online that stock images you can use for free. These include Pixabay and Freelmages.

- Music: Sites such as Bensound, YouTube and SoundCloud offer you royalty free music tracks that you can use in your projects. If you really have to use a track that is copyrighted, identify the owner, write to them and get their permission in writing

- Video: Same as images, sites such as Pixabay, Pexels and Coverr offer you free video footages that can be used in your personal work.

No matter what, try and give credit to original creators wherever possible to avoid any kind of serious copyright violation.

 

Picture Credit : Google