After ad revenue drop, Twitter tells investors it’s eyeing subscription options

After reporting Q2 earnings that showed a marked dip in ad revenue, Twitter has said its exploring alternatives — dangling the possibility of a subscription option.

Earlier today the social media giant reported ad revenues of $562M, down almost a quarter (23%) on a year ago — saying that the pandemic and “civil unrest” leading many advertisers to pause campaigns had both contributed to the decline. While the US, its biggest market, saw a drop of 25% in ad spend.

Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey told investors it’ll likely run subscription “tests” this year (via CNN), though he also said the bar for charging users for aspects of the service would be set “really high”.

So presumably it’s not considering a ‘your first ten tweets are free’ style pay-to-tweet model.

“We want to make sure any new line of revenue is complementary to our advertising business,” CNN reports Dorsey remarking during the investor call. “We do think there is a world where subscription is complementary, where commerce is complementary, where helping people manage paywalls… we think is complementary.”

The prospect of a paid version of Twitter — free from trackers, annoying ads and irritating algorithms which meddle with the clean chronology of the timeline — has been a holy grail for certain Twitter addicts since (basically) forever. So plenty of its most fervent users will be watching keenly to see exactly what Dorsey cooks up.

We’re spitballing here — but perhaps Twitter could charge, er, certain high profile, high risk users billions of dollars per month for the privilege of tweet-threatening the rest of humanity… Just a thought.

Twitter casting around for ad revenue diversification looks interesting in light of broader digital privacy trends that have put the ad tracking industry under increasing (and increasingly awkward) scrutiny.

Certain adtech players and mechanisms are facing challenges under European data protection rules, for instance, while there are also moves afoot in California to further tighten the consumer protections introduced this year, under the Consumer Privacy Act, which could see more US users blocking the tracking industry’s access to their data.

Last week’s massive Twitter security breach also hardly throws a positive light on the company from a privacy perspective. Dorsey addressed the breach in remarks on today’s call, with CNN reporting he apologized to investors — admitting the company “fell behind” on its security obligations.

“We feel terrible about the security incident,” he said. “Security doesn’t have an end point. It’s a constant iteration… We will continue to go above and beyond here as we continue to secure our systems and as we continue to work with external firms and law enforcement.”

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TikTok unveils $200 million fund for U.S. creators

TikTok today announced a $200 million fund, aimed at helping top creators in the U.S. supplement their earnings, and potentially coax the next Charli D’Amelio out of the woodwork.

Called the TikTok Creator Fund, the money is aimed at helping “eligible” creators on the platform earn a livelihood, it said. Eligible for now is defined as 18 years or older, meeting a certain (unspecified) baseline for followers, and consistently posting original content that is in line with TikTok’s community guidelines. The platform will begin accepting applications from U.S.-based creators starting next month and distribute the capital over the coming year.

The promise of payouts is coming at a key moment for the app and its Chinese parent ByteDance. TikTok has been facing mounting criticism in the US, its biggest market by revenues, over how it handles user data and its ties to China, with calls from the Trump administration to ban the popular app outright.

And in response to that, TikTok has been making moves to present a more friendly face to the US. It has pledged to add 10,000 more staff in the US, and this week rumors began to circulate that investors in the US are considering buying a majority stake in the TikTok business back from ByteDance to establish control of the company out of China’s hands.

(It’s not clear if the latter is testing the waters of sentiment, or just an outright rumour, but as an aside to that, these days, ByteDance and TikTok try to go to great lengths to show they are not connected, if you go by how they handle their PR: Chinese spokespeople will not answer TikTok questions and refer journalists to the US team.)

Vanessa Pappas, GM of TikTok’s U.S. business, said in a blog post that ByteDance is starting the Creator Fund at $200 million and plans to increase it over time. She did not disclose how TikTok would decide what sum would be paid to an individual creator, and whether there would be any additional conditions to getting a payout. (We have asked about this and how many followers creators might need to have to be eligible, and will update as we learn more.)

TikTok already helps its creators sign brand partnerships and sponsorship deals, and it provides monetization for live-streams. The platform also has a $50 million Creative Learning Fund to introduce teachers to the platform, which has been used by some 1,000 teachers in the U.S. already. And a Creator Marketplace connects brands to creators to collaborate on paid campaigns.

“Through the TikTok Creator Fund, our creators will be able to realize additional earnings that reflect the time, care, and dedication they put into creatively connecting with an audience that’s inspired by their ideas,” she said.

TikTok currently employs about 1,400 people in the U.S. and recently crossed the milestone of 2 billion installs globally. Last year, it said it had 26 million users in the U.S.

Several lawmakers including Senators Chuck Schumer and Tom Cotton have expressed concerns in recent months that TikTok’s user data could end up with the Chinese government. China-headquartered ByteDance insists that it does not share any user’s data with the Chinese government, and that it stores its U.S.-based user data in the U.S. and Singapore. Earlier this week House lawmakers voted 336-71 to bar federal employees from using TikTok on government-issued devices.

TikTok, which appointed Disney streaming executive Kevin Mayer as its chief executive officer in May this year, also insists that it is a Cayman Islands incorporated firm.

For now, it seems that the programs that TikTok is launching are squarely aimed at fighting that fire in the US. It did not respond to a request for comment asking what it was doing to help creators in other markets supplement their earnings.

India, where TikTok has more than 200 million users and over 1 million creators, banned TikTok and 58 other apps developed by Chinese firms late last month over cybersecurity concerns. Its neighboring nation Pakistan issued a “final warning” to TikTok earlier this week over what it deemed “immoral, obscene, and vulgar content.”

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Facebook raises its Zoom game, lets Messenger Rooms broadcast via Live

Zoom has run away with the prize in the last few months for becoming the video calling platform of choice for people confined to their homes, whether they are making work calls or friend calls. No one really talks about “Teamsing up” (“Skyping,” perhaps?), or “Hangoutsing” or “Meeting“, or indeed “Roomsing.” But many people talk about Zooming, even when they’re not using Zoom to do it.

Today Facebook added in a new feature to its own contribution to the video chat landscape that should lead, if not immediately to more usage, more engagement when Messenger Rooms does get used.

The social network has announced that people using Messenger Rooms — the video chat software that lets people create calls with up to 50 people via a link (no Facebook or Messenger account required to join the call) — can now choose to broadcast that Rooms chat to Live, the feature in Facebook that lets people broadcast directly through Groups, Pages and in timelines via your Profile.

Facebook Rooms via Live will still come with controls for the call host: the limit is 50 people, users need a link to join, and the moderator/call host can still remove people if needed.

The difference now is that those calls will essentially be carried out on a stage, seen by as many as would have seen a Live broadcast posted by that host. When the room goes “Live”, participants will have to opt-in to be a part of it, and they can also leave before it starts to broadcast.

Messenger Rooms was first announced as “Rooms” in a limited rollout at the end of April. Seen by some initially as a Houseparty competitor, it was launched was a time when the world was well into numerous shelter-in-place orders to try to stem the spread of the global health pandemic caused by the novel coronavirus and were turning to video conferencing as a way to stay connected.

Amid many alternatives, Zoom had quickly emerged as the most popular way for people to do that, albeit, not without lots of controversy, partly due to the fact that this enterprise company had never in its wildest dreams thought it would take off as a consumer product and get used by a billion people. Meanwhile, Rooms was then rolled out globally as Messenger Rooms in June.

Because of the controversies Zoom faced, and because Facebook is, well, Facebook, it didn’t really matter at first how well Messenger Rooms was picking up traction: the message was that Zoom should be worried.

It’s actually not clear how many people are now using Messenger Rooms. (We’ve reached out to Facebook to ask.) Nor is it even clear if Facebook ultimately finds Zoom a threat.

Today’s news, it seems, is about adding more incremental engagement across Facebook overall, and adding in features that already exist for the de facto leader in the market.

You can already stream a Zoom call on Facebook Live, so why not be able to stream a Messenger Rooms call live there too? (I don’t know if Facebook will extend that to the other places where Zoom can stream, which include YouTube and Twitch.)

Facebook said that the feature is getting rolled out in limited release today and will soon expand globally to everywhere that Messenger Rooms works. Facebook also says this is a work in progress, with other news features coming soon, too.

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Give yourself permission to be creative | Ethan Hawke

Give yourself permission to be creative | Ethan Hawke

Reflecting on moments that shaped his life, actor Ethan Hawke examines how courageous expression promotes healing and connection with one another -- and invites you to discover your own unabashed creativity. "There is no path till you walk it," he says.

https://ift.tt/30GbvC3

Click this link to view the TED Talk

Pandora launches interactive voice ads into beta testing

Pandora is launching interactive voice ads into wider public testing, the company announced this morning. The music streaming service first introduced the new advertising format, where users verbally respond to advertiser prompts, back in December with help from a small set of early adopters, including Doritos, Ashley HomeStores, Unilever, Wendy’s, Turner Broadcasting, Comcast and Nestlé.

The ads begin by explaining to listeners what they are and how they work. They then play a short and simple message followed by a question that listeners can respond to. For example, a Wendy’s ad asked listeners if they were hungry, and if they say “yes,” the ad continued with a recommendation of what to eat. An Ashely HomeStores ads engaged listeners by offering tips on a better night’s sleep.

The format is meant in particular to aid advertisers in connecting with users who are not looking at their phone. For example, when people are listening to Pandora while driving, cooking, cleaning the house, or doing some other hands-free activity.

Since their debut, Pandora’s own data indicated the ads have been fairly well-received, in terms of the voice format. 47% of users said they either liked or loved the concept of responding with their voice, and 30% felt neutral. The stats paint a picture of an overall more positive reception, given that users don’t typically like ads at all. In addition, 72% of users also said they found the ad format easy to engage with.

However, Pandora cautioned advertisers that more testing is needed to understand which ads get users to respond and which do not. Based on early alpha testing, ads with higher engagement seemed be those that were entertaining, humorous, or used a recognizable brand voice, it says.

As the new ad format enters into beta testing, the company is expanding access to more advertisers. Advertisers including Acura, Anheuser-Busch, AT&T, Doritos, KFC, Lane Bryant, Purex Laundry Detergent, Purple, Unilever, T-Mobile, The Home Depot, Volvo, and Xfinity, among others, are signed up to test the interactive ads.

This broader test aims to determine what the benchmarks should be for voice ads, whether the ads need tweaking to optimize for better engagement, and whether ads are better for driving conversions at the upper funnel or if consumers are ready to take action, based on the ads’ content.

Related to the rollout of interactive voice ads, Pandora is also upgrading its “Voice Mode” feature, launched last year and made available to all users last July. The feature will now offer listeners on-demand access to specific tracks and albums in exchange for watching a brand video via Pandora’s existing Video Plus ad format, the same as for text-based searches.

 

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Typewise taps $1M to build an offline next word prediction engine

Swiss keyboard startup Typewise has bagged a $1 million seed round to build out a typo-busting, ‘privacy-safe’ next word prediction engine designed to run entirely offline. No cloud connectivity, no data mining risk is the basic idea.

They also intend the tech to work on text inputs made on any device, be it a smartphone or desktop, a wearable, VR — or something weirder that Elon Musk might want to plug into your brain in future.

For now they’ve got a smartphone keyboard app that’s had around 250,000 downloads — with some 65,000 active users at this point.

The seed funding breaks down into $700K from more than a dozen local business angels; and $340K via the Swiss government through a mechanism (called “Innosuisse projects“), akin to a research grant, which is paying for the startup to employ machine learning experts at Zurich’s ETH research university to build out the core AI.

The team soft launched a smartphone keyboard app late last year, which includes some additional tweaks (such as an optional honeycomb layout they tout as more efficient; and the ability to edit next word predictions so the keyboard quickly groks your slang) to get users to start feeding in data to build out their AI.

Their main focus is on developing an offline next word prediction engine which could be licensed for use anywhere users are texting, not just on a mobile device.

“The goal is to develop a world-leading text prediction engine that runs completely on-device,” says co-founder David Eberle. “The smartphone keyboard really is a first use case. It’s great to test and develop our algorithms in a real-life setting with tens of thousands of users. The larger play is to bring word/sentence completion to any application that involves text entry, on mobiles or desktop (or in future also wearables/VR/Brain-Computer Interfaces).

“Currently it’s pretty much only Google working on this (see Gmail’s auto completion feature). Applications such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Telegram, or even SAP, Oracle, Salesforce would want such productivity increase – and at that level privacy/data security matters a lot. Ultimately we envision that every “human-machine interface” is, at least on the text-input level, powered by Typewise.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking all this sounds a bit retro, given the earlier boom in smartphone AI keyboards — such as SwiftKey (now owned by Microsoft).

The founders have also pushed specific elements of their current keyboard app — such as the distinctive honeycomb layout — before, going down a crowdfunding route back in 2015, when they were calling the concept Wrio. But they reckon it’s now time to go all in — hence relaunching the business as Typewise and shooting to build a licensing business for offline next word prediction.

“We’ll use the funds to develop advanced text predictions… first launching it in the keyboard app and then bringing it to the desktop to start building partnerships with relevant software vendors,” says Eberle, noting they’re working on various enhancements to the keyboard app and also plan to spend on marketing to try to hit 1M active users next year.

“We have more ‘innovative stuff’ [incoming] on the UX side as well, e.g. interacting with auto correction (so the user can easily intervene when it does something wrong — in many countries users just turn it off on all keyboards because it gets annoying), gamifying the general typing experience (big opportunity for kids/teenagers, also making them more aware of what and how they type), etc.”

The competitive landscape around smartphone keyboard tech, largely dominated by tech giants, has left room for indie plays, is the thinking. Nor is Typewise the only startup thinking that way (Fleksy has similar ambitions, for one). However gaining traction vs such giants — and over long established typing methods — is the tricky bit.

Android maker Google has ploughed resource into its Gboard AI keyboard — larding it with features. While, on iOS, Apple’s interface for switching to a third party keyboard is infamously frustrating and finicky; the opposite of a seamless experience. Plus the native keyboard offers next word prediction baked in — and Apple has plenty of privacy credit. So why would a user bother switching is the problem there.

Competing for smartphone users’ fingers as an indie certainly isn’t easy. Alternative keyboard layouts and input mechanism are always a very tough sell as they disrupt people’s muscle memory and hit mobile users hard in their comfort and productivity zone. Unless the user is patient and/or stubborn enough to stick with a frustratingly different experience they’ll soon ditch for the keyboard devil they know.  (‘Qwerty’ is an ancient typewriter layout turned typing habit we English speakers just can’t kick.)

Given all that, Typewise’s retooled focus on offline next word prediction to do white label b2b licensing makes more sense — assuming they can pull off the core tech.

And, again, they’re competing at a data disadvantage on that front vs more established tech giant keyboard players, even as they argue that’s also a market opportunity.

“Google and Microsoft (thanks to the acquisition of SwiftKey) have a solid technology in place and have started to offer text predictions outside of the keyboard; many of their competitors, however, will want to embed a proprietary (difficult to build) or independent technology, especially if their value proposition is focused on privacy/confidentiality,” Eberle argues.

“Would Telegram want to use Google’s text predictions? Would SAP want that their clients’ data goes through Microsoft’s prediction algorithms? That’s where we see our right to win: world-class text predictions that run on-device (privacy) and are made in Switzerland (independent environment, no security back doors, etc).”

Early impressions of Typewise’s next word prediction smarts (gleaned by via checking out its iOS app) are pretty low key (ha!). But it’s v1 of the AI — and Eberle talks bullishly of having “world class” developers working on it.

“The collaboration with ETH just started a few weeks ago and thus there are no significant improvements yet visible in the live app,” he tells TechCrunch. “As the collaboration runs until the end of 2021 (with the opportunity of extension) the vast majority of innovation is still to come.”

He also tells us Typewise is working with ETH’s Prof. Thomas Hofmann (chair of the Data Analytic Lab, formerly at Google), as well as having has two PhDs in NLP/ML and one MSc in ML contributing to the effort.

“We get exclusive rights to the [ETH] technology; they don’t hold equity but they get paid by the Swiss government on our behalf,” Eberle also notes. 

Typewise says its smartphone app supports more than 35 languages. But its next word prediction AI can only handle English, German, French, Italian and Spanish at this point. The startup says more are being added.

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Typewise taps $1M to build an offline next word prediction engine

Swiss keyboard startup Typewise has bagged a $1 million seed round to build out a typo-busting, ‘privacy-safe’ next word prediction engine designed to run entirely offline. No cloud connectivity, no data mining risk is the basic idea.

They also intend the tech to work on text inputs made on any device, be it a smartphone or desktop, a wearable, VR — or something weirder that Elon Musk might want to plug into your brain in future.

For now they’ve got a smartphone keyboard app that’s had around 250,000 downloads — with some 65,000 active users at this point.

The seed funding breaks down into $700K from more than a dozen local business angels; and $340K via the Swiss government through a mechanism (called “Innosuisse projects“), akin to a research grant, which is paying for the startup to employ machine learning experts at Zurich’s ETH research university to build out the core AI.

The team soft launched a smartphone keyboard app late last year, which includes some additional tweaks (such as an optional honeycomb layout they tout as more efficient; and the ability to edit next word predictions so the keyboard quickly groks your slang) to get users to start feeding in data to build out their AI.

Their main focus is on developing an offline next word prediction engine which could be licensed for use anywhere users are texting, not just on a mobile device.

“The goal is to develop a world-leading text prediction engine that runs completely on-device,” says co-founder David Eberle. “The smartphone keyboard really is a first use case. It’s great to test and develop our algorithms in a real-life setting with tens of thousands of users. The larger play is to bring word/sentence completion to any application that involves text entry, on mobiles or desktop (or in future also wearables/VR/Brain-Computer Interfaces).

“Currently it’s pretty much only Google working on this (see Gmail’s auto completion feature). Applications such as Microsoft Teams, Slack, Telegram, or even SAP, Oracle, Salesforce would want such productivity increase – and at that level privacy/data security matters a lot. Ultimately we envision that every “human-machine interface” is, at least on the text-input level, powered by Typewise.”

You’d be forgiven for thinking all this sounds a bit retro, given the earlier boom in smartphone AI keyboards — such as SwiftKey (now owned by Microsoft).

The founders have also pushed specific elements of their current keyboard app — such as the distinctive honeycomb layout — before, going down a crowdfunding route back in 2015, when they were calling the concept Wrio. But they reckon it’s now time to go all in — hence relaunching the business as Typewise and shooting to build a licensing business for offline next word prediction.

“We’ll use the funds to develop advanced text predictions… first launching it in the keyboard app and then bringing it to the desktop to start building partnerships with relevant software vendors,” says Eberle, noting they’re working on various enhancements to the keyboard app and also plan to spend on marketing to try to hit 1M active users next year.

“We have more ‘innovative stuff’ [incoming] on the UX side as well, e.g. interacting with auto correction (so the user can easily intervene when it does something wrong — in many countries users just turn it off on all keyboards because it gets annoying), gamifying the general typing experience (big opportunity for kids/teenagers, also making them more aware of what and how they type), etc.”

The competitive landscape around smartphone keyboard tech, largely dominated by tech giants, has left room for indie plays, is the thinking. Nor is Typewise the only startup thinking that way (Fleksy has similar ambitions, for one). However gaining traction vs such giants — and over long established typing methods — is the tricky bit.

Android maker Google has ploughed resource into its Gboard AI keyboard — larding it with features. While, on iOS, Apple’s interface for switching to a third party keyboard is infamously frustrating and finicky; the opposite of a seamless experience. Plus the native keyboard offers next word prediction baked in — and Apple has plenty of privacy credit. So why would a user bother switching is the problem there.

Competing for smartphone users’ fingers as an indie certainly isn’t easy. Alternative keyboard layouts and input mechanism are always a very tough sell as they disrupt people’s muscle memory and hit mobile users hard in their comfort and productivity zone. Unless the user is patient and/or stubborn enough to stick with a frustratingly different experience they’ll soon ditch for the keyboard devil they know.  (‘Qwerty’ is an ancient typewriter layout turned typing habit we English speakers just can’t kick.)

Given all that, Typewise’s retooled focus on offline next word prediction to do white label b2b licensing makes more sense — assuming they can pull off the core tech.

And, again, they’re competing at a data disadvantage on that front vs more established tech giant keyboard players, even as they argue that’s also a market opportunity.

“Google and Microsoft (thanks to the acquisition of SwiftKey) have a solid technology in place and have started to offer text predictions outside of the keyboard; many of their competitors, however, will want to embed a proprietary (difficult to build) or independent technology, especially if their value proposition is focused on privacy/confidentiality,” Eberle argues.

“Would Telegram want to use Google’s text predictions? Would SAP want that their clients’ data goes through Microsoft’s prediction algorithms? That’s where we see our right to win: world-class text predictions that run on-device (privacy) and are made in Switzerland (independent environment, no security back doors, etc).”

Early impressions of Typewise’s next word prediction smarts (gleaned by via checking out its iOS app) are pretty low key (ha!). But it’s v1 of the AI — and Eberle talks bullishly of having “world class” developers working on it.

“The collaboration with ETH just started a few weeks ago and thus there are no significant improvements yet visible in the live app,” he tells TechCrunch. “As the collaboration runs until the end of 2021 (with the opportunity of extension) the vast majority of innovation is still to come.”

He also tells us Typewise is working with ETH’s Prof. Thomas Hofmann (chair of the Data Analytic Lab, formerly at Google), as well as having has two PhDs in NLP/ML and one MSc in ML contributing to the effort.

“We get exclusive rights to the [ETH] technology; they don’t hold equity but they get paid by the Swiss government on our behalf,” Eberle also notes. 

Typewise says its smartphone app supports more than 35 languages. But its next word prediction AI can only handle English, German, French, Italian and Spanish at this point. The startup says more are being added.

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Amazon reportedly in talks to buy a 9.9% stake in India’s Reliance Retail

Amazon may join its global rivals Google and Facebook in backing one of Indian billionaire Mukesh Ambani’s ventures.

The American e-commerce giant is in preliminary talks to acquire a 9.9% stake in Reliance Retail, local TV news channel ET Now reported Thursday afternoon, citing unnamed sources.

Reliance Retail, founded in 2006, is the largest retail chain in India. It serves over 3.5 million customers each week as of early this year through its nearly 10,000 physical stores in more than 6,500 cities and towns in the country.

Reliance Industries, which is the most valuable firm in India and operates Reliance Retail and Jio Platforms, declined to comment on the report. Amazon also declined to comment.

The reported talks between Amazon and Reliance Retail comes days after Ambani, who is India’s richest man, said several firms had expressed interest in backing the retail chain. Ambani’s other venture, Reliance Jio Platforms, has secured over $20 billion by selling 33% stake to more than a dozen investors including Facebook, Google, Silver Lake, and General Atlantic since April this year.

During Reliance Industries’ annual general meeting earlier this month, Ambani said the company will “induct global partners and investors in Reliance Retail in the next few quarters.”

Reliance Industries’ new venture JioMart is increasingly becoming a new challenger to Amazon, which has invested more than $6.5 billion in its India business, and Walmart’s Flipkart in recent months. Facebook said in April that it had entered into an agreement with Reliance Industries to explore ways to collaborate on serving 60 million mom and pop stores in India.

Morgan Stanley, which served as the financial advisor to Reliance Industries for Jio Platforms’ deals, recently valued Reliance Retail at about $29 billion.

Both Amazon and Reliance Retail, according to local media reports, have also been locked in a battle to acquire majority stake in Future Retail, India’s second largest retail chain. Last year, Amazon invested more than $100 million to acquire a 49% stake in Future Coupons, a group entity owned by Future Retail.

That investment, which gave Amazon a 3.58% stake in Future Retail, also granted it the rights of first refusal to purchase more stake in Future Retail both directly as well as via entities, according to terms the two companies disclosed in a regulatory filing.

The two companies have also signed a “long-term business agreement” as part of which Future Retail sells some goods online through Amazon India marketplace.

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Rethink Files Connects Your Online Accounts and Gives You a Decade of Cloud Storage for $49

In many senses, cloud apps are more convenient than native software. However, you can easily find yourself split between multiple accounts, endlessly searching for where you saved a particular document. Rethink Files provides a neat solution. This platform lets you access files from all your online accounts, and provides 2TB of backup space. Right now, you can get a 10-year subscription for just $49 at MakeUseOf Deals.

The Ultimate Cloud Hub

Imagine you need to work on a document. Before you can start making progress, you need to remember — did you save the original draft in OneDrive or Zoho Docs? Maybe someone sent you a newer version in Slack or Outlook?

With Rethink Files, you don’t need even to consider such questions. This platform turns all your accounts into one giant cloud drive, complete with search and file previews. The service supports over 100 different file types, and a long list of services including Box, Amazon S3, Dropbox, Google Drive, Gmail, and more.

In addition, Rethink Files provides 2TB of standalone storage. This means you can easily transfer files between accounts, share between devices, and create a backup of your work. Just as importantly, all your data is protected by AES-256 encryption.

A Decade of Service for $49

Order now for just $49 to get 10 years of service with Rethink Files including 2TB of cloud storage.

Read the full article: Rethink Files Connects Your Online Accounts and Gives You a Decade of Cloud Storage for $49

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How To Stop Cortana From Auto Loading With Windows 10

CLICK HERE TO SEE FULL POST

Microsoft made a change to Cortana in Windows 10 version 2004. In 2004 and later versions, Cortana is offered as a dedicated app. This means that Cortana can be managed just like any other independent app. Now that Cortana is a separate app, we can reset, uninstall, or change its startup behavior. In one of […]

The post How To Stop Cortana From Auto Loading With Windows 10 appeared first on Into Windows. Content from IntoWindows website.

Campfire Habitable Zone

Campfire Habitable Zone

Twitter admits hackers accessed DMs of dozens of high-profile accounts

Last week’s hack of over 100 very high-profile Twitter accounts did in fact expose the direct messages of many of those accounts, the company admitted today — including those of an elected official in the Netherlands.

The attack saw numerous popular accounts of celebrities and politicians taken over and tweeting a very obvious Bitcoin scam that nevertheless seems to have netted at least six figures. Twitter said that a “coordinated social engineering attack” gave hackers “access to internal systems and tools.” Verified users were also briefly prevented from tweeting (a change some welcomed).

In tweets and an update to its blog post on the “security incident,” Twitter said that “for up to 36 of the 130 targeted accounts, the attackers accessed the DM inbox.” They are “actively working on communicating directly” with those accounts affected.

We believe that for up to 36 of the 130 targeted accounts, the attackers accessed the DM inbox, including 1 elected official in the Netherlands. To date, we have no indication that any other former or current elected official had their DMs accessed.

— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 22, 2020

Twitter had declined to say in the immediate aftermath of the attack whether DMs had been accessed by the hackers. Twitter’s messaging system is infamously not well encrypted but it was not clear whether the administrative tool reportedly used by the attackers offered access to inboxes.

A hacker used Twitter’s own ‘admin’ tool to spread cryptocurrency scam

Apparently whatever method was used, it gave access to DMs some of the time, or perhaps the hackers simply didn’t avail themselves of the opportunity for the remaining 94 accounts they took over. It’s not really clear from Twitter’s announcement. Twitter has previously said that it has “no evidence” that passwords were accessed by the hackers, and nothing in the update contradicts that.

The company’s attempted to place a silver lining on this cloud, saying it had “no indication that any other former or current elected official had their DMs accessed.” Considering the accounts of Barack Obama and Joe Biden were among those affected, that is technically good news.

This is almost certainly not the last we’ll hear from Twitter on this disturbing security breach.

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Facebook tests a new Page design with a cleaner layout and no more ‘Like’ button

Facebook is testing a new design for Facebook Pages that will, among other things, remove the “Like” count, offer a cleaner and more readable layout, and make it easier for those who operate Pages to actually use and manage them. These features and others were initially tested with a small percentage of public figures on the mobile app, but are now being expanded to a broader group of Pages.

Currently, the public figures involved in the test include actors, authors, creators, and a small handful of media entities, like bands and books. If included in the test, the Pages will see an option to opt in to try out the new experience when they’re logged in on mobile.

Facebook says it’s now expanding the test now to include a small percentage of English-language business Pages, as well.

Image Credits: Facebook (Old vs New Pages)

 

The updated design and feature set is meant to make using Pages less complex, something the company understands can be an issue. It also acknowledges the need to simplify the use of Pages now, in particular, with so many people continuing to practice social distancing and choosing to instead connect with their communities online.

The new Page layout is meant to make it easier for visitors to a Page see key information, like the Page’s bio and posts. Notably, the design does away with the Page Likes and the Like button. Instead, the Page will only display a Follow button and follower count.

This change better reflects the Page’s true reach. Many people have “Liked” various Pages over the years, but then unfollowed them from their News Feed as they outgrew their interest. (Or they unfollowed them because they were only liking the Page as a favor, after being sent a request, for example.) The Follows count, meanwhile, indicates how many people are actually receiving the Page’s update in their News Feed.

Image Credits: Facebook

 

 

Having both options has lead to a more complicated process where users first “like” a Page, which creates an automatic follow. But the person can then back out of that follow by changing their settings at any time. Page owners find this to be confusing and unhelpful because they want to engage with followers who are actually interested in the Page and its contents.

In addition, Page owners will be able to better connect with followers by browsing their News Feed, and then quickly switch between their personal Facebook profile and the public-facing Page (or Pages) they manage when they want to comment or react to posts they come across.

On the Page management side, they’ll be able to more clearly assign and manage admin access permissions based on specific tasks. This will be handled by an updated “Edit Access” screen, where owners can toggle on and off specific management tasks, like who can create Page content, send direct messages as the Page. create ads, respond to comments, and more.

Image Credits:

The update additionally aims to make it simpler to navigate to the Page Insights section, which is where Page owners and managers track analytics related to the Page’s performance.

Now, Page owners will be able to get to these insights from the Page itself or even directly from a post. Within the Insights section, they’ll gain access to a handful newly added insights, as well, including top performing posts and a new metric that shows the Page’s audience overlap with its connected Instagram account.

They’ll receive fewer notifications from their Pages, too, as Facebook will now group together relevant and related data, like mentions and post reactions, when sending updates.

Image Credits: Facebook

The test is running now in the Facebook mobile app but it’s not limited only to those who are seeing the simplified app design (pictured here with the colorful blue background and boxes.)

Facebook isn’t sharing when the update will roll out more broadly as this is still considered a test for the time being.

 

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10 Useful Kindle Sites You Should Know About

If you don’t own a Kindle yet, we heartily recommend you buy one.

Kindles have dramatically longer battery lives than smartphones and tablets, and allow you to carry around thousands of books everywhere you go. Ultimately, owning a Kindle can help you read more books in less time.

However, as awesome as Kindles are out of the box, there are a collection of websites that you should use to get even more out of your Kindle. The following Kindle websites are the perfect companions to your ereader.

1. OverDrive: Borrow From Public Libraries

Anyone can browse OverDrive’s huge selection of ebooks and view samples of any title, but you’ll need a library card to check one out to your Kindle. The borrowing period typically depends on the library you use to check out the ebook.

It’s also worth mentioning that this Kindle-friendly site lends out audiobooks as well. There are several differences between podcasts and audiobooks, but podcast-lovers will still feel right at home with an audiobook.

After all, both let you drive your car, exercise, or do work while listening to something compelling. And since audiobooks are really expensive, you can save a lot of money by borrowing them instead.

2. Book Lending: Lend Your Ebooks to Others

Book Lending is an interesting service that complements, rather than overlaps with, OverDrive. Whereas OverDrive is all about borrowing from a public library, Book Lending offers a crowd-sourced group of users who share their ebooks with each other.

As a participant, you can put up your ebooks to lend and choose to borrow the ebooks that others have put up. Just keep in mind that during the 14-day loan period, you can’t read the ebooks you loaned out. Since ebook lending is an Amazon feature, there’s no risk: Book Lending simply matches borrowers with lenders (and vice versa).

3. Instapaper: Send Web Articles to Your Kindle

Instapaper is a simple service that lets you store web articles in one place. This way, you can read through them all at once when you have some free time. It also has a bunch of other nifty features, like letting you share those articles with others, and exporting them so you can read them on other devices.

As a Kindle user, Instapaper is great because you can set it to periodically send your articles over to your Kindle device in a readable format. So as you browse the web, you can save articles for later, then wake up to your article-filled Kindle. It basically turns your Kindle into a morning newspaper!

4. Kindle4RSS: Send RSS Feeds to Your Kindle

Many years ago, KindleFeeder exploded in popularity. This site allowed you to set up RSS feeds, turn them into an “e-periodical” ebook, and deliver them to your Kindle device every night. Unfortunately, the site stopped accepting new registrations in 2013.

Kindle4RSS is a similar but lesser-known alternative that serves the same basic purpose. After you set up a bunch of RSS feeds, you can then send them to your Kindle.

You can send up to 25 articles at a time with the free plan, and each delivery comes with a “Table of Contents” for easy browsing. All images are included in the delivery, and it can also convert partial-text feeds into full text, which is surprisingly convenient.

5. Online-Convert: Convert Between Ebook Formats

Not all ebook formats are equal, and not all ebooks are produced in all formats. Imagine stumbling across a free offer for a highly-anticipated novel that’s only available in LIT or FB2 formats. Or perhaps you have an older Kindle that can’t read a newer Kindle format. Either way, an online converter is the way to go.

Online-Convert is one of a handful of high-quality online ebook converters you can use for almost every format. Although there are other tools of its kind, this is the most straightforward one that we’ve found.

Supported formats include AZW3, EPUB, FB2, LIT, MOBI, PDF, and more. You can convert files from any supported format to any other supported format listed on the site.

6. IFTTT: Automate Kindle Tasks

IFTTT is an automation service that lets you set up “triggers” and connect them with “actions” that are performed any time the given trigger occurs. For example, one IFTTT recipe sends any article in Pocket tagged as “Kindle” over to your device.

You can search the IFTTT site for pre-existing recipes, but it’s most effective if you learn how to create your own IFTTT recipes. Since the site supports thousands of different triggers and actions, your imagination and ingenuity are the only limits as to what you can do.

7. KBoards: An Online Forum for Kindle Users

It might seem weird that thousands of Kindle users check into KBoards every day to discuss all manner of Kindle-related topics, but it happens. Here you’ll find subsections dedicated to specific devices, activities, and ebooks.

In other words, it’s the perfect place to ask for technical support, find out about Kindle tips, discuss books, and chat with other members of the Kindle community. The sections for device reviews, trading devices, and finding cheap Kindle books are sure to come in handy as well.

8. r/Kindle: A Subreddit for Kindle Users

Not a fan of Reddit? Then feel free to gloss over this one. Reddit is a Top 25 website in terms of worldwide traffic, so it should be your first stop any time you’re looking for an active online community. At the time of writing, r/Kindle has over 81,000 subscribers and dozens of new threads every day.

Most new threads are support requests, but the subreddit can be a great way to stay on top of Kindle-related news. You’ll also find reviews for new devices, occasional links to Kindle book deals, and a monthly “What Are You Reading?” thread which can lead to some interesting new reads.

9. Kindle Chronicles: A Podcast for Kindle Users

The Kindle Chronicles podcast has been around since 2008, which is an incredible run for any podcast, let alone one that focuses on a topic as niche as the Kindle. Each episode has a guest that talks about various subjects related to Kindles, ebooks, ereaders, Amazon devices, and more.

Some of the later episodes aren’t as Kindle-focused, but you can always delve into the podcast’s archives and listen only to Kindle-related episodes.

10. The Official Facebook Page: A Kindle Community

Facebook isn’t everyone’s favorite social media site, and that’s understandable. However, it does have an active Kindle community. The official Amazon Kindle page gives you your daily dose of Kindle news and book recommendations, and also lets you interact with other Kindle users.

If you’re not comfortable interacting with such a large community, Facebook is home to several smaller Kindle book clubs and groups. Simply search for “Kindle” in Facebook’s search bar, and you’ll see several communities dedicated to sharing free ebooks and discussing Kindle-related topics.

Use These Sites to Get More From Your Kindle

Whether you want to chat with other Kindle users, convert file formats, or borrow ebooks, these Kindle websites are essential bookmarks. And if you want to get even more from your Kindle, check out these apps and sites every Kindle owner will love.

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Deep learning, neural networks and the future of AI | Yann LeCun

Deep learning, neural networks and the future of AI | Yann LeCun

Yann LeCun, the chief AI scientist at Facebook, helped develop the deep learning algorithms that power many artificial intelligence systems today. In conversation with head of TED Chris Anderson, LeCun discusses his current research into self-supervised machine learning, how he's trying to build machines that learn with common sense (like humans) and his hopes for the next conceptual breakthrough in AI.

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Click this link to view the TED Talk

Mobalytics raises $11M and adds eye tracking metrics to its automated gaming coach

Back in 2016, Mobalytics wowed the judges at Disrupt SF with its data-based coach for the exploding competitive gaming world, winning the Startup Battlefield. The company is building on the success of the past few years with a new funding round and a compelling new collaboration with Tobii that uses eye-tracking to provide powerful insights into gamers’ skills.

Mobalytics began with the idea that, by leveraging the in-game data of a competitive e-sport like League of Legends (LoL), they could provide objective feedback to players along the lines of how fast or effective they are in different situations. Quantifying things like survivability or teamplay provides an analogue to similar measures in physical sports.

“On an athlete you have all these measurements, like pulse oximeters, ECGs, the 40-yard dash,” said Amine Issa, co-founder and “Warchief of Science.” Not so much with PC games. Their challenge at that time was to take the LoL API provided by Riot and transform it into actionable feedback, which the company’s success in the years since suggests they managed to do.

But Issa had always wanted to use another, more direct and objective measurement of a gamer’s mental processes: eye tracking. And last year they began an internal project to evaluate doing just that, in partnership with eye-tracking hardware maker Tobii.

“If you know where someone is looking, it’s the closest thing to knowing what they’re thinking,” Issa said. “When you combine that with the larger picture you can put together something to help them along. So we spent six months conducting research, taking players of different levels and roles and studying their eye tracking data to find some metrics we could organize the platform around.”

Not surprisingly, there are characteristics of the highly skilled (and practiced) that set them apart, and the team was able to collect them into a set of characteristics that any player can relate to.

Well, the gif compression isn’t so hot, but you get the idea – the purple square indicates attention. Image Credits: Mobalytics

“We had to think about how to build a product that people want to use. One thing we learned after TechCrunch is that even a simple score from 0-100 doesn’t work for everyone. You need to provide the context for that. So with something like eye tracking, you’re getting 30 data points per second — how do you break that down in a way that players understand it?”

Talking to professional gamers and coaches during the study helped them form the main categories that Mobalytics now tracks with the aid of a Tobii device, like information processing, map awareness, and tunnel vision.

“It’s important to be able to tell a narrative to people. Say you get ganked a lot,” said Issa, referring to the unfortunate occurrence of being picked off by enemy players while alone. “Why are you getting ganked? If your vision score is high but map awareness is low, that’s one thing. Did you know all the information and go in arrogantly, or were you not aware? League is a very complicated game, so players want to know, in this specific fight, what did I do wrong, and what should I have done instead?”

That second question is a tougher one (though perhaps AI MOBA players may have something to say about it), but the metrics are powerful in and of themselves. “Pros are fascinated by this technology,” Issa said. “There’s a lot of ‘I had no idea’ moments. Coaches have said, these are my fastest players but it’s cool to see that as a quantifiable variable.”

A post-game dashboard lets you know your strengths and weaknesses.

Tobii’s head of gaming, Martin Lindgren, echoed this feeling: “Pro teams aren’t interested in being told what to do. They want the data so they can draw their own conclusions.”

Tobii now has a gaming-focused eye-tracker and integrates with a number of AAA games, like Rise of the Tomb Raider, where it can be used in place of fiddly aiming using the analog sticks. As someone who’s bad at specifically that part of games, this is attractive to me, and Lindgren said opportunities like that are only increasing as gaming companies embrace both accessibility and try to stand out in a crowded market.

The companies have worked together to improve the eye-tracking coaching, for instance lowering the number of games a user must play before the system can accurately track their in-game actions; Lindgren said the collaboration with Mobalytics is ongoing — “definitely a long-term partnership” — in fact Tobii’s relationship with the founders predates their startup.

Image Credits: Tobii

The ultimate goal of the Mobalytics is to have a gaming assistant that adapts itself to your playing and preferences, making intelligent suggestions to improve your skills. That’s a ways off, but the company is getting the hang of it. Its first product the LoL assistant, took a year to build, Issa said. A more recent one, for Legends of Runeterra, took three months. Teamfight Tactics took three weeks.

Admittedly it was more difficult to design one for Valorant, which being a first-person shooter is wildly different from the other games — but now that it’s done, a lot of that work could be applied to an assistant for Counter-Strike or Overwatch.

Expansion to other games and genres is the reason for raising an $11M series A, led by Almaz Capital and Cabra VC, with HP Tech Ventures, General Catalyst, GGV Capital, RRE Ventures, Axiomatic and T1 Esports participating.

“It was a very different experience from the post-TechCrunch one, where you’re in the spotlight and everyone’s throwing money your way,” said Issa. “But we’ve built a successful product on LoL, expanded to four games, today we have more than seven million monthly active users… Our plan is to double down on what’s worked for us and create the ultimate gaming companion.”

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