Skype upgrades its messaging feature with drafts, bookmarks and more

Skype is best known for being a video calling app and, to some extent, that’s because its messaging feature set has been a bit underdeveloped. Today, the company is working to change that image with a series of improvements to Skype’s chatting features aimed at further differentiating it from rival apps.

One of the most useful of the new features is support for Message Drafts.

Similar to email, any message you type up in Skype but don’t yet send is saved within the conversation with a “draft” tag attached. That way you can return to the message to finish it and send it later on.

It’s a feature it would be great to see other messaging clients adopt, as well, given how much of modern business and personal communication takes place outside of email.

People have wanted the ability to draft and schedule iMessage texts for years — so much so that clever developers invented app-based workarounds to meet consumers’ needs. Some people even type up their texts in Notepad, while waiting for the right time to send them.

In another email-inspired addition, Skype is also introducing the ability to bookmark important messages. To access this option, you just have to long-press a message (on mobile) or right-click (on desktop), then tap or click “Add Bookmark.” This will add the message to your Bookmarks screen for easy retrieval.

You’ll also now be able to preview photos, videos, and files before you send them through messages — a worthwhile improvement, but one that’s more about playing catch-up to other communication apps than being particularly innovative.

And if you’re sharing a bunch of photos or videos all at once, Skype will now organize them neatly. Instead of overwhelming recipients with a large set of photos, the photos are grouped in a way that’s more common to what you’d see on social media. That is, only a few are display while the rest hide behind a “+” button you have to click in order to see more.

Unrelated to the messaging improvements, Skype also rolled out split window support for all versions of Windows, Mac, and Linux. (Windows 10 support was already available).

As one of the older messaging apps still in use, Skype is no longer the largest or most popular, claiming only 300 million monthly active users compared to WhatsApp’s 1.5 billion, for example.

However, it’s good to see its team getting back to solving real consumer pain points rather than trying to clone Snapchat as it mistakenly tried to do not too long ago. (Thankfully, those changes were rolled back.) What Skype remaining users appreciate is the app’s ease-of-use and its productivity focus, and these changes are focused on that direction.

Outside of the expanded access to split view, noted above, all the other new features are rolling out across all Skype platforms, the company says.

 

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Daily Crunch: Apple will unveil the next iPhone on Sept 10

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. Apple will unveil the next iPhone September 10

Apple has sent out invites confirming rumors that its next major press event will happen on September 10. The event is expected to focus on the iPhone 11, unveiling three different models — the standard 11, as well as two Pro options.

If this happens, it would mark a subtle-but-significant shift in the way Apple structures its phone lineup. With a lower-priced flagship replacing the budget XR, the company could appeal to consumers who’ve been turned off by the rising prices for higher-end options.

2. Uber and Lyft are putting $60M toward keeping drivers independent contractors

In the event that California’s Assembly Bill 5 passes — forcing Uber and Lyft to make their drivers W-2 employees — each company is putting in $30 million to fund a 2020 ballot initiative that would enable them to keep their drivers as independent contractors.

3. Google lets David Drummond do the talking

Anyone wondering if Alphabet might reprimand its chief legal officer David Drummond for a long-ago extramarital affair with a former subordinate (which recently resurfaced in a much-discussed blog post), the answer seems to be … not right now.

Image via Getty Images / vladwel

4. ‘Filmmaker Mode’ will automatically turn off all the dumb motion smoothing and noise reduction on new TVs

Most new TVs come with a bunch of random junk turned on by default; things like motion smoothing that makes epic movies look like soap operas, or noise reduction that can wash out details and make an actor’s skin look cyborg-y. With Filmmaker Mode, you’ll be able to push a button and all that crap gets turned off.

5. Nike Huaraches get updated for the smartphone age

Slowly but surely, Nike has made its self-lacing motor technology more accessible. The next step: Bringing the tech to its Huarache line next month.

6. What is Andela, the Africa tech talent accelerator?

To put it succinctly, Andela is a startup — backed by $180 million in venture capital — that trains and connects African software developers to global companies for a fee. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

7. Marc Benioff will discuss building a socially responsible and successful startup at TechCrunch Disrupt

Benioff is coming to TechCrunch Disrupt in San Francisco to discuss how to build a highly successful business while giving back to the community.

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You can now share music from Spotify to Facebook Stories

Google to pay security researchers who find Android apps and Chrome extensions misusing user data

Google said it will pay security researchers who find “verifiably and unambiguous evidence” of data abuse using its platforms.

It’s part of the company’s efforts to catch those who misuse user data collected through Android apps or Chrome extensions — and to avoid its own version of a scandal like Cambridge Analytica, which saw millions of Facebook profiles scraped and used to identify undecided voters during the U.S. presidential election in 2016.

Google said anyone who identifies “situations where user data is being used or sold unexpectedly, or repurposed in an illegitimate way without user consent” is eligible for its expanded data abuse bug bounty.

“If data abuse is identified related to an app or Chrome extension, that app or extension will accordingly be removed from Google Play or Google Chrome Web Store,” read a blog post. “In the case of an app developer abusing access to Gmail restricted scopes, their API access will be removed.” The company said abuse of its developer APIs would also fall under the scope of the bug bounty.

Google said it isn’t providing a reward table yet but a single report of data misuse could net $50,000 in bounties.

News of the expanded bounty comes in the wake of the DataSpii scandal, which saw browser extensions scrape and share data from millions of users. These Chrome extensions uploaded web addresses and webpage titles of every site a user visited, exposing sensitive data like tax returns, patient data, and travel itineraries.

Google was forced to step in and suspend the offending Chrome extensions.

Instagram recently expanded its own bug bounty to include misused user data following a spate of data incidents,

After data incidents, Instagram expands its bug bounty

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Instagram may allow creators to syndicate IGTV videos to Facebook

Following the departure of Instagram’s founders, Facebook is working to more closely integrate the photo-sharing app with its flagship social network. It’s already added its brand name next to Instagram’s, and is working to make both platforms’ messaging products interoperable. Now, Facebook is prototyping a means of syndicating Instagram’s IGTV video to Facebook’s video site, Facebook Watch.

In another find from noted reverse engineer, Jane Manchun Wong, Instagram was found to have under development a feature that would allow Instagram users to post their IGTV content to both Instagram as a preview, as well as to Facebook and Watch — the latter by toggling an additional switch labeled “make visible on Facebook.”

Instagram is working on IGTV Series pic.twitter.com/SLOWCnicLJ

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) August 28, 2019

Wong says the feature is still in the prototype stage, as the buttons themselves aren’t functional.

This move, should it come to pass, could prompt more video creators to use IGTV, given that it would boost their videos’ distribution by also including Facebook as a destination for their content. The videos could also be part of an ongoing, episodic series, Wong had found.

This, in turn, could help IGTV — an app which hasn’t quite taken off as a standalone video platform. Today, IGTV takes inspiration from TikTok and Snapchat’s vertical video. It’s meant to engage Instagram users with longer-form, portrait mode video content both within Instagram and in a separate IGTV app. But IGTV has often been filled with poorly cropped and imported web video, rather than content designed specifically for the platform.

Meanwhile, the IGTV app has struggled to rise to the top of the App Store’s charts the way its parent, Instagram, has. Today, it’s ranked No. 159 in the Photo & Video category on the App Store, and unranked in the Overall top charts.

To address some of the issues that creators have complained about, Instagram this week rolled out a few changes to the upload experience. This included the new ability to select the 1:1 crop of an IGTV thumbnail for the creator’s Profile Cover as well as the ability to edit which 5:4 section of the IGTV video shows in the Feed.

IGTV will also now auto-populate Instagram handles and tags on IGTV titles and descriptions, and will now support the ability to longer video from mobile. With the latter change, IGTV has increased the minimum threshold to upload on mobile to one minute, and is allowing mobile uploads up to 15 minutes.

Instagram declined to comment on the possible syndication of IGTV content to Facebook and Facebook Watch.

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ZTE tries for a US return with an affordable flagship

ZTE’s U.S. government dealings have never been as high-profile as fellow Chinese smartphone maker Huawei, but it has had its fair share of scuffles. Last summer, the company got smacked with a $1 billion fine over sanction violations. All in all, 2018 was not a great year for ZTE here in the States.

It all amounted to a big blow for a manufacturer that was actually doing pretty good business selling mid-range devices in the largest smartphone market. With the Axon 10 Pro, it seems ZTE is finally done licking its wounds and is ready to try again here in the States, even as trade tensions continue to loom large in dealings between the two super powers.

I’ve got to say, it’s looking like a pretty solid device. The company seems to be positioning the product in the same sliver of the market that OnePlus has found a home. At $549, it’s a breath of fresh air in a world of $1,000+ flagships, without skimping on the design language or features. It’s doubly compelling given that OnePlus’s own prices have been creeping up a bit as well, as the company has pushed into more premium territory.

OnePlus redefines premium with the 7 Pro

The device has a 6.47-inch display with a small camera notch up top and an in-screen fingerprint reader. There’s the latest Qualcomm Snapdragon chip on-board (855), paired with a a beefy 4,000 mAh battery. Around back are three cameras, including a 48-megapixel, a telephoto and a wide-angle. The headphone jack, however, is MIA.

With Huawei more or less out of the picture here in the States, maybe there’s some room for ZTE to thrive, after all. Of course, the company still has to contend with a shrinking smartphone market, just like everyone else.

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Behold, the shark-fin selfie camera on Oppo’s latest

You would, of course, be completely forgiven for not recognizing Oppo’s name here in the States. In its native China, however, the company is a powerhouse, regularly capturing around 20% of the world’s largest smartphone market and handily beating out more familiar names (here, at least) like Apple and Samsung.

India (the No. 2 global market) has been a pretty solid market for the company as well, generally landing itself in the top five. The Reno 2 was just announced for that country today, bringing with it some of the unique, boundary-pushing features that have become Oppo’s stock-in-trade.

Most notable here is the “shark fin.” That’s the in-house name for the triangular mechanical selfie camera that pops out the top. It’s a return feature and one a number of other manufacturers have implemented in some form, including the Oppo-connected OnePlus, which has a much stronger U.S. presence.

The other big thing here are the cameras on the other side. It’s a pretty impressive set up back there, including a 48-megapixel lens with optical image stabilization, wide angle lens and telephoto. At 5x hybrid, it’s a step down from the 10x Zoom the company launched a while back.

At Rs. 36,900, it’s priced at just over $500, putting it at the mid-range here in the States. I’ve been playing around with it a bit at our New York office, and it’s not a bad little phone — albeit a little bit chunky compared to some flagships. That’s not really a surprise at that price point. Nor is the continued inclusion of a headphone jack, which continues to be an important feature for markets like India.

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Hackers to stress-test Facebook Portal at hacking contest

Hackers will soon be able to stress-test the Facebook Portal at the annual Pwn2Own hacking contest, following the introduction of the social media giant’s debut hardware device last year.

Pwn2Own is one of the largest hacking contests in the world, where security researchers descend to find and demonstrate their exploits for vulnerabilities in a range of consumer electronics and technologies, including appliances and automobiles.

It’s not unusual for companies to allow hackers put their products through their paces. Tesla earlier this year entered its new Model 3 sedan into the contest. A pair of researchers later scooped up $375,000 — and the car they hacked — for finding a severe memory randomization bug in the web browser of the car’s infotainment system.

Hackers able to remotely inject and run code on the Facebook Portal can receive up to $60,000, while a non-invasive physical attack or a privilege escalation bug can net $40,000.

Introducing the Facebook Portal is part of a push by Trend Micro’s Zero Day Initiative, which runs the contest, to expand the range of home automation devices available to researchers in attendance. Pwn2Own said researchers will also get a chance to try to hack an Amazon Echo Show 5, a Google Nest Hub Max, an Amazon Cloud Cam, and a Nest Cam IQ Indoor.

Facebook said it would also allow hackers to find flaws in the Oculus Quest virtual reality kit.

Pwn2Own Tokyo, set to be held on November 6-7, is expected to dish out more than $750,000 in cash and prizes.

Hackers conquer Tesla’s in-car web browser and win a Model 3

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Insta360’s tiny new GO stabilized camera could be game-changer for social video

Insta360 has quickly established itself as the leader in 360-degree video capture, at least for the consumer market, and its new GO stabilized camera builds on that legacy and extends some of the tech it’s built into the category of more traditional, non-360-degree footage.

The $199.99 GO is truly tiny – it weighs under an ounce, and measures less than two inches tall, by under an inch wide. It’s tiny, and that’s ideal for the use case that Insta360 has in mind for this device – wearing it or mounting it virtually anywhere for capturing quick clips. The GO’s all about quick action grabs, with a 30-second cap on clip recording, which you trigger by pressing the lone control button on the device (a second press stops the clip, unless you let it run the entire 30 seconds).

GO’s design is clearly meant for social sharing, but its secret weapon vs. just using your smartphone or making use of other devices is that it packs Insta360’s FlowState stabilization on board. This is the company’s digital video stabilization feature, which works to great effect in its Insta360 One X 360-degree camera for smoothing out footage so that even in intense action sequences it’s not nausea-inducing.

GO also features a magnetic body, which is designed to work in tandem with a variety of accessories, including backs for securing them unobtrusively to clothing, an underwater housing (the camera itself is IPX4 rated, which means essentially it’s protected from splashes but not meant to be submerged), and mounts for sticking to things like surf boards or vehicles. It can capture clips at resolution of up to 2720×2720, but it crops the image to 1080p (at 25 fps) for export as a result of the stabilization tech.

Shooting modes include a standard 25fps as mentioned, as well as a 30fps time-lapse which can record up to 8 hours (which will output a 9 second video) and a hyper laps mode that can shoot for up to 30 minutes to generate a 5 minute video. It can capture photos, too, exporting square images at 2560 x 2560 resolution, or a number of landscape options reading down from there.

In addition to simplifying capture, the Insta360 GO also hopes to make editing and sharing much easier, too, with its FlashCut auto editing feature. This software tool uses “AI” according to the company, in order to find the best clips (you can even sort by category, ie. ‘food’) you capture throughout the day and then stitch them together in a final edit. You can also fully tweak the edits it provides if you’d rather be a more involved creator.

The biggest limitation, based on just reading the specs and not having had a chance to test this out yet, is that the battery life is rated at around 200 clips per day, based on an average of 20 seconds per clip. But that’s including recharging the camera when not in use using the included Charge Case, which has 2.5 extra charges using its built-in battery. That and the recording limitation could prove challenging to anyone looking to create a lot of content with this camera, but on the other hand, it’s very easy to ensure you have it with you at all times – even when your smartphone isn’t nearby.

At $199.99, the Insta360 GO isn’t exactly cheap – but it does include the Charge Case, a pendant with a magnet you can use to wear it around you neck, a stand, a clip for clothing and a sticky mount for putting it on most smooth surfaces. You can also laser-engrave it if you purchase it directly via Insta360’s website. But after some missed starts for this category like the Google Clips camera, and earlier entrants like the Memoto and Narrative Clip lifelogging cameras, I’ll be curious to see if Insta360’s additional features help this gadget define a category.

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Airship acquires A/B testing company Apptimize

Airship announced today that it has acquired Apptimize, an A/B testing company whose customers include Glassdoor, HotelTonight and The Wall Street Journal.

Formerly known as Urban Airship, the more concisely named Airship has built a platform for companies to manage their customer communication across SMS, push notifications, email, mobile wallets and more.

It says that by acquiring Apptimize, it can help customers test the impact of their messages. That means integrating Apptimize’s testing capabilities into the Airship platform, but the company says it will also continue to support Apptimize as a standalone platform.

“By combining Apptimize mobile app and web testing with Airship’s deep insight into customer engagement across channels, marketers and developers can focus innovation on the most critical areas while creating the seamless end-to-end experiences customers really want,” said Airship president and CEO Brett Caine in a statement.

The financial terms of the acquisition were not disclosed. Apptimize had raised a total of $18.6 million from US Venture Partners, Costanoa Ventures and others, according to Crunchbase.

Airship says it will be bringing over 19 Apptimize team members (a little less than two-thirds of the startup’s total workforce) across engineering, customer service and sales.

Urban Airship raises another $25M

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Apple releases first beta of iOS 13.1, indicating iOS 13 is nearly done

Surprise, Apple didn’t release yet another beta version of iOS 13. The company released the first developer beta of iOS and iPadOS 13.1 instead.

This is a curious move, as Apple doesn’t usually share beta versions of .1 updates before the release of major updates. What’s even more surprising is that Apple released new beta versions for watchOS 6.0 and tvOS 13.0 today.

So Apple just posted the first beta for iOS 13.1…? pic.twitter.com/MH0PUOAZiQ

— Federico Viticci (@viticci) August 27, 2019

Chances are that iOS 13.0 is pretty much done by this point. Usually, Apple releases major versions of iOS a few days after announcing the new iPhone — the press event will likely take place at some point in early September. The company might release iOS 13.0 a bit earlier than expected this year.

Apple removed some minor features in iOS 13 in early beta versions of iOS 13. As MacRumors spotted, many of those features are now back in the beta version of iOS 13.1. Those features include Shortcuts automations and the ability to share your ETA in Apple Maps.

It’s clear that Apple is trying to make iOS 13.0 as stable as possible, even if it means releasing some features a bit later this fall.

We need to really get used to the fact that WWDC’s “What’s coming in iOS 13!” is about what is in *13*, not *13.0*.

And, honestly, I’m a fan of that. Show me what’s coming for the next year, but don’t rush shipping because of some arbitrary X.0 marketing need. https://t.co/Rj3l2XKB7U

— Curtis Herbert (@parrots) August 27, 2019

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Daily Crunch: Smartphone sales decline again

The Daily Crunch is TechCrunch’s roundup of our biggest and most important stories. If you’d like to get this delivered to your inbox every day at around 9am Pacific, you can subscribe here.

1. Smartphone sales declined again in Q2, surprising no one

After years of growth, the smartphone market’s recent slide has continued in the second quarter of 2019, according to Gartner.

It’s not a huge decline — 1.7% year over year — but this could turn into an ongoing problem for manufacturers. And the biggest hit is coming at the high end of the market, as higher prices combine with longer refresh cycles and fewer compelling features.

2. Yelp will let users personalize their homepage and search results

If you’re a vegetarian, or if you’re a parent who’s usually looking for kid-friendly restaurants, you no longer have to reenter that information every time you do a search. Instead, you can enter it once and Yelp will prioritize those results moving forward.

3. Ron Johnson’s e-commerce startup Enjoy raises $150M, expands in U.K.

Through partnerships with other companies, including AT&T, Sonos, Google and now EE, Enjoy creates an online mobile store where customers can shop for devices and receive same-day delivery. They can also opt to have an Enjoy expert deliver the item and help them get set up, free of charge.

Fairphone 3 running Android 9 out of the box

4. Can Fairphone 3 scale ethical consumer electronics?

Fairphone, the Dutch social enterprise that’s on a mission to rethink the waste and exploitation that underpins the business of consumer electronics, announced its third smartphone today.

5. Facebook is working with HackerOne on a bug bounty program for its Libra cryptocurrency

Facebook is moving ahead with its cryptocurrency project, even as government regulators have called for the company to suspend it while they assess its legality.

6. The BBC is developing a voice assistant, code named ‘Beeb’

Why is a publicly funded broadcaster ploughing money into developing a voice assistant? A BBC spokesperson said the intent is to “experiment with new programmes, features and experiences without someone else’s permission to build it in a certain way.”

7. How to use Amazon and advertising to build a D2C startup

In-depth tips from VMG Ignite, a consultancy that’s worked with dozens of direct-to-consumer startups trying to both find product-market fit and achieve scale through Amazon and online advertising. (Extra Crunch membership required.)

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Experian makes strategic investment in location data company PlaceIQ

PlaceIQ is announcing a strategic investment from credit reporting company Experian.

CEO Duncan McCall said the investment is part of a growth round that PlaceIQ raised after divesting itself of its advertising business (which is being taken over by Zeta Global). He declined to disclose the size of the round, or of the Experian investment.

“It’s a multi-year, strategic partnership, where we will work together to license data [to Experian], and they also proactively become an investor in the company,” McCall said, adding that this “coincided nicely with us divesting of our media business and raising a modest growth round.”

Experian’s venture arm has backed a number of financial technology startups. Under this partnership, the company will also incorporate PlaceIQ’s LandMark location data product into its broader suite of data and measurement tools.

Alibaba backs PlaceIQ, a provider of location tools and data

Asked about the direction of PlaceIQ’s business going forward, McCall explained that the company started with a focus on selling location data, and now, it’s gone back to “being a data-only company again.”

“Of course, we would have preferred to have focused on just one business model all these years, but life’s not that simple,” he said.

In his telling, PlaceIQ had to expand into the ad sales business because the infrastructure didn’t exist at the time to incorporate that data into the ad-buying process. Now that the infrastructure is there, PlaceIQ can focus once more on selling location data, which can then be used for targeting on a broad range of ad-buying platforms.

According to Crunchbase, PlaceIQ previously raised a total of $52 million in funding.

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Hulu redesigns its mobile app for better discovery

At this year’s CES event, Hulu announced plans to trial an updated version of its user interface that would do away with the confusing landing page called “Lineup.” At the time, the company said it was considering both  “Hulu Picks” option or an “Unwatched in My Stuff” screen as a replacement for “Lineup.” Today, Hulu’s new interface is rolling out across iOS and Android devices, the company says, and “Lineup” is gone.

The Hulu interface launched in 2017 was not always well-liked — something Hulu had acknowledged after a complaint became the most upvoted item on Hulu’s customer feedback forums a couple of years ago. Users felt the interface was too difficult to navigate and the layout was confusing, among other things.

Some of Hulu’s challenges were around the fact that it was trying to merge an on-demand library with a live TV service, while also finding room to promote its original content.

But some of its other design choices were just odd — like its decision to make a single piece of content the main focus for many of its screens, for example. Meanwhile, its landing page “Lineup” never really made sense, either. Its name hinted at some form personalization, but instead, it was more often filled with suggestions of what Hulu was promoting, like “The Handmaid’s Tale.”

The updated iOS interface ditches “Lineup,” and replaces it with “Hulu Picks.”

This is more clearly a collection of things to watch that’s curated by Hulu staff, rather than algorithmically derived by user viewing behavior.

However, the other landing page Hulu had been considering, “Unwatched in My Stuff,” is still available, just a few swipes over.

While Hulu still gives a single piece of content the focus on its main screens on the iPhone, it’s now easier to see there’s more content available if you swipe down, as the top of the next item’s card is peeking up from the bottom of the screen.

On the smartphone, this means you can see two items at a time. On iPad, you can see two rows totaling 6 cards on the app’s main screen when in landscape mode.

This same format applies not only to “Hulu Picks,” but also to neighboring screens like “Live Now,” “Unwatched in My Stuff,” “My Channels,” and the genre-based sections like “Sports,” “News,” “TV,” “Movies,” “Kids,” “Hulu Originals,” and others.

Only the “Keep Watching” screen retains the more traditional thumbnails.

This seems like a small change, but it goes a long way to increase the discoverability of Hulu content, as it reduces how many times you have to swipe to see more suggestions.

Other changes touted at CES like adding expanded metadata next to content (genre, rating, year) or the ability to mark content as “unwatched” haven’t made an appearance. (Plenty of items still lack a rating). The 14-day live TV guide mentioned at CES isn’t available on iOS, either.

Hulu didn’t publicly announce the launch of the iOS redesign, but did confirm it’s rolling out now, only to mobile devices. They said other devices will get the update “soon.”

Update: Hulu says the update is coming to Android as well now. The post has been updated since publication to note Android is also rolling out. 

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