<ul class="summary-list"><li>Mollie Breese, 29, is a content manager for an ed-tech company and is based in Kodiak, Alaska.</li><li>She quit her job as a teacher last year because she constantly felt exhausted and powerless.</li></ul><p>If you'd told me a year ago that I'd soon be working remotely while living in Alaska and making my highest salary ever, I probably would've laughed. Or cried. It was a dream that at the time I thought was entirely out of reach. </p><p>A year ago, I was a high-school teacher in southwest Florida, and I hated my job. After college, I was drawn to teaching for the same reason as many others — for the vision of making a difference. I had dreams of inspiring young learners and encouraging the next generation of independent thinkers and writers.</p><p>Unfortunately, this vision is a far cry from the brutal reality of current-day teaching.</p><h2>I accepted my first teaching job in 2017 and moved up to the high-school level in 2019</h2><p>I'd gone into teaching starry-eyed and eager, but the low-pay, bureaucratic red tape, and grueling hours made me quickly disillusioned. Add COVID-19 to the mix, and I was in a full mental crisis.</p><p>I was constantly being told to "do more with less" as teaching supplies like pencils, books, and computers were few and far between, much less professional development or mental-health support. </p><p>As I struggled to deliver meaningful instruction to my classes of in-person and remote students, I went home each day exhausted, depressed, and mentally drained. My students weren't learning, I felt like I was failing, and I felt powerless to help any of us succeed. </p><h2><strong>By April 2021, I'd come to the realization that after three years, teaching was no longer right for me</strong></h2><p>That May, I gave notice to my school that I would not be returning in the fall and started taking steps to reevaluate my career and my life priorities. </p><p>To start, I created a list of requirements that needed to be met in my next career path.</p><p>As a passionate traveler, I knew I wanted a remote job. Teaching had kept me in one area, but a remote job offered the opportunity to explore my love of travel while still having a career. </p><p>In May 2021, I started to aggressively apply for remote jobs. From the start, even when I met the "required skills" section of a job post, I fell short of requirements like "five years of experience " or "four to five portfolio samples needed."</p><h2>I knew that I'd have to put in extra work to market myself better</h2><div type="image" title="Mollie Breese/ photo: Nicholas Larghi" height="835" width="1113" msid="89623421" hostid="261"></div><p>A friend and I got together and decided to create our own travel website, a platform where we could create content about traveling that would also double as an online writing portfolio. I spent hours researching SEO, Google Analytics, marketing programs, and content creation. I beefed up my LinkedIn and focused on highlighting transferable skills on my resume. </p><p>Once I'd gathered my arsenal of resources, I made a <keyword id="11893563" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="strategy" source="Orion">strategy</keyword> for my remote job search. My background is in English literature, I'm a strong writer and researcher, and I still enjoyed <keyword id="11897808" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="education" source="Orion">education</keyword> and wanted to remain in that industry. Through this breakdown, I discovered education technology. </p><p>Ed-tech bridges the gap between education and software. These companies need former teachers to drive content creation and research — and many of their jobs are remote. I started applying to ed-tech jobs and soon got several interviews. </p><p>In the interviews, my travel website was the main topic of conversation. By taking the time to build up my online presence, I'd demonstrated that my teaching skills were transferable.</p><p>In June 2021, I was offered a position as a content manager at a growing ed-tech company. When my offer letter came in, the salary was $20,000 more than I'd made as a teacher. It was also more than many of my former teacher colleagues made after more than 10 years in education. </p><p>The position was 100% remote, had unlimited PTO, benefits, and a flexible work schedule. It was the perfect fit, and I accepted. </p><h2><strong>Since making the leap to ed-tech, I've been happier, more fulfilled, and more productive than I ever was as a teacher</strong></h2><p>As a teacher, I had very little control over my schedule, my day, or even when I could take a bathroom break. My school determined how many students were in my classroom, my state determined the curriculum I taught, and my district determined if my salary would increase (most years, it didn't).</p><p>Now, as a remote worker, I get to decide how I spend my day and what takes priority. </p><p>As a teacher, I was used to helping others before myself. Now, I finally have time to invest in myself and my skills. Remote working means I get to focus on what helps me — whether that means spending an extra few minutes enjoying my coffee in the morning or having the freedom to attend a webinar in the middle of the day. I've found that these little acts of independence and autonomy have greatly improved my happiness and sense of fulfillment. </p><p>By the end of the summer of 2021, my fiancé also quit his physical therapist job at a traditional clinic and became a travel physical therapist. We spent six months traveling Costa Rica and the United States, and in November we moved to Kodiak, Alaska, after my fiancé accepted a short-term contract with a local clinic.</p><p>My weekends are now spent photographing bears and climbing mountains instead of grading papers, answering parent emails, and stressing about the upcoming week. </p><p><keyword id="11905566" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="remote-work" source="Orion">Remote work</keyword> isn't for everyone, and changing <keyword id="11894132" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="careers" source="Orion">careers</keyword> can be tough. But despite the challenges, my decision to quit led me to a balanced life that I only ever dreamed of before. I couldn't be happier. </p><p><em>Mollie Breese is a digital content manager, educator, and freelance writer. A lover of hiking, kayaking, and travel, she enjoys sharing her adventures with her readers on her website <a href="http://skipthesuitcase.com/" target="_blank" rel="noopener">skipthesuitcase.com</a>. Connect with her on <a href="https://twitter.com/MollieBreese">Twitter.</a></em></p>

I landed a remote job with a $20,000 pay raise after growing disillusioned with teaching — here's how I made the switch

<ul class="summary-list"><li>Some Korean couples hold off on registering their marriages for years to avoid high housing prices.</li><li>The South Korean government offers affordable housing to young couples, but waiting lists are long.</li><li>Additionally, most double-income couples do not qualify for these housing options.</li></ul><p>Some South Korean couples may be holding off on registering their marriages to make it easier to buy their first home.</p><p>According to <a href="http://english.chosun.com/site/data/html_dir/2021/03/10/2021031001203.html">a report from the Korean outlet Chosun Ilbo</a>, many couples may be living together after holding "informal" wedding ceremonies.</p><p>But after the big day, these couples sometimes elect not to register their marriage in the hope of getting assigned affordable housing more quickly or to avoid having to pay high housing taxes. </p><p><a href="https://asia.nikkei.com/Politics/Moon-s-support-rate-plummets-as-house-prices-keep-soaring2">Real estate prices have steadily risen</a> since President Moon Jae-in took office in 2017, a trend that has made purchasing a starter home much less viable for regular South Koreans. </p><p>The latest <a href="http://kostat.go.kr/portal/eng/pressReleases/8/11/index.board">government statistics from Korea</a> indicated that a total of 213,513 couples got hitched last year. This was a 10.7% drop from 2019 and the lowest number of marriages in the country since 1981. </p><p>While there are affordable housing options for young couples, there are long waiting lists, and double-income households (where both husband and wife hold full-time jobs) might not necessarily qualify. Additionally, some couples told the South Korean <keyword id="6355005" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="100" keywordseo="news">news</keyword> site that they stood a higher chance of getting a new apartment if husband and wife applied separately instead of as a family unit. </p><p>Clerical assistant Im Seo-yeon, 31, told Insider that she and her 36-year-old partner do not qualify for any grants and have resorted to renting an apartment in the outskirts of Seoul because they can't afford anything closer to the city center. They have also not registered their marriage, hoping that they will be able to obtain affordable housing more quickly by applying under just her name.</p><p>"It's very expensive and quite difficult to find a nice place to live in a good district in Seoul. We are quite happy in our rented apartment for now, but I am looking forward to the day we can get a home of our own," she said.</p><p>And for others, their savings are simply not enough to purchase a home.</p><p>David Min, 29, who works in the transportation and logistics industry, told Insider that he had held an "informal" wedding ceremony with his wife a year ago but had not registered their marriage as they "could not afford a home just yet." </p><p>"We don't have enough savings to buy an apartment together yet. So there is no rush to officially register our marriage, as the eligibility for housing benefits provided by the government lasts for seven years only," Min said. </p><p>"I am considering just buying a house under my name if it means that we will move up faster on the waiting list," he added. </p><p>A 34-year-old newlywed who lives in Seoul told Chosun Ilbo that he had been married for three years but not yet registered his marriage because he was trying to avoid the high taxes that the couple would have to fork out with if they did so.</p><p>Both husband and wife had bought homes before they married and would have to foot exorbitant taxes as multiple-home owners if they registered their union.</p><p>"Taxes rose for people owning more than one home, and newlywed couples are exempt from transfer taxes for only five years if they sell one of their homes," the man told the outlet. "I intend to sell one (property) once I see how much further the prices rise."</p><p>Jeong-Woo Koo, associate professor in the Department of Sociology at Sungkyunkwan University in Seoul, told Chosun Ilbo that the South Korean government needs to examine "why this phenomenon is happening, and come up with solutions." </p><p>"The fact that married couples are postponing registering their marriage shows just how bad the housing shortage is, not to mention skyrocketing prices of apartments," Koo said. </p>

Young married South Koreans are pretending to be single in order to skip the line for affordable housing

New Delhi, Jan 20 () Consumer electronics major Samsung is investing Rs 3,500 crore to set up a smartphone display manufacturing unit in Noida.
<p>Samsung India Electronics, the Indian unit of South Korean electronics giant, has transferred a land parcel of around 64,905 sq metres to Samsung Display, for a consideration of Rs 92.20 crore at its Noida plant, UP in two installments, according to the regulatory filings before the Registrar of Companies (RoC).
</p><p>Besides, Samsung India Electronics has also granted a loan of Rs 3,500 crore to Samsung Display Noida (SDN) for a period of three years, according to documents sources by business intelligence platform Paper.vc.
</p><p>"The parent entity of Samsung Noida Display Pvt Ltd Viz Samsung Display Company Ltd, korea has provided the coprorate guarantee equivalent to the loan amount to the company," the filing stated.
</p><p>The draft corporate guarantee is to be issued by Samsung Display Co Ltd, korea, in favour of the company, it added.
</p><p>Samsung Display Noida, a group entity of the company, which has been incorporated "with the principal business of manufacturing, assembling, processing and sales of displays (including their parts, components and accessories) for all types and sizes of electronic devices".
</p><p>E-mails sent to Samsung India did not elicit a response.
</p><p>To establish a manufacturing unit, it had approached Samsung India Electronics for transfer of land parcel.
</p><p>Eungkyo Seo, wholetime director of the company is also a director of SDN, it added.
</p><p>In the Indian handset market Samsung India competes with the likes of Xiaomi, OnePlus and LG in India.
</p><p>Samsung India Electronics' consolidated net profit fell over 58 per cent to Rs 1,540.5 crore in 2018-19, according to a regulatory filing. The firm had posted a net profit of Rs 3,712.8 crore in the financial year 2017-18.
</p>However, the company total income rose 20 per cent to Rs 73,085.9 crore in FY19 from Rs 61,065.6 crore in the previous fiscal, as per the documents filed by the company to the Registrar of Companies (RoC).  KRH  MKJ

Samsung to invest Rs 3,500 cr for setting up smartphone display manufacturing unit in Noida

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>Nearly 80% of the world's plastic waste ends up in landfills or gets thrown away as trash instead of being recycled.</li><li>In thinking about new ways to reuse plastic, a pair of architects designed a plastic skyscraper that also serves as a 3D manufacturing center.</li><li>Their design won honorable mention in Evolo's 2019 Skyscraper Competition, one of the world's most prestigious design contests.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/?hprecirc-bullet">Visit Business Insider's homepage for more stories.</a></li></ul><p>The world's plastic waste has become an overwhelming challenge. </p><p>In Malaysia, the small town of Jenjarom <span>is teeming with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/malaysia-town-plastic-waste-china-photos-2019-2">nearly 19,000 tons of discarded plastic</a>.</span> In the Philippines and Sardinia, whales have <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dead-whale-found-with-90-pounds-worth-of-plastic-waste-in-its-stomach-2019-3">washed up dead</a> with <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/wwf-sounds-alarm-after-48-lbs-of-plastic-found-in-dead-whale-2019-4">dozens of pounds of plastic</a> in their stomachs. And in <span>the Pacific Ocean, a widening gyre called the <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/great-pacific-garbage-patch-ocean-cleanup-problems-2019-4">Great Pacific Garbage Patch</a></span> has filled up with more than<span> </span>1.8 trillion pieces of floating plastic - the equivalent of 250 pieces of debris for every person on Earth.</p><p><em><strong>Read more:</strong> <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/rotterdam-floating-park-made-out-of-recycled-plastic-waste-2018-7">A new 'floating park' made out of recycled plastic waste has popped up in the Netherlands</a></em></p><p>Much of the problem has to do with the fact that the world's plastic isn't getting recycled. A 2017 study in <keyword id="41551" type="ENTERTAINMENT" weightage="100" keywordseo="science">Science</keyword> Advances found that <a href="https://advances.sciencemag.org/content/3/7/e1700782.full">nearly 80% of global plastic waste</a> winds up in landfills or gets thrown away as trash. This plastic can linger in the environment for <span><a href="https://news.nationalgeographic.com/2017/07/plastic-produced-recycling-waste-ocean-trash-debris-environment/">more than 400 years</a> before it degrades.</span></p><p>To combat this issue, many companies have developed <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/companies-using-recycled-plastic-in-products">new ways to reuse plastic</a>, including <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/dow-chemical-recycled-plastic-streets-2019-2">turning it into roads</a>, sneakers, and <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/products-made-from-recycled-plastic-and-innovative-materials-2018-7#sunski-3">accessories</a>. A pair of US architects has even designed a way to 3D print a plastic skyscraper.</p><p>Earlier this week, architects Jaemin Seo and Sanghoon Park received honorable mention in <a href="http://www.evolo.us/winners-2019-skyscraper-competition/">Evolo's 2019 Skyscraper Competition</a>, one of the world's most prestigious design contests, for their plastic "Tower of Babel."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image"></div></div></div></p><p>The fin-shaped tower is not only made of plastic, but also serves as a manufacturing plant that can turn plastic into sustainable building materials. Preliminary studies have suggested that plastic - when mixed with certain additives - could be <a href="http://www.irbnet.de/daten/iconda/CIB_DC25697.pdf">more durable, lightweight, and flexible</a> than traditional building materials like concrete or steel. </p><p>The base of the skyscraper features a loading dock, where ships can dump plastic waste that might otherwise wind up in landfills. The plastic is then sorted on a conveyor belt, before it heads to spiral pillars that clean, shred, and melt it down into a thin fiber. That fiber can be fed through a 3D printer, which turns it into construction materials such as flooring and walls.</p><p>This gives the tower a regenerative quality, since it can produce the very matter needed to repair a crack or replace an aging column. In <a href="http://www.evolo.us/plastic-babel/#more-36381">their presentation</a>, Seo and Park said the tower could help produce an entire village or city made out of plastic.</p><p>Though the shape doesn't resemble the legendary Tower of Babel - a biblical origin myth wherein humans were punished for trying to build a skyscraper that reached the heavens - it does share a symbolic meaning. Like the Tower of Babel, the architects write, plastic is a hazard of our own creation, one that cannot be mitigated by recycling alone.</p>

Architects designed a fin-shaped skyscraper made entirely of plastic. It's inspired by the Tower of Babel.

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>John Sciulli/Getty Images</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li><strong>Vice <keyword id="6354777" type="COMPANY" weightage="60" keywordseo="Media">Media</keyword> CEO Nancy Dubuc, who took over for Shane Smith in March is cutting some staff at the digital publisher, The Wall Street Journal reports.</strong></li><li><strong>The Brooklyn-based company is reportedly shedding 10 to 15% of its workforce and is on track to miss its revenue goals for this year.</strong></li><li><strong>Vice Media had 27 million unique visitors in September, down from 49.1 million <a href="https://variety.com/2016/digital/news/vice-media-traffic-plummets-underscoring-risky-web-strategy-1201733673/">in March 2016,</a> according to comscore. </strong></li></ul><p>Nancy Dubuc, Vice Media's CEO who r<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/shane-smith-officially-out-ceo-vice-replaced-nancy-dubuc-2018-3">eplaced Shane Smith</a> in March, is making cuts at the digital publisher.</p><p>According <a href="https://www.wsj.com/articles/vice-media-to-shrink-workforce-by-as-much-as-15-as-growth-stalls-1541632597">to a report</a> from The Wall Street Journal, Brooklyn-based Vice Media is shedding 10 to 15% of its workforce and is on track to miss its revenue goals for this year.</p><p>To make the cuts, Dubuc ordered a companywide hiring freeze six weeks ago and plans to cut staff through both the freeze and other gradual cuts.</p><p>Vice Media had 27 million unique visitors in September, down from 49.1 million <a href="https://variety.com/2016/digital/news/vice-media-traffic-plummets-underscoring-risky-web-strategy-1201733673/">in March 2016,</a> according to comscore.<span> </span>In addition to measuring traffic to Vice's websites, its comScore number also includes traffic from websites like SEO-focused Ranker, <span>Metalinjection.net</span> and <span>ModernFarmer.com</span>.</p><p>Per the report, Vice Media is expected to make $600 to $650 million this year, which is flat with its 2017 revenue. The company reportedly is on track to lose more than $50 million this year in addition to losing $100 million in 2017.</p><p>Vice Media did not respond to press inquiries.</p><h2>Vice's web audience is shrinking</h2><p>Vice Media has built scale in digital media by focusing its coverage on specific verticals like Noisey (which covers music), Broadly (for women), <a href="https://www.vice.com/en_us/topic/munchies">Munchies</a> (for food) and Vice News. Duboc reportedly plans to fold several of its existing verticals together to form three to five core verticals, according to The Wall Street Journal's sources.</p><p>Instead of focusing on web publishing, Vice Media plans to beef up its television and movie business to make third-party programming.</p><p>Vice's in-house agency Virtue <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vices-media-carrot-insiders-describe-a-culture-of-hostility-to-women-2018-2">(formerly Carrot)</a> is also a priority.</p><p>Virtue recently <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/robert-rodriguez-vice-media-launch-creative-agency-la-reyna-1156907">signed a deal</a> with entertainment brand El Rey to launch an agency catering specifically to the US Hispanic market.</p><p>According to a recent interview <a href="https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/features/nancy-dubuc-reveals-her-plans-clean-up-vice-1156270">with The Hollywood Reporter,</a> Vice Media is preparing to launch a live news show called "Viceland Live" on Viceland, the channel operated by A+E Networks. Vice's current weekly show on HBO is also in the process of winding down this season.</p><p>Duboc came into Vice Media earlier this year amid sexual-<span>harassment allegations and financial concerns over whether or not the digital media company can live up to its $5.7 billion valuation, including<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/vice-raises-450-million-at-57-billion-valuation-from-tpg-2017-6"> a $450 million </a>investment from private equity firm TPG last year.</span></p><p><span>"Of course, there's pressure," Duboc told The Hollywood Reporter. "Like any good Hollywood story, people look for the Caped Crusader. The reality is never as simple."</span></p><p class="tagline"><a href="http://read.bi/future-of-media"></a></p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/powerball-tickets-winning-numbers-regret-avoidance-behavioral-economics-2017-8">Why most people refuse to sell their lottery tickets for twice what they paid</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Vice Media is reportedly laying off up to 15% of its staff amid missed revenue and a traffic slump

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Jaromir Chalabala/EyeEm/Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">A 2017 New American Economy report showed that the demand for bilingual workers more than doubled from 2010 to 2015.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul class="summary-list"><li>If you're looking to learn a new language fast for a business trip or <keyword id="6354692" type="UNKNOWN" weightage="60" keywordseo="Travel">travel</keyword> expedition, it can be done.</li><li>Business Insider tapped six people who did it to learn their tricks to the trade.</li><li>They offered some helpful tools and resources, as well as some advice.</li><li>Their tips include learning the most-used verbs, recording yourself speaking, and finding ways to meet up with or video chat with natural speakers.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime?module=article&amp;area=summary">Click here for more BI Prime stories.</a></li></ul><p>If you need to learn a new language in order to take advantage of a career opportunity, be it a business trip or job change, then you're part of a growing contingent of workers trying to boost their language skills. </p><p>A <a href="http://www.newamericaneconomy.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/03/NAE_Bilingual_V9.pdf">2017 New American Economy</a> (NAE) report showed that the demand for bilingual workers more than doubled from 2010 to 2015, and more companies than ever are seeking employees who speak multiple languages. </p><p>It makes perfect sense why an increasingly global business environment requires people who can rapidly develop new language skills. As Leonardo De Valoes, adjunct faculty at Trinity Washington University, wrote in a <a href="https://discover.trinitydc.edu/continuing-education/2014/02/26/importance-of-language-why-learning-a-second-language-is-important/">2014 blog post</a> on the school's website, "Communicating directly with new clients and companies in their native language is one of the first steps to founding a lasting, stable international business relationship. Being able to do this automatically puts any multilingual person miles ahead of his or her peers in the competition for jobs and high-prestige positions." </p><p>But it's no small feat - especially if you already have your hands full with your current job responsibilities - to pick up a new language <em>muy rápido</em>. According to a <a href="https://cdn2.hubspot.net/hubfs/2480790/Blog%20Media%20and%20Resources/Cerego%202019%20-%20This%20Is%20How%20We%20Learn.pdf">2019 This Is How We Learn Report</a> from the learning software company Cerego, it takes 15.5 hours of study distributed across 56 days to master a course, and 86% of what we read or listen to is gone from our memory in a matter of days. </p><p>Business Insider picked the brains of six people who successfully taught themselves how to speak a different tongue in record time to understand how it can be done. </p><h1>Practice key words and phrases</h1><p>As a PR veteran with more than three decades in the business, Barry M. Schwartz, president of <a href="http://www.schwartzpr.com/">Schwartz Public Relations</a>, often finds himself abroad. </p><p>"Travel is an integral part of the work, as mine has included regular trips to Europe, South America, and Asia," he said. Yet like many people, Schwartz found it very challenging to become fluent in a foreign language for these short stints. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Barry M. Schwartz</span></p><p class="caption">Barry M. Schwartz.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>As a workable alternative to fluency, Schwartz explained that he found it "most advantageous" to at least learn key phrases required on his travels. </p><p>"[This] helps in two ways: just getting around more easily, and equally important, serving to ingratiate yourself with the locals, whether clients, media, or just folks you meet," he said.</p><p>To facilitate this effort, Schwartz used a teaching tool/card game called <a href="https://www.itslingo.com/">Lingo</a>, which, according to the website, provides 54 essential translations "accompanied by intuitive, easy-to-learn pronunciations." </p><p>While he confessed that the card game isn't the way you "really learn a language," he emphasized its value for helping business people take advantage of career opportunities by being able to speak just well enough to communicate while on assignment. </p><p>"Many business travelers have found Lingo to be an invaluable aid in just getting through the day," he said. </p><h1>Learn the most-used verbs and how to conjugate them </h1><p>Studying languages is a major passion for Josh Palmer, who studied French in high school, learned Chinese by living and working in Beijing for two years after college (while earning his MBA from National Taiwan University), and learned Spanish while living and studying full time in Spain.</p><p>Last year, Palmer founded <a href="https://languageposters.com/">LanguagePosters.com</a>, a business designed expressly to help people learn languages more quickly and easily. Palmer's venture initially launched with posters in Spanish, French, and Italian, but now the business sells 10 different posters in eight languages in more than 20 countries. The latest posters come with decoder glasses that obscure the irregular verb conjugations to help you quiz yourself.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Josh Palmer</span></p><p class="caption">Josh Palmer.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The business was born out of his own desire for speedier and more effective language tools. Palmer had just moved to Barcelona to study Spanish, and really wanted resources to help him learn the language faster, but couldn't find anything on the market that "didn't look like it was designed for a second-grade classroom."</p><p>"I knew from high school French class that memorizing the irregular verb conjugations was going to be the trickiest part - even more so with Spanish, where every letter is pronounced - and designed a poster I could keep on display to help with this memorization," he said. "I knew it had to look nice as well, so my roommates would let me keep it up in the living room."</p><p>Palmer explained that as the action words of the sentence, verbs are the key to speaking a language. "You'll naturally learn the names of commonly used things around you, and you can always point and use the words for 'this' or 'that,'" said Palmer. "But unless you're a charades expert, you'll want to learn the most-used verbs. For example, learning to say 'I want this,' [and] 'Do you have that?' will get you pretty far." </p><h1>Build the basics using workbooks and a frequency dictionary</h1><p>Russell Knight, who today is an attorney at the <a href="https://divorceattorneynaplesfl.com/">Law Office of Russell Knight</a>, had the foresight to realize when he was 30 years old that learning Spanish would come in handy in his legal career.</p><p>Back in 2007, as he was starting his law career at a small firm on the west side of Chicago, Knight was under pressure to get up to speed with Spanish quickly. </p><p>"That year the bottom fell out of the legal market," he said. "The only people walking through the door with cash were Spanish speakers. There were no other job openings for fresh attorneys. I needed to learn Spanish and I needed to learn Spanish fast." </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Russell Knight</span></p><p class="caption">Russell Knight.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>To learn the language as quickly as possible, Knight ramped up the "old-fashioned way" with a frequency dictionary. "This is a dictionary that starts with the most common word and goes to the next common word," he said. "Most languages use 500 words for 90% of all conversations. I memorized the first 1,000 words." This was what Knight needed to be able to communicate with his clients.</p><p>"Now … about a third of my clients are Spanish speakers," said Knight.</p><p>Once he had the basics nailed, Knight took more time finessing his Spanish skills by beefing up his grammar. "There is no way around this other than buying grammar workbooks with all of the problems that involve filling in the blanks," he said. "This is not fun and it takes hours ... but it [does] teach you." </p><p>Knight caveats that advancing to the stage where he could speak extemporaneously in a new language took much longer than mastering common words and grammar. "Making a language immediately register in your mind and leap off your tongue [is] like gaining muscle memory, but learning the basics just took a few months," he said. </p><h1>Record yourself speaking</h1><p>Annemarie Fowler, owner and director of the online English fluency training company <a href="https://www.speakconfidentenglish.com/">Speak Confident English</a> and <a href="https://www.speakconfidentenglish.com/fluencyschool/">Fluency School</a>, made recordings of herself speaking French in order to learn it quickly to prepare to accompany her husband for his diplomatic posting in France.  </p><p>"I'm a professional language coach, so I should have known how to learn a language quickly, but it took me years to discover this strategy for myself," Fowler admitted.</p><p>She recommended that after recording yourself speaking in your target language you "listen to it. Analyze it. (Delete it if listening to yourself is uncomfortable.) And do it again."  </p><p>If you're unsure how to get started with this method, Fowler advised beginning with a spoken journal summarizing your day. "You can talk about what's happening at work, practice for conversations you know you'll have, or simply summarize a movie you just saw," she suggested.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Annemarie Fowler</span></p><p class="caption">Annemarie Fowler.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The language coach said that once she put this system in place, she noticed "immediate results" in her fluency, vocabulary, and overall confidence when communicating in French. Fowler still uses this strategy to maintain her language skills and also uses it with her clients for fast, effective language absorption. "It's particularly helpful for shy, anxious second-language speakers," she said.</p><p>She explained that this works in helping you quickly and effectively master a language because you must first practice speaking in order to skillfully gain command over a language.</p><p>"Recording yourself gives you that opportunity [to practice speaking], no matter where you live or what your level might be," she said.</p><p>The other reason that Fowler believes this approach works is that it helps you see your weaknesses. "They say you can't fix what you don't know is broken," said Fowler. "Analyzing your recorded speech highlights gaps in knowledge and ability." </p><p>She added that recording yourself practicing a language multiple times develops muscle memory. "Creating that automaticity with the words and grammar you need to express yourself is how confidence and fluency are built," she stated.</p><p>Fowler reassured that while listening to yourself may feel uncomfortable, "thankfully, you get comfortable with how you sound rather quickly." </p><h1>Meet or video chat with native speakers</h1><p>Digital tools were primarily how Brett Downes, an SEO specialist with link-building service <a href="https://dfylinks.com/">DFY Links</a>, speedily spruced up his Spanish in preparation to work in Guatemala for 11 months in 2014. </p><p>"The [employees at the] hostel I worked at were all Spanish speaking," recalled Downes. "Before flying in, I downloaded the <a href="https://www.duolingo.com/">Duolingo</a> app on my phone and used it for two hours every day for three months before arriving in Guatemala."</p><p>Additionally, Downes signed up for an online Spanish lesson, through which he would speak via Skype with a teacher for three times a week for one-hour sessions. "The app helped me learn words, conjugations, and formal things, while speaking in person [via Skype] allowed me to practice understanding and also interacting with a real person in Spanish."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Brett Downes</span></p><p class="caption">Brett Downes.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Downes boosted his adeptness at the language still further by participating in a home-stay for a month, during which he lived with a Spanish-speaking family before starting his job. </p><p>"I was forced to converse in Spanish only," Downes remembered. "It was here that I really got to grips with the language, and when I actually … could hold lengthy conversations with the staff and guests while being able to read, write, and understand emails and work documents, too."</p><p>The SEO specialist still works remotely for a Spanish school in Guatemala and has continued with his Skype lessons to keep his skills fresh - albeit just once a week now.</p><h1>Listen to language audio guides, and constantly speak it</h1><p>Saurabh Jindal, founder of voice mobile application <a href="https://talktravelapp.com/">Talk Travel</a>, is no stranger to learning new languages. A current resident of Paris, he has been learning French "to help [him] with … daily life as well as in professional settings." He previously lived for a year in Chile, learning Spanish for the same reasons. </p><p>"I travel a lot, and try to learn the basics - a few words, at least - of a new language to break the ice and communicate in the local ecosystem," said Jindal.</p><p>For Jindal, the quickest way to "get around" a new language has been to use audio guides, including Paul Noble's "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Next-Steps-French-Paul-Noble/dp/B07G4F5FCW/">Next Steps in French</a>" and "<a href="https://www.amazon.com/Learn-Spanish-Paul-Noble-Complete/dp/B01D1VJNQQ">Learn Spanish</a>." "I listen to them a lot during the day - sometimes even as a replacement to music," he said. </p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Courtesy of Saurabh Jindal</span></p><p class="caption">Saurabh Jindal.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The biggest benefit that Jindal noticed from the audio guides was the ability to understand accents. "In the beginning it was a pain to decipher what was being spoken, but regularly hearing the audio guides enhanced my comprehension of the spoken words," he said.</p><p>He added that it can be extra helpful to immerse yourself in the "actual environment" with foreign language speakers. </p><p>"If you force yourself to converse with them in their language, [it] makes you think and use the words," Jindal said. "Practice makes … perfect, and it couldn't have been more apt for learning languages. I tried to speak, whenever I could, even if it was broken, but gradually got hold of things, and now I am at a decent level."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/taylor-swift-net-worth-singer-millionaire-makes-spends-money-wealth-2019-4">Taylor Swift is the world's highest-paid celebrity. Here's how she makes and spends her $360 million.</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

The best way to teach yourself a new language fast, from 6 people who've done it

<p class="source"><span>Getty Images</span></p><p class="caption">Around a quarter of the American population has some form of a side business.</p><ul class="summary-list"><li>When you're doing double duty juggling your own business and a full-time job, time and efficiency become paramount. The tools you use to run your side gig can make or break your productivity and profits. </li><li>Business Insider asked five successful side hustlers for their favorite tools for running their businesses.</li><li>They recommend Trello for staying organized, Carrd for building a sleak website, and Zapier for automating tasks, among others.</li><li><a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/prime?module=article&amp;area=summary">Click here for more BI Prime stories.</a></li></ul><p>Around a quarter of the American population has some form of a side business, according to a <a href="https://mms.businesswire.com/media/20180925005605/en/680213/1/TheHartford_Side_Business_Survey_InfographicFINAL.pdf">2018 report by investment and insurance company The Hartford</a>.</p><p>If you assume that most of these peripheral enterprises are launched as passion projects or to spearhead a lifestyle change, you'd be wrong. The study found that the top reason people launch a side gig is for extra income.</p><p>The survey, conducted on over 4,000 US adults, also found that while the majority of side business owners (61%) also work full time elsewhere, other individuals with side hustles have another part-time job, are retired, or are homemakers. Millennials, Gen X, and Baby Boomers alike start side ventures in fairly equal numbers, the research stated (26%, 33%, and 38% respectively), and 40% of millennials expect that their side business will ultimately become their primary source of income. </p><p>When you're doing double duty juggling your own business plus other paid work, time and efficiency become paramount. The tools you use to run your side gig can make or break your productivity and profits. </p><p>That's why Business Insider polled several people with successful side gigs in diverse industries about which tools have been particularly helpful in managing their businesses and reaching their goals. Here are their top picks.</p><h1>To learn about running a side business: "<a href="https://www.popupbusinessschool.co.uk/step-by-step.html">The Step-by-Step Startup Guide</a>" by PopUp Business School</h1><p><strong>Price: </strong>free</p><p>Corinne Card, the cofounder of media training company <a href="https://fullstorymedia.co.uk">Full Story Media Limited</a>, relies on <a href="https://www.popupbusinessschool.co.uk/about.html">PopUp Business School</a> - a website that provides educational resources for helping people start a business on the cheap, without a business plan - for help with her public-speaking side business, which runs alongside her main company and was started in 2017.</p><p class="source"><span>Corinne Card</span></p><p class="caption">Corinne Card.</p><p>Card began the public speaking side of her business in 2017 and since then, it has become both a pipeline for new business as well as a revenue generator in itself. In 2018, she won two of her biggest contracts via her workshops, and she is projecting a profit of $25,000 through public-speaking bookings alone through 2020. This has quintupled from a revenue of $5,000 in 2017.</p><p>PopUp's free online course, "The Step-By-Step Startup Guide," has been particularly handy for Card. </p><p>"For example, if I want to dip into clear information on building a sales funnel, pricing, or networking advice, I can find the correct step and get all the information I need quickly and easily online," she said. "It's useful for my business because I've never been to business school or studied the topic in depth, and this online course gives me exactly the right kind of bite-sized, practical information I can use straight away to improve my results."</p><h1>To build a website: <a href="http://carrd.co">Carrd</a></h1><p><strong>Price: </strong>free for basic package or $9 a year for Pro plan</p><p>A must have for many side businesses is a website. Yet creating one from scratch can be a cumbersome task, while hiring a web designer right out of the gate may be pricey. </p><p>Serial entrepreneur Bram Kanstein just launched his latest side business this year, after having had two previous startups acquired. (<a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/startup-stash-is-the-best-guide-for-starting-a-company-2015-2">Startup Stash</a>, a <a href="http://startupstash.com">curated directory</a> of resources and tools for startups that according to Kanstein is used by over 800,000 entrepreneurs worldwide, was acquired in November 2017 and the newsletter <a href="https://startupwatching.com">StartupWatching</a>, delivered to over 11,000 subscribers, sold in May 2018.)</p><p class="source"><span>Bram Kanstein</span></p><p class="caption">Bram Kanstein.</p><p>His latest project - a course called <a href="https://nocodemvp.com">No-Code MVP</a> that teaches people how to turn their startup idea into a minimum viable product with no coding experience - launched publicly December 17, 2019. Kanstein runs No-Code MVP alongside a full-time role as the cofounder of <a href="https://ventureminds.co">Venture Minds</a>, an Amsterdam-based innovation strategy and consulting collective.</p><p>To build his side-business websites, Kanstein chose to use a free website builder for one-page sites called Carrd. </p><p>"Carrd is a super simple, responsive website builder that you can use for pretty much anything," said Kanstein. "One of Carrd's most powerful features is that it offers a great way to build custom form elements that you can use to collect data from your customer segment (email, address, name, etc.). I use it for all [of] my projects!"</p><p>Kanstein noted that while the biggest perk of this tool is that it's free to start, they also offer what he described as "an amazing Pro plan with the most powerful features" for just $9 per year.</p><h1>To automate tedious tasks: <a href="https://zapier.com">Zapier</a></h1><p><strong>Price: </strong>free for basic package or $19.99/$49.99 for starter or professional package<strong><br /></strong></p><p>Kanstein pointed out that one of the tools that Carrd's form element integrates with is Zapier, an online automation tool that lets you build workflows by connecting over 1,000 applications and services. Kanstein identified Zapier as the tool that he uses to automate all of the tedious tasks that he doesn't want to do manually. </p><p>"It's the biggest timesaver for anyone who wants to run a side business," he said.</p><p>He explained that you can connect two or more apps into "Zaps" to automate repetitive tasks without coding or relying on developers to build the integration. "For example, if someone signs up on [your business] website, you can add their details to a Google Sheet to save them and then send your customer an automated welcome email via Gmail" all through Zapier, he explained. </p><p>The distinction between the <a href="https://zapier.com/pricing">pricing plans</a> relates to the number of tasks per month that you receive. You can get 100 tasks per month for free, 750 tasks per month for $20 through the starter package, or 2,000 tasks per month for $50 through the professional package, which Kanstein opted for. (Zapier also offers team and corporate packages for $299 a month and $599 a month, respectively, which offer more tasks as well as additional features.)</p><h1>To manage projects and track time spent: <a href="https://trello.com/en">Trello</a></h1><p><strong>Price: </strong>free for basic package or $9.99/$20.83 a month for business or enterprise package</p><p>Business blogger Becky Beach flagged Trello - a collaborative project management tool that uses online boards, lists, and cards to help business owners stay organized - as the top tool she uses to manage her side business, an ecommerce store for women's accessories called <a href="https://www.mombeach.com">Mom Beach LLC</a>. </p><p class="source"><span>Becky Beach</span></p><p class="caption">Becky Beach.</p><p>In 2018, Beach made $500,000 in sales from her side business, which she launched three years ago while pregnant with her son.</p><p>In addition to giving her freelance hires access to Trello so they can track their time and see their duties for the day, Beach also finds the tool helpful for tracking her own time and daily projects. When testing a new product, she also uses it to post notes from her research.</p><p>Hena Husain, whose full-time occupation is as a public relations contractor, founded <a href="https://thecontentarchitects.com/">The Content Architects</a> on the side in 2017, which provides planning services for businesses. Initially launched as a PDF, Husain decided to take the plunge to turn her business into a web application; she is currently working with developers toward a relaunch in mid-January.</p><p>Husain called Trello her "savior." </p><p class="source"><span>Hena Husain</span></p><p class="caption">Hena Husain.</p><p>"Trello is popular amongst developers, but I have found it a great way to organize the various tasks on my to-do list," Husain said. "I have a board for finance, social media, marketing, [and] meetings. The application allows you to create reminders, track progress, and label tasks by color, making my work stream slicker."</p><p>The free Trello package gives users unlimited personal boards, cards, and lists with a 10MB limit per file attachment. The business and enterprise packages allow up to 250MB per attachment, plus <a href="https://trello.com/pricing">additional support</a> and features.</p><h1>To manage your online presence: <a href="https://ueni.com/en-us/">UENI</a></h1><p><strong>Price: </strong>free starter package or $8.25/$16.58 a month for basic or plus package</p><p>Card also depends on a free tool called UENI, which helps small businesses manage their online presence so that customers can more easily find them. </p><p>"If [my] website is professional, high quality, and also easy to find via Google, it's much more likely to appeal to people who need to book a speaker for a conference, corporate event, or training session," explained Card.</p><p>She added that UENI is helping her build an online presence with "virtually no time spent and at zero cost." Card relies on it to assist with a number of website-related tasks, including search engine optimization, images, and content. </p><p>The entrepreneur is also leveraging UENI to create a <a href="https://support.google.com/business/answer/3038063">Google My Business</a> listing - which helps businesses manage their presence across Google, including Google Search and Google Maps - since UENI includes this service as part of their standard free package. </p><p>UENI includes unlimited web hosting and maintenance on Amazon Web Services, and takes care of technical and maintenance updates for users, which can be a huge timesaver for new business owners.</p><p>In addition to UENI's free starter package which includes a professional website, web hosting and maintenance, and Google My Business among its services, the tool also has options for a basic package that includes other bells and whistles like a free domain name and complete SEO audit. UENI's plus package offers everything that the basic plan does, plus a shopping cart to accept payments, a yearly website tune up, and more.</p><p>"It's useful because it is saving me the time and energy I'd need to invest if I were using one of the more established website builders, which still leave a lot of this work to the business owner," she said.</p><h1>To manage your finances: <a href="https://bench.co">Bench</a></h1><p><strong>Price: </strong>free with trial or packages start at $139 a month</p><p>Evan B. Knox has two side hustles in addition to his full-time role as a marketing director at a church. His first side venture is as the founder of Atlanta-based digital marketing agency <a href="https://caffeine.marketing">Caffeine Marketing</a>, and his second is serving as an active partner in a fly-fishing guide business in North Georgia. </p><p>Knox launched his marketing agency in July 2017 and reported that revenue has more than doubled every year for the last three years - from $22,000 to $52,000 to $115,000 - while working the same number of hours. And in the last year, from August 2018 to August 2019, revenue from the fly-fishing business increased from $1,000 to $4,200 (Knox came on as a partner in January 2019).</p><p class="source"><span>Evan B. Knox</span></p><p class="caption">Evan B. Knox.</p><p>"Bench accounting is my secret weapon as an entrepreneur," said Knox. "I do not have the time to do bookkeeping for my side hustles, and Bench does it at an affordable rate." He explained that using Bench for his bookkeeping saves him hours of time categorizing expenses, reconciling his books, and creating profit-and-loss statements. </p><p>"There is an additional time saver when it comes to the peace of mind I have with having Bench take care of my books," said Knox. "When creating a successful side hustle, one has to be really intentional about delegating tasks to people so you can be freed up to do the things only you can. Having someone else do my books enables me to create content, take sales calls, and stay present at home with my family in the evening knowing my books are taken care of properly."</p><p>Knox added that he chose Bench over other bookkeeping tools not only because of the pricing and online reviews, but because he looks for tools that are aesthetically pleasing when he uses them so that he doesn't want to avoid them. "They have a beautiful design and UX, so I enjoy looking at my finances," he said.</p><p>Bench uses a simple business model that involves <a href="https://bench.co/how-it-works/">three steps</a>: setting you up with a dedicated bookkeeper who becomes your online contact with the service, doing your monthly bookkeeping by importing your business transactions that you provide, and delivering real-time monthly financial reports.</p><p>Bench offers a <a href="https://bench.co/signup/?promo_name=core_exit">one-month free trial</a> for its bookkeeping services, which includes a prepared set of financial statements for you to keep.</p>            <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="https://www.businessinsider.com/how-jay-z-and-diddy-made-millions-off-of-cheap-alcohol-zack-omalley-greenburg-2018-3">How Jay-Z and Diddy used their fame to make millions off of 'cheap grapes'</a></h3>

6 lesser-known but incredibly helpful tools for running a side business, according to entrepreneurs who make 5 to 6 figures a year on the side

<p></p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"></div><p></p></div></div>A bug, <a href="https://www.christianoliveira.com/blog/en/web-analytics/why-the-bounce-rate-of-my-amp-pages-is-so-high/">first spotted on the blog of SEO consultant Christian Oliveira</a>, in Google's Accelerated Mobile Pages (AMP) could be responsible for falsely inflating publishers' traffic numbers.<p>Google AMP pages are designed to speed up page load times on the mobile web, by stripping out a lot of the design and <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword> elements that slow the average website down. Google AMP pages are signposted in its search results pages with a small lightning bolt image.</p><p>Oliveira found that a single visitor to a website, running on Google's AMP can be reported as four unique visitors.</p><p>Also, when a visitor navigates away from an AMP page to another page in the same website, but not on Google's mobile page format, the analytics software&#xa0;registers a person leaving the website, Oliveira said.</p><p>The issue occurs because Google is serving a publisher's content on AMP pages, rather than the publisher itself, which creates a&#xa0;problem with analytics services. The cookies on the AMP pages and publisher pages don't match up, creating duplicate users within analytics software - increasing bounce rates and unique visitor numbers.</p><p>Oliveira conducted his tests using Google Analytics but told Business Insider any&#xa0;analytics provider would be affected by the bug.</p><p>A Google spokesperson pointed us to a tweet from Malte Ubl, Google's creator and tech lead of the AMP project, who said&#xa0;the company was aware of the issue, but he added there is&#xa0;"not an easy fix."</p><p><a href="https://www.similartech.com/technologies/amp">According to the website profiling tool SimilarTech</a>, more than&#xa0;700,000 websites use Google AMP.</p><p>SimilarTech marketing director Daniel Buchuk told Business Insider&#xa0;the Google AMP measurement bug "is a real issue that needs to be taken seriously," especially among publishers and marketers&#xa0;who rely on the data to make editorial and advertising decisions.&#xa0;</p><p>He added: "I'm surprised Google's team hasn't been quicker to react to this problem to find a solution that affects so many publishers around the world. Adobe Analytics revealed earlier this year that AMP accounts for 7% of traffic to US publishers and The Guardian disclosed earlier this week that they're getting 60% of its Google mobile traffic from AMP. It would be interesting to know how accurate these figures are now that the bug has been acknowledged."</p><p>Google's&#xa0;AMP&#xa0;launched in February 2016 after Facebook launched its own rapidly loading page format, Instant Articles, which has also suffered its own metrics issues. In December 2016, Facebook admitted&#xa0;a bug&#xa0;had caused comScore&#xa0;<a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/facebook-admits-miscalculating-instant-articles-metrics-2016-12">to undercount Instant Articles traffic from iPhone users</a>.</p><div></div>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/coffee-grounds-throw-away-uses-fertiliser-exfoliant-flea-skin-recycle-green-use-2017-3">This is why you should never throw your coffee grounds away</a></h3>        <div>            <div>        <div class="ooyala-video-player" data-video-autoplay="false" data-video-id="RzazNlOTE6wTxtOwi_YxezR6XnGOVKRV" data-player-variable="ooyalapopvideo" id="ooyalaplayer_popvideo" style="width:1280px;height:720px"></div>        </div>        </div>            </div>

A bug in Google's AMP pages is inflating traffic metrics

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Kyodo via Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">A wooden boat which drifted ashore with eight partially skeletal bodies at Oga, Japan in late November.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Dozens of ships containing dead bodies have washed up in Japan recently.</strong></li><li><strong>All the evidence indicates that the "ghost ships" are coming from North Korea.</strong></li><li><strong>It isn't a new phenomenon, but is happening more and more often.</strong></li><li><strong>One expert told BI it could be because of food scarcity in North Korea.</strong></li></ul><p><br />Dozens of dead bodies have mysteriously washed up on Japan's shores over the past few weeks - and all the evidence points to North Korea.</p><p>At least 40 corpses from around 15 boats have washed up along Japan's west coast since November, according to figures from Japanese authorities and calculated by Business Insider.</p><p>The most recent discovery was made on Thursday, when authorities found two skeletons near an upturned boat near the western city of Oga, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/north-koreanghost-ships-are-washing-up-on-the-shores-of-japan-why/2017/12/06/261e60ea-da89-11e7-8e5f-ccc94e22b133_story.html">according to the Washington Post</a>.</p><p>While Japanese authorities haven't been able to definitively identify the origins of these "ghost ships" - vessels discovered with no living crew - multiple factors suggest that they are from North Korea.</p><p>One of the boats, found on the island of Sado around November 26 <a href="https://www.reuters.com/article/us-japan-northkorea/eight-bodies-found-in-boat-washed-up-on-japan-beach-coast-guard-idUSKBN1DR1OP">contained</a> what appeared to be North Korean cigarette packets and jackets with Korean writing on them.</p><p>Two bodies recovered from another boat in Yamagata prefecture on Tuesday were also wearing pins showing the face of Kim Il Sung, the grandfather of Kim Jong Un, <a href="https://www.japantimes.co.jp/news/2017/12/04/national/bodies-presumed-deceased-north-koreans-ghost-boats-wash-along-sea-japan-coastline/#.WipnzLSFii4">according to Japanese news agency Kyodo and the Associated Press</a>.</p><p>Most of the discoveries have been gruesome: Japanese authorities reportedly found skulls and decaying corpses in multiple cases.</p><h2><strong>Not a new phenomenon</strong></h2><p><strong><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Google Maps/Business Insider</span></p><p class="caption">A map showing the locations where vessels have been found since the start of November.</p></div><p></p></div></div></strong></p><p>North Korean vessels have been showing up in Japan for years.</p><p>Eighty such ships drifted ashore in Japan in 2013, 65 in 2014, 45 in 2015, and 66 in 2016, said Satoru Miyamoto, a political science and economics professor at Japan's Seigakuin University, citing Japan Coast Guard statistics.</p><p>But the trend appears to have worsened this year: at least 76 vessels have showed up on Japanese shores since the beginning of 2017, 28 of which in November alone, <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/12/07/world/asia/japan-north-korea-ghost-ships.html?_r=0">The New York Times reported</a>.</p><p>These appearances most frequently occur toward the end of the year, when bad weather proves most dangerous to seafarers using old boats and equipment, the Times said.</p><p>So why is this happening?</p><h2>Life in North Korea is "grim and desperate"</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Wong Maye-E (Associated Press)</span></p><p class="caption">Men and boys rest at a construction site on the outskirts of the eastern city of Hamhung, North Korea's second-largest city, in July 2017.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The rising number of ghost ships in Japan indicates the dire food insecurity facing North Korea, some experts say.</p><p>Professor Jeffrey Kingston, the director of Asian Studies at Temple University in Japan, told Business Insider: "The ghost ships are a barometer for the state of living conditions in North Korea - grim and desperate.</p><p>"They signal both desperation and the limits of 'juche,'" he added, using the word for an <a href="https://s3.amazonaws.com/berkley-center/030101LeePoliticalPhilosophyJuche.pdf">ideology developed by Kim Il Sung</a>, which justifies state policies despite famine and economic difficulties within the country.</p><p>To make matters worse, North Korea suffered a severe drought earlier this year, which dramatically damaged the country's food production and will likely result in further food shortages, <a href="http://www.fao.org/giews/countrybrief/country.jsp?code=PRK">the United Nations said in July</a>.</p><p>While the exact extent of crop damage remains unclear, the UN said the areas accounting for two-thirds of North Korea's main cereal production had been severely affected.</p><p>Earlier this year, a North Korean soldier who was shot while defecting to the south was found with a large number of parasites in his stomach - suggestive of a widespread health crisis gripping the country, <a href="https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/11/19/what-the-parasites-in-a-defectors-stomach-tell-us-about-north-korea/">The Washington Post reported</a>.</p><p>Seo Yu Suk, a research manager at the North Korean Studies Institution in Seoul, <a href="https://uk.reuters.com/article/uk-japan-northkorea/eight-bodies-found-in-boat-washed-up-on-japan-beach-coast-guard-idUKKBN1DR1QB">also told Reuters</a>: "North Korea pushes so hard for its people to gather more fish so that they can make up their food shortages."</p><p>Professor Kingston added: "These rickety vessels are unsuitable for the rough seas of the Sea of Japan in autumn, and one imagines that far more are capsizing that we will never know about."</p><h2>... Or are they a sign of a booming North Korean economy?</h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>KCNA via Reuters</span></p><p class="caption">North Korean leader Kim Jong Un inspects seafood at the Samchon Catfish Farm in February.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Not all agree with the above assessment, however.</p><p>Benjamin Katzeff Silberstein, an editor at North Korean Economy Watch, told BI: "It's unclear to what degree it's directly related to food shortages per se.</p><p>"If fishers are ordered out for longer periods of time, with bigger demands on the catch they bring back - and with less gasoline with them than they need, due to the sanctions and shortages - that is certainly a connection of sorts.</p><p>"It is also possible that to make the same level of revenue through selling seafood domestically - which seems to be the best option given that they cannot export their products to China through formal ways due to current sanctions on seafood imports from North Korea - they would simply need to make bigger catches."</p><p>The UN Security Council, of which China is a member, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/r-un-security-council-imposes-new-north-korea-sanctions-over-missile-tests-2017-8">unanimously imposed sanctions on North Korean seafood and other commodities this August</a> in response to two missile tests Pyongyang conducted the month before.</p><p>It's unclear this point how much sanctions have affected the North Korean food situation or economy, however.</p><p>Katzeff Silberstein said: "Though the economy overall is under pressure from sanctions, food prices have not gone up to the degree that some may have expected, which suggests that there isn't any acute scarcity as of now.</p><p>"On the other hand, there have been anecdotal reports of food scarcity increasing, particularly in the northeastern parts of the country, near the border to China, where agriculture is not at all as widely spread as in the southern regions."</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>REUTERS/KCNA</span></p><p class="caption">Kim inspects walls of squid at the August 25 Fisheries Station in Pyongyang in 2013.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>Miyamoto, the Seigakuin University professor, even said the rise in North Korean fishing vessels in Japan is indicative of a booming North Korean economy - because seafood is a luxury item.</p><p>He told BI: "Many North Korean vessels are in the Sea of Japan because North Korea has promoted fishery policy since 2013.</p><p>"They are fishermen [trying] to earn money. Now North Korean economics, which adopted free market partly, have grown, and generated a wealthy class. A wealthy class demands not caloric food, but healthy food. So seafood, which are healthy, is popular in North Korea. [...]</p><p>"It is evidence not that the North Korean economy is deteriorating, but that the North Korean economy is growing... Hungry people demand not seafood which are low-calorie, but cereal and meat which are high-calorie."</p><p><a href="https://edition.cnn.com/2017/11/28/asia/north-korea-japan-ship/index.html">He also told CNN</a> the "ghost ship" phenomenon increased "after Kim Jong Un decided to expand the fisheries industry as a way of increasing revenue for the military. They are using old boats manned by the military, by people who have no knowledge about fishing.</p><p>"It will continue."</p><h2><strong>Japan's response</strong></h2><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Kimimasa Mayama/Pool Photo via AP</span></p><p class="caption">US President Donald Trump speaks to the families of Japanese nationals abducted by North Korea during his visit in November.</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><p>The increased appearance of the vessels have reignited fears among some Japanese citizens who remain haunted by the <a href="https://www.nytimes.com/2017/11/03/world/asia/north-korea-kidnap-japanese-trump.html">spate of kidnappings</a> that occurred along Japan's west coast in the 1970s and 1980s.</p><p>When eight (living) men, claiming to be North Korean fishermen, <a href="http://uk.businessinsider.com/north-korea-fisherman-adrift-japans-shores-2017-11">turned up at the coastal city of Yurihonjo</a> two weeks ago, local newspaper Akita Sakigake Shimpo <a href="http://www.sakigake.jp/news/article/20171124AK0033/">ran the headline</a>: "Are they North Korean spies?" (They are not, local police told The New York Times.)</p><p>Pyongyang's nuclear development programme and recent missile tests have also increased Japanese suspicion toward North Korea.</p><p>Kingston, of Temple University, said: "Given recent missile and hydrogen bomb tests, public anxieties and anger towards North Korea has increased, so sympathy for the ghost ship crews has been limited."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/life-camp-humphreys-closest-us-military-base-north-korea-2017-12">What life is like on the $11 billion US military base right next to the North Korean border</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

Boats full of dead people from North Korea keep showing up in Japan - here's why

<p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Joe Raedle/Getty</span></p><p class="caption">Jose Ulloa Jr. works in a Home Depot store on May 17, 2016 in Miami, Florida</p></div><p></p></div></div></p><ul><li><strong>Visual search is emerging as the latest frontier that brands are looking to conquer in a bid to connect with consumers as well as drive sales.</strong></li><li><strong>Retailers like The Home Depot, fashion brands like Tommy Hilfiger, and auto brands like Toyota are active in the space, an increasing number have started testing out visual search features.</strong></li><li><strong>Platforms are also dabbling in the space, with Facebook, Amazon, Apple, Google, Pinterest and now,<a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/09/snapchat-camera-search/"> reportedly Snap rolling out visual search products</a>.</strong></li></ul><p>You've just seen someone wearing the perfect jacket. What happens next?</p><p>You could string together a couple of descriptive words and search for it online, hoping to get back something similar. Or you could snap a photo on your phone and get all the information you want instantaneously. </p><p>The latter is an example of what's called visual search, the latest new digital frontier that both major brands and tech giants are looking to conquer. While its parameters are still being defined, visual search generally refers to the use of digital photos to get information, rather than text or voice.</p><p>There are several different flavors emerging. One, like the example above, is a lot like traditional search. But instead of typing text into a search box, it typically involves looking for product information by snapping a picture with a smartphone. It's sort of the image version of using Shazam to get all the details of a song.</p><p>Another visual search tactic consists of using images or codes to drive people from the analog world to the web. And another version, popular on Pinterest, simply uses individual photos or pins to drive people to e-commerce sites.</p><p>Retailers like The Home Depot, fashion brands like Tommy Hilfiger and even auto brands like Toyota have started experimenting with these various tactics as a potential new way to connect with consumers - and hopefully drive sales.</p><p>Given the preponderance of smartphones, some ad industry insiders see massive potential in visual search.</p><p>"Visual search is a game changer," said Jeremy Sigel, global SVP of content and innovation at Essence. "It has the potential to rival 'traditional' search."</p><h2>'Customer behavior is changing toward visual search'</h2><p>While personal photos have existed for hundreds of years, they haven't provided much of a marketing opportunity until recently. But the rise of mobile, e-commerce and developments in the fields of machine learning and artificial intelligence has changed that.</p><p>Today, visual search technology can filter photos through image recognition software, culling through hoards of data to surface the details associated with the exact product that a photo captures.</p><p>This photo-centric data can be used by advertisers to better engage with customers and ideally drive them to purchase.</p><p>"Communication for anyone under 30 is camera-first, not text first," said James Douglas, SVP and head of media at the search agency Reprise. "There's tremendous opportunity for brands to tap into machine learning and artificial intelligence to figure out what people are communicating through pictures, and then build relational opportunities for themselves on top."</p><p>Brands are not letting the opportunity pass. According to Ted Mann, CEO of the visual recognition software company Slyce, at least 50 companies currently license its technology to power a camera search mode in their apps. And interest in the technology, both at Slyce and outside, is only increasing.</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Pinterest</span></p></div><p></p></div></div></p><h2>Major brands are encouraging people to shop using their phones' cameras</h2><p>Target, for instance, <a href="https://corporate.target.com/article/2017/09/pinterest-lens"><span>is using visual search</span></a> to drive consumers toward its products. Instead of typing "leather couch" into a search bar via text and sifting through thousands of results, for example, its app simply lets you snap a picture of your inspiration using the visual search tool <a href="https://about.pinterest.com/en/lens">Pinterest Lens</a> - and gives you a curated set of products similar to it in seconds.</p><p>Similarly, Toyota is employing the technology to get its customers to engage with its new 2019 Avalon. The auto brand is placing Pincodes - Pinterest's version of QR-like codes - in Shape magazine to drive interested consumers to a dedicated Pinboard for the car on Pinterest. Users can snap the code in the magazine using the Pinterest app, where they can further engage with the vehicle digitally and socially.</p><p>Visual search is also a huge priority for The Home Depot. The home retailer has not only been a Pinterest partner since 2014, but is currently undertaking the task of building a massive library of "Shop the Look" pins tagged with its products on the platform. This means that the company can link specific products within a pin directly to its site allowing users to easily purchase each item. These pins have been performing 4 times better than regular pins on average, according to Melanie Babcock, senior director of agile marketing at The Home Depot</p><p><div class="KonaFilter image-container display-table float_right"><div><div class="image on-image"><p class="source"><span>Home Depot</span></p><p class="caption">Home Depot's image search</p></div><p></p></div></div>The company is making visual search a priority outside of Pinterest too. It has assembled its own in-house team dedicated to the technology, said Babcock, because sooner or later, customers will come to expect it.</p><p>"Humans are inherently visual, we know what we like when we see it," she said. "We believe that customer behavior is changing toward visual search, so it's a huge priority for us."</p><h2>Text search still dominates. And don't forget about voice</h2><p>To be sure, text or keyword-based targeting remains the backbone of search <keyword id="35666" type="COMPANY" weightage="100" keywordseo="advertising">advertising</keyword>. Marketers still mostly serve ads to users based on whether their queries include certain sets of words and phrases.</p><p>And Google remains the undisputed king of search, raking in more than $28 billion or nearly 74% of the net search ad revenue in the US in 2017, according to eMarketer. </p><p>But as spending on search advertising continues to grow at double-digit rates in the US, marketers are turning to additional targeting options, including voice and visual search. In fact, <span>voice and image-based searches are expected to make up at least 50% of all searches by 2020, according to K</span>leiner Perkins Caufield &amp; Byers partner <a href="https://www.recode.net/2016/6/1/11829844/mary-meeker-voice-image-searches-2020">Mary Meeker.</a></p><p>But visual search has some way to go before it truly bursts into the spotlight. More marketers are investing in voice search and developing their own Alexa skills and Google Home apps than visual search, which will continue to happen until consumer behavior shifts.</p><p>"Everyone's always been interested," said Layne Harris, head of innovation technology at 360i. "But there's always going to be hesitancy to invest in something where there isn't a proof point."</p><p>And optimizing for visual search is no easy feat either, warned Reprise's Douglas.</p><p>"A lot of effort needs to go into making sure that the images are clean and can be interpreted by partners, and into organizing the feeds," he said.</p><h2>But the biggest tech companies are all making serious investments in visual search</h2><p>As brands embrace the technology more, they also have an expanding roster of platforms and tech companies to rely on for help. Self-proclaimed visual search engine Pinterest may have the first-mover advantage with Pinterest Lens and a slew of other features, but others aren't far behind.</p><p>Facebook, Amazon, Apple and Google have all started either building their own visual search platforms or acquiring companies that analyze such photo content. Google, for example, has Lens, and <a href="https://www.wired.com/story/lens-google-visual-search-tool-update/"><span>plans to make your smartphone camera</span></a> "like a visual browser for the world around you."</p><p>Snap is the latest platform to jump on the bandwagon, and is reportedly working on its own visual product search feature called "Eagle" on the Snapchat app, according to a <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/09/snapchat-camera-search/"><span>Tech Crunch report</span></a> last week. The move is the latest iteration of Snap's evolution as a camera company, proving that it is serious about its mission of the camera being a tool to help people navigate the world around them.</p><p>Snap's entry could finally take visual search mainstream, say experts, benefiting everyone in the space.</p><p>"One thing that Snap has done much more than other platforms is introducing behaviors that people haven't been familiar with before," said 360i's Harris. "They have been pioneers in pushing exploratory behaviors like vertical video, which has now become the standard."</p><h2>Pinterest vs Snapchat </h2><p>The fact that Snapchat's app opens into the camera is also the reason why it could ultimately deliver a better shop-by-image experience than Pinterest, said Alex Marsh, SVP and director of platform innovation at BBDO. <a href="https://techcrunch.com/2018/07/09/snapchat-camera-search/">Recode has reported on a possible partnership with Amazon</a>, but the company could eventually bring in other retailers or innovate more on ad products.</p><p>"Snapchat has a good track record when it comes to rolling out new ad products for marketers," he said. "I would expect them to find success innovating a number of products around the camera search."</p><p>If Pinterest is threatened, it's not showing it. Visual search is not about just using image recognition to surface more similar photos, but also the relevant context. And Pinterest's algorithm is more nuanced because it is supplemented by a layer of human curation that its users bring with their boards and tags, according to Vikram Bhaskaran, head of market development at the company.</p><p>"We've created a whole new vertical in the search space, allowing brands to not only to use visual SEO but also target on the basis of it," he said. "Visual search is a commodity, but the ability to understand the nuances of the object with human curation is what gives us our edge."</p>    <div class="margin-top">        <h3>NOW WATCH: <a href="http://www.businessinsider.com/everything-wrong-google-android-fix-2018-6">Everything wrong with Android</a></h3>        <div>                    </div>    </div>

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