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Streamline Your Business Processes with RFID Asset Tracking

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Streamline Your Business Processes with RFID Asset Tracking

For at least a couple of decades now, RFID tracking has been improving our lives behind the scenes. It ensures that perishable foods are properly handled in transit, for example, and an inert RFID tracking tag can even reunite you with a lost pet. 

RFID

RFID asset tracking can have huge payoffs for your business, too. You can get real-time data about your assets, reduce the possibility of human error in asset management, keep employees accountable, and more. Here’s what RFID can do for your business processes.

Know More About Your Assets Than Ever

You need to know as much as you can about your assets, especially if you’re operating on tight profit margins. The better you’re able to keep track of your assets, and the more transparency you can get as far as what happens to them when they’re out of your sight, the more you can get out of those assets. 

You can use RFID asset tracking to monitor your fleet vehicles as they go out into the world every day, traveling around your city or going even further afield. Use RFID tags to track maintenance schedules for your fleet vehicles or other company equipment, to prevent breakdowns and save money. Track which assets are nearing the end of their lifecycle and will soon require replacement. Acquire, service, and dispose of assets on an optimized cycle.

Prevent Mistakes

No matter what kind of business you’re in, your employees are going to make mistakes sometimes. Even you will make mistakes sometimes, believe it or not. And there’s no way you can prevent every mistake. But you can take steps to protect yourself and your employees from, well, yourselves.

If you’re using a manual asset tracking system, you might as well be asking your employees to make mistakes. Sure, they might be as careful and diligent as they can, but those qualities come to the fore to varying extents in different people. When you rely on human beings to keep an accurate record of tasks performed, or to keep track of inventory, or to correctly onboard and offload shipments, you’re relying on a system that’s inherently flawed. People will make mistakes and those mistakes will cost time and money. RFID asset tracking ensures that important data is always accurate.

Foster Accountability

When you’re using RFID tracking to manage your assets, you’ll always know who was last responsible for that item. Just knowing that you’re keeping an eye on their interactions with assets will help employees be more responsible and take more accountability for what happens to those assets under their watch. Internal inventory shrinkage will go down when products are managed using RFID tags, and people will behave better with your vehicles and equipment when they know they’ll be held responsible for anything that happens to those assets under their care.

RFID Car tracking

Boost Productivity

The time savings alone from using RFID asset tracking can drastically boost employees productivity. Employees won’t be bogged down in tedious manual tasks, like manually checking in warehouse shipments or manually recording maintenance and task records. They’ll be able to get those tasks done in just a few seconds, because RFID readers don’t even need to be in line of sight with the tags in order to detect them and display the information they contain. They can even read many tags at once. You’ll save your employees the boredom and the time that it takes to count everything manually, or record maintenance cycles or other important task information. They’ll be happier and more productive as a result. 

With the time saved by using RFID tags to manage your assets, employees can focus more on the kinds of tasks that can’t be automated with a microchip and a radio frequency sensor. Maybe they can spend more time building customer relationships, designing promotional materials, or strengthening vendor and client relationships. You can shave hours off of the time required to complete some of what were formerly the most labor-intensive chores, and that will free up plenty of time for employees to do more important things. 

And you might even be able to save some money by operating with fewer employees. When it only takes one person a few minutes with a scanner to onboard a new shipment of inventory, for example, you can save yourself the expense of hiring a whole team to do it. 

RFID asset management looks like it’s here to stay — and it’s probably going to be even more ubiquitous now that the technology is so inexpensive. Use RFID tags to manage your company’s assets, so you can ditch the tedious tasks and run a tighter ship.

How to maintain home appliances: tips and tricks

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How to maintain home appliances: tips and tricks

Home appliances are one of the many inventions that make our lives easy and our chores simpler. They come in all shapes and sizes. They can be as small as a mixer or a toaster and as large as a refrigerator or a washing machine. But there is one thing that all these home appliances require, and that is maintenance. Periodic maintenance goes a long way in making sure that the appliances run in a smooth manner and have a long life. Improper or no maintenance can cause a breakdown of these appliances. 

home-appliances-1

So, keep this in mind, let’s have a look at some simple tips and tricks that would help us in maintaining our appliances and making them efficient. 

  1. Knowing the capacity of the appliance

When you own a home appliance, it is very important that you know it’s maximum capacity or breaking capacity before using it. This information is generally provided in the manual that comes along with the appliance. Not keeping the maximum capacity in check and overloading it could cause excess stress and lead to a breakdown. Hence it is very important to note the breaking capacity of the appliance.

  1. Proper Cleaning of the appliance

One of the most important points on the list, it is very vital to clean your appliance thoroughly. For example, if you get a refrigerator on rent, it should not be left as it is after being bought just because it is running well. It is important to remove all the ingredients once in a while and clean it thoroughly. The Freezer box should also be dealt the same way. Similarly, when dealing with a grinder, it is important to clean the jar properly once a coarse ingredient has been ground. This would make sure that nothing messes with the blade attachments later on.

  1. Not Rough Handling the appliance

Anything from slamming the refrigerator or washing machine door to not keeping the mixer or grinder gently comes under this subheading. If you continuously mishandle an object it is bound to break at some point, and the same goes with home appliances. One should always deal with them in a gentle manner because they are made up of small bolts and parts that may break or become loose due to a sudden jerk or vibration. 

  1. Regular maintenance checks

 It’s not an irony that you need to have thorough maintenance checks in order to maintain the appliance. For example, if you rent washing machine or air conditioner you need to have regular maintenance checks on it. The reason being most of its components are on the inside of the machine and are better understood by the technician. This is one of the reasons why you get a couple of “free service” coupons with your appliance.

  1. Disconnecting the appliances during a power fluctuation

If there is a power fluctuation, or if your house suddenly faces a high voltage, it is advised to turn off the appliances and remove the input plug from the power supply. Generally, the home appliances are meant to run at a stable power and the sudden surge or fluctuation in power or voltage would cause an imbalance within the motherboard which would further cause a short circuit. This is the reason stabilizers are generally connected with large appliances like refrigerators and air conditioners as they are able to take the fluctuations, and supply a constant voltage to the appliance.

Conclusion

Hence these are some tips and tricks which would not only help in maintaining and running your home appliances properly but will also go a long way in ensuring a longer life to the appliance. We hope this article served its purpose and would help you in maintaining your home appliances. 

5 Extensions to Track if your Email was Read

Karishma Khanna
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5 Extensions to Track if your Email was Read

Email Tracker ToolsEver faced a situation where you didn’t receive the response to your emails and / or you’ve sent the emails multiple times to make sure it is read. Every such circumstance just leads to frustration as even emails are an important source for communication on both the individual or business levels. Well, now you can use these tricks mentioned below to track if the email you sent has been opened and read or not. Yes, you can keep a record of your emails with the help of various email tracker options available. You can effortlessly check whether a mail that you sent has been opened or not, the clicks or views it has, the device your email was checked on, the attachments when downloaded and more.

Here we bring to you the best 5 email tracking extensions available for Google Chrome for monitoring your sent emails along with other features.

Bananatag Email Tracker LogoBANANATAG EMAIL TRACKER EXTENSION

A chrome extension, an outlook add-on and working effortlessly with other email clients, Bananatag Email Tracker is one of the best email trackers in the Google Webstore with around 98,606 users and 4.1 stars.

Not only does Bananatag track when the recipient opens your email but also counts the number of times a link inside your tracked email has been opened.

Bananatag Email Tracker

Once you install the Bananatag email tracker plugin, it works just within your Gmail tab on google chrome and while you compose an email, you can select the checkbox just near the send button to select the email tracking option.

Interestingly, through your user account on the Bananatag website, you can also access a statistical view illustrating the rate at which your emails are tracked over a customized time period.

There are both Free and Paid plan versions with numerous exciting & detailed features in the latter. It integrates so well in every Gmail UI helping you gauge how effectively your emails working.

MailTrack email tracker logo MAILTRACK EMAIL TRACKER 

An email tracker with a read receipts feature is made simple for tracking an unlimited number of emails for free. With around 3,370 stars and 4,82,299 users MailTrack Email Tracker does it all by itself. You just need to compose your email and every mail goes tracked.

But yes, that’s also a downside where you cannot turn off tracking in the free version. This may land even your important emails in the recipient’s spam folder as there are certain networks which block such tracked emails.

MailTrack Email Tracker

But you would love it how the extension indicates the read emails through a double checkmark green color icon making it even more convenient to let you know your email’s tracking status at a glance. Even the pop-up notifications look pleasant when the recipient opens your tracked email.

Even here the Paid version offers more extensive features like daily analytical reports, turning off the email tracker and more.

Hubspot Sales Email Tracker LogoSIDEKICK EMAIL TRACKER BY HUBSPOT

Sidekick by HubSpot now referred as HubSpot Sales is the most popular email tracker with a user-base of around 6,86,588 having a rating of 8,749 stars. This extension is available for Gmail, Outlook, AppleMail and more email providers.

You can manually choose to track your emails, know which device the email was viewed on, and also how many times the email has been viewed. It’s incredibly accurate, with a simplistic interface coupled with highly detailed reports making it a great solution by HubSpot, the online marketing firm.

The extension adds a checkbox at the end of your Gmail’s email composing toolbar. Click on the checkbox and your email goes tracked. A notification pops up on your screen every time a tracked email is opened. A separate notification is also displayed in Chrome showing the status of all your tracked / untracked emails. You can track even the self-sent emails and even link tracking is enabled if the URLs are set as hyperlinks.

Hubspot Sales Email Tracker

Even for this extension, a small icon is installed in Chrome enabling you to keep a count track of the emails. A window gets expanded by clicking the icon. This shows a downward list of the tracked emails, views and clicks per email and more.

This extension tends to modify the original Gmail user interface to the least. It adds to the email composition window a checkbox for activating tracking. Free account users can keep a record of only 200 tracked email notifications per month. This can be extended in the Paid version.

Mail2Cloud LogoMAIL2CLOUD EMAIL TRACKER

Mail2Cloud email tracker for Chrome has some really notable features with a user-base of 37,713 counts and a 4.4-star rating. Its main highlights are attachment management, email scheduling, private file sharing, reply timeout and read receipts & reminder alerts.

Talking about the attachment management feature in detail, the files attached to a tracked email can no longer be downloaded by the recipient after certain days. This means that the attachment cannot be downloaded after 1, 3, 7 or 30 days enabling a time-sensitive feature. Mail2Cloud also lets you convert an email to a PDF file along with archiving the attached files in the original content. This also allows storing that content in Dropbox or Google Drive.

Mail2Cloud Email Tracker

The extension embeds an aqua-blue color icon with a logo next to the Send button on Gmail’s email composition toolbar. Simply write the email, click the icon and send a tracked email. Once you click the extension icon it opens up a panel listing several functions that can be applied to your email. These range from Email tracking, highlighting total track and / or choosing a time limit for downloading the attachments.

You receive notifications when the recipient opens your tracked mail and also when a link inside the email has been clicked. It also notifies when an attached file in your sent email is downloaded.

Mail2Cloud grants a 14-day free trial period allowing you to access all the features. And thereafter the paid plans (Individual / Business / Enterprise plans) are available.

Hence, Mail2Cloud lets you send confidential business files with email tracking and controlled distribution. This helps you stay organized and up to date.

email tracker by emailtracker_logoEMAIL TRACKER

Tracking all your major webmails, Email Tracker (offered by emailtracker.website) is a very simple and elegant email tracking Chrome Extension with over 7,364 users and 63-star ratings. It tracks emails for Gmail, Hotmail or Outlook, Google Inbox, and Yahoo Mail.

A small bullet like circle appears when the tracking is enabled and email hasn’t been opened yet. A grey color checkmark appears when the email has been read. This email tracker works for an unlimited number of email accounts and sent emails. Only the emails sent to self will not be tracked. Hence, one needs to send the email to another email id to test the tracker.

Email Tracker by emailtracker.website

This too has both Free and Paid/ Pro versions. The free plan has basic features for enabling uncomplicated tracking of your emails. And the paid plan has comprehensive features like in-depth per view/ click reports, link tracking etc.

A separate notification status is also displayed in Chrome regarding all your emails. When you click on the extension icon, it expands downwards revealing the list of tracked / untracked emails.

3 Weird Ways Pokémon Can GOes Problematic With Pikachu

Sreejesh
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3 Weird Ways Pokémon Can GOes Problematic With Pikachu

Many of us may have collected Pokémon playing cards in the past as a kid, perhaps we graduated to the Nintendo platform, but today, the GO version of this global phenomenon has exploded onto our handheld devices. The most obvious safety concern comes from the concept of even more disenchanted smartphone users wandering aimlessly throughout the streets and not paying attention to their immediate surroundings.

how-to-play-pokemon-go-kids

But there are some other more unusual problems and possible perils and can come along with the relentless pursuit of an imaginary Pokémon character in today’s real world. Check out some of these weird ways finding the imaginary Pikachu can be a realistic problem in today’s society:

#1 Parental Perils

We’ll steer clear of the obvious dangers presented to kids (or even adults for that matter) from wandering into oncoming traffic, falling down and simply ignoring their outside surroundings and putting themselves into clear and present danger when playing Pokémon GO. Parents are particularly and realistically worried about other important safety issues when it comes to their children on the prowl for these imaginary characters online.

Think back to the days when our parents warned us to “never take candy from a stranger.” This graduated into cautionary tales of persons we didn’t know approaching our children with other temptations, like helping them to find a lost puppy. Today we can expect creepy predators to follow suit and present our kids with another irresistible offer, “Come with me, I can show you exactly where Pikachu is … just follow me.”

 

#2 – Inappropriate Locations

Whether we’re under age or not, what if a “Poke Stop,” pardon the pun, was at a strip club, adult bookstore or other inappropriate venue. Whether you have a jealous spouse or significant other that may trail you with these GPS capabilities, you might bump into your Mother while walking down the sidewalk. Imagine seeing them before entering into this type of shady location and the big problems that could arise from an otherwise seemingly innocent situation.

how-to-teach-kids-play-pokemon-go-safely

While there’s no reported instances of these particular types of occurrences actually happening, other problematic locations include snagging characters in graveyards, in front of graphic murals, found inside a Hell’s Angels nightclub and on an Iraqi memorial. No matter where your morals, beliefs or acceptance levels lie, it’s still not cool to desecrate graves or cross religious boundaries.

#3 – Data, Location & Power

When playing this type of online, GPS driven adventure, kids and adults alike will be drawing a tremendous amount of power and data from their handheld devices. It makes you wonder if the makers of the relaunch of this popular classic had collaborated with data providers to ensure those without unlimited data would pay a huge price for being away from a free, wireless connection.

In some locations, like unfamiliar rural environments or an untracked forest for example, if your battery fails, you’re stuck in the middle of nowhere without the GPS tracking device that sent you there in the first place. A little ironic if you think about it … your imaginary friend you were searching for certainly won’t help you out of this particular dilemma.

It’s not to say that people shouldn’t happily participate in this global phenomenon that’s sweeping the online world. But those playing this game should be aware of some other possible pitfalls that don’t seem that obvious at first glance.

Axis Bank launches ‘Thought Factory’ – Platform for FinTech Startups

Karishma Khanna
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Axis Bank launches ‘Thought Factory’ – Platform for FinTech Startups

In this innovative era of increasing digitisation and entrepreneurship, startups operate with real and career defining goals towards finding better solutions. These come to the rescue of each of your hunger requirements. The needs can range from food, clothing, housing, crime, education, sanitation, technology and finance etc. Startups come up with original and innovative ideas, provide incomparable solutions, never hesitate to cross risky situations and always keep making the most of what they have. Every successful startup (or even unsuccessful one) has that true innovator who keeps the potential to take the circumstances from the grass root levels to the higher skies. India is rapidly growing and becoming a startup hub. Though we are not definite about how much do they contribute towards the Finance sector development but there still is a lot of room. Hence, to promote and engage more and more worthy startups in this industry Axis bank has come up with a startup accelerator called the ‘Thought Factory’ in the Diamond District of Bengaluru.

Axis Bank Logo

Thought factory by Axis Bank Accelerating Startups

Axis bank is the India’s third leading private sector bank and on 27th August it became India’s first to launch a dedicated innovation lab called the ‘Thought Factory’. With this step, Axis Bank has paved way for resolving various pain points which are usually not addressed by the startup culture but will be a huge delight in the FinTech space. Thought Factory will be working closely with innovative, talented and diversity embedded start-ups.  In return, Axis Bank’s Thought Factory will be providing them with the desirable guidance, infrastructure, funding, exposure and access to a wide variety of data required for their Research and Development.

Axis Bank Thought Factory

The nurtured startups would be focusing on the emerging technologies like the Big data analytics, AI, Block Chain, Robotics and much more for coming up with out-of-the-box solutions. These concepts would take the consumer banking experience to a whole new level.

The first batch of startups is already live in Mumbai. And the second batch will begin this month and they might be based out of Bengaluru.

Thought Factory Associations

The bank has partnered with the Amazon Internet Services, an Indian affiliate of the Seattle – headquartered Amazon Web Services. It has also associated with Visa and Oversea – Chinese Banking Corporation (OCBC) bank. This has been done to establish a startup accelerator develop innovative technological solutions in the FinTech sector.

axis bank delivering new products

Other than this, the Bank has associated with the Zone Startups to run its 3 months long Accelerator Program. Towards the end of this program along with Zone startups, an Investor Day would be organised. This would facilitate funding for the shortlisted startups.

The Bank is also working with NASSCOM 10k, global banks, tech partners and various other VC partners. It’s aiming to create an effervescent FinTech eco-system that may rise above the global standards.

Expert Says

Commenting on the launch, Rajiv Anand, Executive Director (Retail Banking), Axis Bank said,

Axis Bank Executive Director Rajeev Anand

“We are excited about the way financial industry is evolving and how millennial are re-imagining the industry. ‘Thought Factory’, our innovation lab is an endeavour to build on the ideas of innovators that can radically change consumers’ life in Banking and beyond. With this initiative, we are creating a vibrant ecosystem of Global Banks, startups & tech innovators.”

Additional Launches & Highlights

Axis Bank has further launched “Hack for Hire” program for recognising the talent from across the country through Hackathons and bringing them on board as the in-house & full-time innovation team at Thought Factory.

The launch of the Axis Bank wearable has also been announced at the event. This has been developed through collaboration between the Axis Bank and GOQii. Now you can even earn reward points for burning calories with this heath-tech innovation.

Tenith Adithyaa who is just 18 already has 17 inventions under his name and was the keynote speaker there. He is India’s youngest innovator has bagged much recognition globally. He also attempted the Guinness Record at a very young age.

More Details

No better place could have been chosen than Bengaluru to start redefining the banking and FinTech space. To know more about the Thought Factory Program, it’s structure etc., you can choose either of the options. Drop a mail to [email protected] or visit  at bit.ly/thoughtfactoryapply.

axis bank ideas of innovators

Axis Bank is making all the focused efforts to give a boost to the potential startups. In return providing them with the required mentoring and support. Startups contribute to the upliftment of FinTech space and Axis Bank paves way for simpler, efficient and long-term startup strategies.

Log on to  axisbank.com/thoughtfactory for more details.

WhatsApp to start sharing some user information with Facebook

Karishma Khanna
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WhatsApp to start sharing some user information with Facebook

In short, the Phone numbers will be shared with Facebook to offer better friend suggestions and / or more relevant advertisements. Facebook – owned messaging giant WhatsApp announced it’s blog a big addition to its Privacy Policy. Once a user accepts their current Terms and Conditions, Whatsapp will start to share some of the user data with its parent company — Facebook, for advertisement and targeting purposes.

facebook-whatsapp-tilt

Inspite of the changes made to the privacy policy, WhatsApp is still keen on supporting its end-to-end encryption. As it persists right now, things are not the same as they were two years back. WhatsApp has softened its position and will now share some user data with Facebook compromising the user’s security.

In a recent blog post, WhatsApp said, it will share a limited user data, including phone numbers of the users, with Facebook. According to the messaging application, sharing this information with Facebook would mean it will have the chance to better recommend friend suggestions in the future approaching.

whatsapp_facebook

The fascinating truth here is that the messaging service wants to find out how it can get organisations to contact customers via WhatsApp! It would be like an airline firm sending you a notification about the possibly delayed flight, or a garment store notifying the customers about the latest bargains.

The corporation notes that users have the option to manage these communications / notifications. Users might be able to turn them off whenever they want. Moreover, WhatsApp says that this change in the policy will not include any of the banner ads being incorporated into the messaging service.

“Even as we coordinate more with Facebook in the months ahead, your encrypted messages stay private and no one else can read them,” says the company in a blog post of theirs. “Not WhatsApp, not Facebook, nor anyone else. We won’t post or share your WhatsApp number with others, including on Facebook, and we still won’t sell, share, or give your phone number to advertisers.”

WhatsApp is trying its best to make sure that the users are kept away from being annoyed with the upcoming privacy policy change. This will, however, be a challenging task, but the company can support a proof of its commitments to keep the user’s data private. An example of their retained commitment is the application being temporarily banned in Brazil because of WhatsApp’s denial to release the data to the government.

Opt Out of the Data Sharing Policy by WhatsApp

Users can also exercise the opt-out option in this scenario. You just need to go to Settings > Account > Share my account info in the application and uncheck the box / toggle control displayed there. One can only do this within the thirty-day window. Most probably, after that, even this partial opt-out option for not sharing your personal data with Facebook will expire. There’s absolutely no way to entirely opt out of this facebook ad targeting thing.

Nevertheless, only time will determine if users feel comfortable with everything that is going on or not.

One can go through WhatsApp’s privacy policy conditions here.

Downloading, not viewing a blocked torrent site would land you in jail!

Karishma Khanna
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Downloading, not viewing a blocked torrent site would land you in jail!

The internet has been flooded with the news about visiting blocked websites landing people in jail for up to 3 years, or facing a fine of Rs. 3 lakhs. Even before you start agonizing about the imprisonment punishment for using a proxy site or a VPN to open a torrent site, here is what you exactly need to know.

It is not a current information that downloading a movie or viewing a copyrighted material is prohibited and could land you in jail. There is no recent law that will send you to the jail for visiting any blocked website.

Certain websites are being blocked because of the John Doe orders passed by a court, which deals with copyright infringement. Up till this point, the message of the website being blocked by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) was being displayed. A change in strategy has been approved, since the makers of Dishoom requested the Bombay High Court, according to an NDTV Gadget report.

If the pages are being obstructed since a movie studio wants to do so, shouldn’t the public be informed of the cause for this block? Rather than displaying the website as being blocked, the precise provision under the Copyright Act (which makes it inaccessible) will now be addressed by the ISP. Hence, this will assure that the users will be able to look up the purpose for the content being unavailable.

However, Tata responded to this stating that individually delivering the messages to each user would not be an achievable technologically. But the court perceived that it was the only ISP to state the problem.

“This URL has been blocked under the instructions of the Competent Government Authority or in compliance with the orders of a Court of competent jurisdiction. Viewing, Downloading, Exhibiting or Duplicating an illicit copy of the contents of this URL is punishable as an offense under the laws of India, including but not limited to under Sections 63, 63-A, 65 and 65-A of the Copyright Act, 1957 which prescribe imprisonment for 3 years and also fine of up to Rs. 3,00,000/-. Any person aggrieved by any such blocking of this URL may contact at [email protected] who will, within 48 hours, provide you the details of relevant proceedings under which you can approach the relevant High Court or Authority for redressal of your grievance.”

The above message is being publicized which makes it sufficiently clear that the viewing of any copyrighted material is illegal, as the law is known. However, just viewing the URL where it is hosted is not unconstitutional.

You can very clearly see that the above warning is about the unauthorized viewing of the copyrighted materials. Simply viewing a URL where the pirated content is hosted will not land you in jail. But yes, possibly you can be jailed for downloading that content. It’s worth noting that there’s no new law or ruling that’s at play here – it’s a standard warning about piracy.

Torrent sites are frequently used to distribute free & open source movies, software and / or literary and artistic work licensed under the Creative Commons licenses. And it isn’t a new law (to jail or fine) that has abruptly been enforced It’s just a rule giving out a standard warning about piracy under the commandments that have been around for a long time now.

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