Google has long been a member of the Linux Foundation, but at the relatively low Silver level. Today, the company is stepping up its commitment by becoming a Platinum sponsor — the highest level of membership the open source non-profit organization currently offers. Silver membership for large corporations run just under $100,000 per year, while Platinum sponsors pay $500,000. As part of this move, Sarah Novotny, Google’s head of open source strategy for the Google Cloud Platform, is joining the Linux Foundation Board of Directors.
With this, Google joins AT&T, Cisco, Fujitsu, Hitachi, Huawei, IBM, Intel, Microsoft, NEC, Oracle, Qualcomm, Samsung and VMware as a Platinum member, but it’s worth remembering that the Linux Foundation now has over 800 members at all levels.
“Google is one of the biggest contributors to and supporters of open source in the world, and we are thrilled that they have decided to increase their involvement in The Linux Foundation,” said Jim Zemlin, the executive director of the Linux Foundation, in today’s announcement. “We are honored that Sarah Novotny, one of the leading figures in the open source community, will join our board – she will be a tremendous asset.”
Google notes that it has released and contributed to over 10,000 open source projects to date, including Linux Foundation-managed projects like Cloud Foundry, Node.js, the Cloud Native Computing Foundation (the project behind the Kubenetes container orchestration service) and the Open API Initiative.
To some degree, it’s a bit of a surprise that Google remained a Silver member for so long, given its extensive involvement with various open source software project and ecosystems over the years.
“Open source is an essential part of Google’s culture, and we’ve long recognized the potential of open ecosystems to grow quickly, be more resilient and adaptable in the face of change, and create better software” said Novotny. “The Linux Foundation is a fixture in the open source community. By working closely with the organization, we can better engage with the community-at-large and continue to build a more inclusive ecosystem where everyone can benefit.”
Those Galaxy Note 9 rumors have been coming fast and furious in recent weeks, and now we know why. Samsung just sent out invites for its next big event in New York City, and its beloved phablet seems all but guaranteed to show up. The timeframe certainly lines up.
The pen-enabled device was first announced at IFA back in 2011, and while the company has moved away from the trade show toward its own stage in recent years, announcements have more or less stayed within that August/September timeframe. And holding the event on August 9, well, that’s likely more than just a numerological coincidence. As if all that weren’t confirmation enough, the handset appears to have also recently passed through the FCC (alongside theTab S3 tablet), a surefire sign that it’s just over the horizon.
The phone was the subject of a big leak earlier this week, that hinted at an update to line’s iconic S Pen stylus. Exact details are pretty thin at the moment, though one leaker called it “the biggest update” in the peripheral’s history, for what that’s worth. And the close up shot on this morning’s invites do appear to confirm a focus on the stylus. Samsung has refined the S Pen’s writing system in the seven years since the first device was announced, but it’s largely taken a backset to things like screen design and camera specs.
Otherwise, however, Note 9 reports paint a picture of fairly minor upgrades over the Note 8, with plenty of features cribbed from the S9 announced back in February at Mobile World Congress.
Selling stock photos online is an attractive way to make some extra cash. We’ve previously discussed the best websites to sell your photos on, so this article will cover the best types of photos you can take, based on what actually sells.
What Types of Photos Sell Best?
With over 200,000,000 stock images, Shutterstock is perhaps the most popular paid stock photography website. Here’s what’s popular, based on their 2018 creative trends and data analysis.
Top Contributors
Studying the top contributors on Shutterstock yields an interesting result. With some notable exceptions, the vast majority of high-performing contributors sell either generic photos of people or events, or vector artwork.
Contributors antishock, Rvector, Aha-Soft, and Toluk all sell custom vector artwork, and are listed among the top 10 best contributors to Shutterstock. Each artist has their own personal style, but their work can be loosely grouped into two main styles.
Icons can be used for websites, fliers, apps, and more.
Abstract backgrounds can be used for desktop wallpapers, posters, or simply inspiration.
These kinds of images sell well, and businesses of any size are always looking for artwork for a whole variety of media. New laws coming into force may mean that there’s always a seasonal trend to look out for.
These kinds of photos will always be in demand. Newspapers and other publications need “generic” photos of people shaking hands, serving food, or having a meeting. Celebrity photos will often rise and fall in popularity, depending on the media cycle. The trick here is to have a large library, to ensure that there’s always something selling.
Seasonal Trends
Looking at the Shutterstock top contributors list, alongside their popular image bundle categories, there’s a large number of seasonal themes. The World Cup is a good example, as when it’s held every four years there’s great demand (and supply) for soccer-related images.
National and international laws, events, and news may also feature here. Big changes such as the the GDPR regulation, or weather-related events such as a lunar eclipse often feature here, but the hype may not last long.
You could be onto a winner if you can spot a potential upcoming event, and prepare photos in advance.
Popular Searches
What people are searching for is a great place to see what images are selling. Search trends can also be impacted by seasonal events, and may not reflect popular local or national changes.
The overwhelming majority of popular searches feature nature, animals, Christmas, or cars. There are a few exceptions, such as “cool backgrounds”, but the vast majority of these searches will always be in demand.
It doesn’t make sense to focus heavily on Christmas in summer, but it may be worthwhile taking photos of a new sports model of car, or a cute puppy.
Photos of specific seasons at the appropriate time (e.g. summer photos during spring and summer) sell well, but nature and season photos in general are fairly popular all-year-round.
Don’t forget to include regional variations for images, such as “Fall” and “Autumn”.
Popular Categories
Just like the popular photos above, animals, celebrities, and vector artwork are all in-demand photo categories.
These categories contain the same two types of photos: cartoon vector artwork, and real-life photography.
Consumers appear to be looking for “cute” little graphics to liven up a product, service, or advertisement. Professional looking photos may be featured in magazines, tutorials, or publications.
Creative Trends
Every year, Shutterstock publishes a list of up-and-coming creative trends. These are popular artwork ideas and photo styles that are being used more and more, and styles that are beginning to swell into large numbers of images, genres, and searches.
Producing content like this can be tough to maintain. Their popularity may only be a fad, or perhaps content creators are looking for that style with a very specific brand name, slogan, or phrasing. By studying seasonal trends, and evergreen content that is always popular, you could produce trendy artwork, based around the ever popular content mentioned above.
According to Shutterstock, trends increasing in popularity are:
Fantasy
Sci-fi
Cryptocurrency
Holographics
These categories may not be surprising, but by combining these trends with current cultural or pop culture trends, you could be on to a real winner. Film and television hits or cult classics are always popular, so combine the two for artwork that will really do well.
What Photo Resolution Sells Best?
You don’t have to own the latest and greatest in photography equipment to take good photos. Shutterstock require images of at least 4 MP, but preferably higher. The vast majority of modern cameras are capable of producing a decent image at significantly larger resolutions than 4 MP.
While larger is often better, don’t get carried away with the specs, and end up with a 50 MP photo taken on a $50,000 camera—use what you have.
Our guide to understanding megapixels may prove helpful here if you’re not sure on the measurements. As a rough guideline, somewhere between 10-15 MP is more than adequate.
For vector artwork, customers will often demand original vector files. This will allow them to enlarge or modify your work to suit their needs. If you’re just getting started with vector artwork, then don’t forget to read our guide to working with vector graphics in Photoshop.
How to Edit Photos That Sell Quickly
Photo editing is a skill which requires practice, so the best way to learn it is by doing. As a rough guideline, many popular images are “good photos”. The exposure is perfect, composition good, and there’s no distracting objects in the foreground, or rude words which may cause offence.
As the Shutterstock data shows, some trends come and go, but other photo styles are always in demand. By building a high quality, consistent catalog, you can start selling more images online.
Here’s a summary of what sells well:
Vector artwork
People doing everyday things
Nature
Animals
Seasons
Transport
Trending topics or seasonal events do well at the correct time, but make sure you plan in advance, or combine them with bestselling content to produce something that really stands out.
Sonos has always gone its own way. The speaker manufacturer dedicated itself to network-connected speakers before there were home networks and they sold a tablet-like remote control before there were tablets. Their surround sound systems install quickly and run seamlessly. You can buy a few speakers, tap a few buttons, and have 5.1 sound in less time than it takes to pull a traditional home audio system out of its shipping box.
This latest model is an addition to the Sonos line and is sold alongside the Playbase – a lumpen soundbar designed to sit directly underneath TVs not attached to the wall – and the Playbar, a traditionally-styled soundbar that preceded the Beam. Both products had all of the Sonos highlights – great sound, amazing interfaces, and easy setup – but the Base had too much surface area for more elegant installations and the Bar was too long while still sporting an aesthetic that harkened back to 2008 Crutchfield catalogs.
The $399 Beam is Sonos’ answer to that and it is more than just a pretty box. The speaker includes Alexa – and promised Google Assistant support – and it improves your TV sound immensely. Designed as an add-on to your current TV, it can stand alone or connect with the Sonos subwoofer and a few satellite surround speakers for a true surround sound experience. It truly shines alone, however, thanks to its small size and more than acceptable audio range.
To use the Beam you bring up an iOS or Android app to display your Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and Pandora accounts (this is a small sampling. Sonos supports more.) You select a song or playlist and start listening. Then, when you want to watch TV, the speaker automatically flips to TV mode – including speech enhancement features that actually work – when the TV is turned on. An included tuning system turns your phone into a scanner that improves the room audio automatically.
The range is limited by the Beam’s size and shape and there is very little natural bass coming out of this thing. However, in terms of range the Beam is just fine. It can play an action movie with a bit of thump and then go on to play some light jazz or pop. I’ve had some surprisingly revelatory sessions with the Beam when listening to classic rock and more modern fare and it’s very usable as a home audio center.
The Beam is two feet long and 3 inches tall. It comes in black or white and is very unobtrusive in aly home theatre setup. Interestingly, the product supports HDMI-ARC aka HDMI Audio Return Channel. This standard, introduced in TVs made in the past five years, allows the TV to automatically output audio and manage volume controls via a single HDMI cable. What this means, however, is you’re going to have a bad time if you don’t have HDMI-ARC.
Sonos includes an adapter that can also accept optical audio output but setup requires you to turn off your TV speakers and route all the sound to the optical out. This is a bit of a mess and if you don’t have either of those outputs – HDMI-ARC or optical – then you’re probably in need of a new TV. That said, HDMI-ARC is a bit jarring for first timers but Sonos is sure that enough TVs support it that they can use it instead of optical-only.
The Beam doesn’t compete directly with other “smart” speakers like the HomePod. It is very specifically a consumer electronics device, even though it supports AirPlay 2 and Alexa. Sonos makes speakers and good ones at that and that goal has always been front and center. While other speakers may offer a more fully-featured sound in a much smaller package, the Beam offers both great TV audio and great music playback for less than any other higher end soundbar. Whole room audio does get expensive – about $1,200 for a Sub and two satellites – but you can simply add on pieces as you go. One thing, however, is clear: Sonos has always been the best wireless speaker for the money and the Beam is another win for the scrappy and innovative speaker company.
[gallery ids="1663460,1663461,1663462,1663463"] [gallery ids="1663385,1663386,1663388"] Read Full Article
Editor’s note:This post was done in partnership with Wirecutter. When readers choose to buy Wirecutter’s independently chosen editorial picks, Wirecutter and TechCrunch earn affiliate commissions.
When life gets busy, cooking is one of the first activities that many forego to get a bit more free time. However, after a while, ordering out and eating sub-par meals gets old. Kitchen gadgets that assist in quickly preparing meals and drinks are not only helpful but essential in creating balance — and time — to conquer the day.
Whether it’s a cold brew coffee maker that saves you money or sous vide gear that’ll upgrade your chef skills, we’ve gathered some of our favorite appliances that are enjoyable to use — and that give you another reason to spend more time in the kitchen.
The OXO Good Grips Spiralizer comes with three blade attachments (from left to right): a ⅛-inch spaghetti blade, a ribbon blade, and a ¼-inch fettuccine blade. Photo: Michael Hession
Spiralizer:OXO Good Grips Spiralizer
Thinking about the steps that go into making a really good salad or vegetable dish is enough to make some grab a take-out menu. If you always jump at the opportunity to cross chopping and dicing fresh vegetables off of your agenda, a spiralizer is a simpler alternative to use when prepping food. The OXO Good Grips Spiralizer is our top recommendation; it creates noodles, ribbons and chips that can be used as garnish or a full meal. After you secure it to your countertop, choose a blade and select your vegetable (or fruit) of choice, this gadget does the majority of the work. Pile your zucchini noodles or butternut squash ribbons high and freeze them to be eaten later in the week.
Personal Blender:NutriBullet Pro 900 Series
Most would agree that the effort it takes to make a smoothie is usually more than worth it. After researching more than 24 models, we tested 10 personal blenders and chose the NutriBullet Pro 900 Series as our top pick. Compared to other blenders we put to the test, it performed best powering through kale, frozen fruit, fresh ginger fiber and dates, as well as a mid-range full-size blender. It’s a great device to have on hand, it pays for itself and quickly produces whatever puree or smoothie you’re in the mood for. Consider an immersion blender for soups and purees that you want to cook in a pot or that call for ingredients that won’t fit in a personal blender.
When it’s time to impress your friends or do something in the kitchen that’s cooler than the norm, breaking out a sous vide cooker will do the trick. The Anova Precision Cooker Wi-Fi is an immersion circulator, which means it simultaneously circulates and heats water in which vegetables, eggs, steak, salmon, Greek yogurt and a list of other foods can be cooked. It clips to the side of a variety of containers and pots, and although it doesn’t require Wi-Fi to work, it enables its timer and temperature to be controlled from anywhere. You’ll need to vacuum seal your food before it’s cooked — and for a finishing sear we recommend using the Bernzomatic TS8000 searing torch.
The OXO brewer makes flavorful, money-saving concentrate, looks good on a counter and is easier to use and store than any other pick. Photo: Michael Hession
Cold Brew Coffee Maker:OXO Good Grips Cold Brew Coffee Maker
This guide may have been updated byWirecutter. Note from Wirecutter: When readers choose to buy our independently chosen editorial picks, we may earn affiliate commissions that support our work.
Sonos has always gone its own way. The speaker manufacturer dedicated itself to network-connected speakers before there were home networks and they sold a tablet-like remote control before there were tablets. Their surround sound systems install quickly and run seamlessly. You can buy a few speakers, tap a few buttons, and have 5.1 sound in less time than it takes to pull a traditional home audio system out of its shipping box.
This latest model is an addition to the Sonos line and is sold alongside the Playbase – a lumpen soundbar designed to sit directly underneath TVs not attached to the wall – and the Playbar, a traditionally-styled soundbar that preceded the Beam. Both products had all of the Sonos highlights – great sound, amazing interfaces, and easy setup – but the Base had too much surface area for more elegant installations and the Bar was too long while still sporting an aesthetic that harkened back to 2008 Crutchfield catalogs.
The $399 Beam is Sonos’ answer to that and it is more than just a pretty box. The speaker includes Alexa – and promised Google Assistant support – and it improves your TV sound immensely. Designed as an add-on to your current TV, it can stand alone or connect with the Sonos subwoofer and a few satellite surround speakers for a true surround sound experience. It truly shines alone, however, thanks to its small size and more than acceptable audio range.
To use the Beam you bring up an iOS or Android app to display your Spotify, Apple Music, Amazon, and Pandora accounts (this is a small sampling. Sonos supports more.) You select a song or playlist and start listening. Then, when you want to watch TV, the speaker automatically flips to TV mode – including speech enhancement features that actually work – when the TV is turned on. An included tuning system turns your phone into a scanner that improves the room audio automatically.
The range is limited by the Beam’s size and shape and there is very little natural bass coming out of this thing. However, in terms of range the Beam is just fine. It can play an action movie with a bit of thump and then go on to play some light jazz or pop. I’ve had some surprisingly revelatory sessions with the Beam when listening to classic rock and more modern fare and it’s very usable as a home audio center.
The Beam is two feet long and 3 inches tall. It comes in black or white and is very unobtrusive in aly home theatre setup. Interestingly, the product supports HDMI-ARC aka HDMI Audio Return Channel. This standard, introduced in TVs made in the past five years, allows the TV to automatically output audio and manage volume controls via a single HDMI cable. What this means, however, is you’re going to have a bad time if you don’t have HDMI-ARC.
Sonos includes an adapter that can also accept optical audio output but setup requires you to turn off your TV speakers and route all the sound to the optical out. This is a bit of a mess and if you don’t have either of those outputs – HDMI-ARC or optical – then you’re probably in need of a new TV. That said, HDMI-ARC is a bit jarring for first timers but Sonos is sure that enough TVs support it that they can use it instead of optical-only.
The Beam doesn’t compete directly with other “smart” speakers like the HomePod. It is very specifically a consumer electronics device, even though it supports AirPlay 2 and Alexa. Sonos makes speakers and good ones at that and that goal has always been front and center. While other speakers may offer a more fully-featured sound in a much smaller package, the Beam offers both great TV audio and great music playback for less than any other higher end soundbar. Whole room audio does get expensive – about $1,200 for a Sub and two satellites – but you can simply add on pieces as you go. One thing, however, is clear: Sonos has always been the best wireless speaker for the money and the Beam is another win for the scrappy and innovative speaker company.
Don’t want to know the ending to a World Cup game or Avengers movie until you’ve watched it, or just need to quiet an exhausting political topic like “Trump”? Facebook is now testing the option to “snooze” specific keywords so you won’t see them for 30 days in News Feed or Groups. The feature is rolling out to a small percentage of users today. It could make people both more comfortable browsing the social network when they’re trying to avoid something, and not feel guilty posting about sensitive topics.
The feature was first spotted in the Facebook’s app’s code by Chris Messina on Sunday, who told TechCrunch he found a string for “snooze keywords for 30 days”. We reached out to Facebook on Monday, which didn’t initially respond, but last night provided details we could publish at 5am this morning ahead of an official announcement later today. The test follows the roll out of snoozing people, Pages, and Groups from last December.
To snooze a keyword, you first have to find a post that includes it. That kind of defeats the whole purpose since you might run into the spoiler you didn’t want to see. But when asked about that problem, a Facebook spokesperson told me the company is looking into adding a preemptive snooze option in the next few weeks, potentially in News Feed Preferences. It’s also considering a recurring snooze list so you could easily re-enable hiding your favorite sports team before any game you’ll have to watch on delay.
For now, though, when you see the word you can hit the drop-down arrow on the post which will reveal an option to “snooze keywords in this post”. Tapping that reveals a list of nouns from the post you might want to nix, without common words like “the” in the way. So if you used the feature on a post that said “England won its World Cup game against Tunisia! Yes!”, the feature would pull out “World Cup”, “England”, and “Tunisia”. Select all that you want to snooze, and posts containing them will be hidden for a month. Currently, the feature only works on text, not images, and won’t suggest synonyms you might want to snooze as well.
The spokesperson says the feature “was something that kept coming up” in Facebook interviews with users. The option applies to any organic content, but you can’t block ads with it, so if you snoozed “Deadpool” you wouldn’t see posts from friends about the movie but still might see ads to buy tickets. Facebook’s excuse for this is that ads belong to a “a separate team, separate algorithm” but surely it just doesn’t want to open itself up to users mass-blocking its revenue driver. The spokesperson also said that snoozing isn’t currently being used for other content and ad targeting purposes.
We asked why users can’t permanently mute keywords like Twitter launched in November 2016, or the way Instagram launched keyword blocking for your posts’ comments in September 2016. Facebook says “If we’re hearing from people that they want more or less time” that might get added as the feature rolls out beyond a test. There is some sense to defaulting to only temporary muting, as users might simply forget they blocked their favorite sports team before a big game, and then wouldn’t see it mentioned forever after.
But when it comes to abuse, permanent muting is something Facebook really should offer. Instead it’s relied on users flagging abuse like racial slurs, and it recently revealed its content moderation guidelines. Some topics that are fine for others could be tough for certain people to see, though, and helping users prevent trauma probably deserves to be prioritized above stopping reality TV spoilers.
Don’t want to know the ending to a World Cup game or Avengers movie until you’ve watched it, or just need to quiet an exhausting political topic like “Trump”? Facebook is now testing the option to “snooze” specific keywords so you won’t see them for 30 days in News Feed or Groups. The feature is rolling out to a small percentage of users today. It could make people both more comfortable browsing the social network when they’re trying to avoid something, and not feel guilty posting about sensitive topics.
The feature was first spotted in the Facebook’s app’s code by Chris Messina on Sunday, who told TechCrunch he found a string for “snooze keywords for 30 days”. We reached out to Facebook on Monday, which didn’t initially respond, but last night provided details we could publish at 5am this morning ahead of an official announcement later today. The test follows the roll out of snoozing people, Pages, and Groups from last December.
To snooze a keyword, you first have to find a post that includes it. That kind of defeats the whole purpose since you might run into the spoiler you didn’t want to see. But when asked about that problem, a Facebook spokesperson told me the company is looking into adding a preemptive snooze option in the next few weeks, potentially in News Feed Preferences. It’s also considering a recurring snooze list so you could easily re-enable hiding your favorite sports team before any game you’ll have to watch on delay.
For now, though, when you see the word you can hit the drop-down arrow on the post which will reveal an option to “snooze keywords in this post”. Tapping that reveals a list of nouns from the post you might want to nix, without common words like “the” in the way. So if you used the feature on a post that said “England won its World Cup game against Tunisia! Yes!”, the feature would pull out “World Cup”, “England”, and “Tunisia”. Select all that you want to snooze, and posts containing them will be hidden for a month. Currently, the feature only works on text, not images, and won’t suggest synonyms you might want to snooze as well.
The spokesperson says the feature “was something that kept coming up” in Facebook interviews with users. The option applies to any organic content, but you can’t block ads with it, so if you snoozed “Deadpool” you wouldn’t see posts from friends about the movie but still might see ads to buy tickets. Facebook’s excuse for this is that ads belong to a “a separate team, separate algorithm” but surely it just doesn’t want to open itself up to users mass-blocking its revenue driver. The spokesperson also said that snoozing isn’t currently being used for other content and ad targeting purposes.
We asked why users can’t permanently mute keywords like Twitter launched in November 2016, or the way Instagram launched keyword blocking for your posts’ comments in September 2016. Facebook says “If we’re hearing from people that they want more or less time” that might get added as the feature rolls out beyond a test. There is some sense to defaulting to only temporary muting, as users might simply forget they blocked their favorite sports team before a big game, and then wouldn’t see it mentioned forever after.
But when it comes to abuse, permanent muting is something Facebook really should offer. Instead it’s relied on users flagging abuse like racial slurs, and it recently revealed its content moderation guidelines. Some topics that are fine for others could be tough for certain people to see, though, and helping users prevent trauma probably deserves to be prioritized above stopping reality TV spoilers.
Social SafeGuard, a 2014-founded U.S. startup which sells security services to enterprises aimed at mitigating a range of digital risks that lie outside the corporate firewall, has closed an $11 million Series B funding round, from AllegisCyber and NightDragon Security.
It’s hoping to ride the surge in awareness around social media fakery — putting the new funding towards sales and marketing, plus some product dev.
“As one of the few dedicated cybersecurity venture firms, we know how big this challenge has become for today’s security executives,” said Spencer Tall, MD of AllegisCyber, in a supporting statement. Tall is joining the Social SafeGuard board.
“This is no longer a fringe need that can be ignored or deferred. Digital risk protection should be on the shortlist of corporate security priorities for the next decade,” he adds.
Social SafeGuard’s SaaS platform is designed to alert customers to risks that might cause damage to a business or brand’s reputation — such as brand impersonation, compliance issues or even the spread of fake news — as well as more pure-play security threats, such as social phishing, malware, spam and fake accounts.
Its platform uses machine learning and a customized policy engine to offer real-time monitoring of 50 digital and social channels (integrating via an API hub) — including social media platforms, mobile messaging apps, IM tools like Slack, unified comms platforms (Skype for business etc), clouds apps like Office365, blogs and news sites, and the dark web.
The types of threats the platform is trained to look out for include malicious message content, inappropriate images, malicious links, account takeover attempts and brand impersonation.
“Digital risks to any enterprise are twofold: internal or external — from employees communicating in non-compliant ways that expose a business to regulatory danger to more typical cyber threats like phishing, malware, account hacks or brand impersonation. Social SafeGuard helps mitigate all of these new digital risks by giving companies the tools to detect threats and defend against them, so they can adopt new technologies without fear,” says founder and CEO Jim Zuffoletti.
As well as threat detection and real-time notification, the platform includes built in take-down requests and follow-through — “to make threat management as responsive as possible”, as he puts it.
Social SafeGuard’s software also does risk scoring to aid the rapid triage of potential threats, and uses AI to try to anticipate “potential attacks and identify known bad actors” — so it’s responding to a wider security industry shift from purely defensive, reactive actions towards pro-active detection and response.
On the compliance front, the platform includes a governance and customizable policy engine that enterprises can use to monitor employee and partner communications for regulatory violations.
“For compliance-focused clients, messages are archived with automated audit trails that provide transparency and clarity,” notes Zuffoletti.
The platform has around 50 customers at this stage. Zuffoletti says its biggest customers are in the financial services and life sciences sectors — but says high tech is its fastest-growing sector.
Examples of the kinds of attacks its tools have been used to prevent include account takeovers, malware attacks, financial regulations violations, and FCPA and HIPAA violations.
“In one recent example, we were able to perform a forensic analysis of an online securities fraud scheme, which also posed brand reputation issues for one of our clients,” he adds. “Our platform is adaptable to evolving hybrid threats, too.”
On the competitive front, Zuffoletti namechecks the likes of Proofpoint and RiskIQ.
Google Maps is evolving into much more than the sum of its parts. We have probably all used the app to help us get from A to B, but Google Maps has some awesome features many of us ignore. And now Google is rolling out even more ways to make use of Maps.
While many of us like to explore our local area, it’s sometimes hard to know where to begin. Is that new restaurant worth trying? Is there a local book club to attend? Where’s the best place to go to listen to live music? Google Maps now has all the answers.
Google Maps Explores Places For You
At I/O 2018 in May, Google announced a load of new features coming to Maps. And some of those features are rolling out now to Google Maps on Android and on iOS. There’s a redesigned Explore tab, a new For You tab, and the Your Match feature.
When your friends are in town. And your parents. And it’s a heatwave. Don’t lose your cool.
Our redesigned Explore tab takes the pressure out of planning with restaurants, events and trending lists all summer long. Available now on Android and iOS. https://t.co/pWR2nLDyqOpic.twitter.com/Ycf9twn5x3
The redesigned Explore tab now aims to inform you about everything happening in a particular area. So you can discover popular restaurants, activities, and events happening close to where you are. And that applies whether you’re there to stay or just visiting.
You can also choose categories—such as coffee shops or music venues—to narrow your search. The Explore tab also features curated lists of places to eat, whether that’s good cafes to go for lunch with kids or the best restaurants for a romantic meal.
The new For You tab personalizes everything, surfacing restaurants, events, and activities Google thinks will appeal to you. There’s also the option to follow a neighborhood in order to stay informed about what’s happening in that area.
Last but not least is the Your Match feature. This acknowledges that aggregate ratings are flawed. So you tell Google Maps what kinds of cuisines and restaurants you like, and the app will apply a numeric rating to bars and restaurants based on your tastes.
Twitter has announced a range of actions intended to bolster efforts to fight spam and “malicious automation” (aka bad bots) on its platform — including increased security measures around account verification and sign-up; running a historical audit to catch spammers who signed up when its systems were more lax; and taking a more proactive approach to identifying spam activity to reduce its ability to make an impact.
All of which is attempting to turn around Twitter’s reputation for being awful at tackling abuse.
“Our focus is increasingly on proactively identifying problematic accounts and behavior rather than waiting until we receive a report,” Twitter’s Yoel Roth and Del Harvey write in the latest blog update. “We focus on developing machine learning tools that identify and take action on networks of spammy or automated accounts automatically. This lets us tackle attempts to manipulate conversations on Twitter at scale, across languages and time zones, without relying on reactive reports.”
“Platform manipulation and spam are challenges we continue to face and which continue to evolve, and we’re striving to be more transparent with you about our work,” they add, after giving a progress update on the performance of its anti-spambot systems, saying they picked up more than 9.9M “potentially spammy or automated accounts” per week in May, up from 6.4M in December 2017 and 3.2M in September.
Among the welcome — if VERY long overdue — changes is an incoming requirement for new accounts to confirm either an email address or phone number when they sign up, in order to make it harder for people to register spam accounts.
“This is an important change to defend against people who try to take advantage of our openness,” they write. “We will be working closely with our Trust & Safety Council and other expert NGOs to ensure this change does not hurt someone in a high-risk environment where anonymity is important. Look for this to roll out later this year.”
The company has also been wading into its own inglorious legacy of spam failure by conducting historical audits of some legacy sign-up systems to try to clear bad actors off the platform.
Well, better late than never as they say.
Twitter says it’s already identified “a large number” of suspected spam accounts as a result of investigating misuse of an old part of its signup flow — saying these are “primarily follow spammers”, i.e. spambots who automatically or bulk followed verified or other high-profile accounts at the point of sign up.
And it says it will be challenging these accounts to prove its ‘spammer’ classification wrong.
As a result of this it warns that some users may see a drop in their follow counts.
“When we challenge an account, follows originating from that account are hidden until the account owner passes that challenge. This does not mean accounts appearing to lose followers did anything wrong; they were the targets of spam that we are now cleaning up,” it writes. “We’ve recently been taking more steps to clean up spam and automated activity and close the loopholes they’d exploited, and are working to be more transparent about these kinds of actions.”
“Our goal is to ensure that every account created on Twitter has passed some simple, automatic security checks designed to prevent automated signups. The new protections we’ve developed as a result of this audit have already helped us prevent more than 50,000 spammy signups per day,” it adds.
As part of this shift in approach to reduce the visibility and power of spambots by impacting their ability to bogusly influence genuine users, Twitter has also tweaked how it displays follower and like counts across its platform — saying it’s now updating account metrics in “near-real time”.
So it warns users they may notice their accounts metrics changing more regularly.
“But we think this is an important shift in how we display Tweet and account information to ensure that malicious actors aren’t able to artificially boost an account’s credibility permanently by inflating metrics like the number of followers,” it adds — noting also that it’s taking additional steps to reduce spammer visibility which it will have more to say about “in the coming weeks”.
Another change Twitter is flagging up now is an expansion of its malicious behavior detection systems. On this it says it’s automating some processes where it sees suspicious account activity — such as “exceptionally high-volume tweeting with the same hashtag, or using the same @handle without a reply from the account you’re mentioning”.
And while that’s clearly great news for anyone who hates high volume spam — and the damage spamming can very evidently do — it’s also a crying shame it’s taken Twitter this long to take these kinds of obvious problems seriously.
Better late than never is pretty cold comfort when you consider the ugly social divisions that malicious entities have fueled by being so freely able to misappropriate the amplification power of social media. Because tech CEOs were essentially asleep at the wheel — and deaf to the warnings being sounded about their tools for years.
And while both these companies may be trying to clean house now they have no quick fixes for mending rips in the social fabric which were exacerbated as a consequence of the at-scale spreading of fake news and worse enabled by their own platforms.
Though, in March, Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey put out a call for ideas to help it capture, measure and evaluate healthy interactions on its platform and the health of public conversations generally — saying: “Ultimately we want to have a measurement of how it affects the broader society and public health, but also individual health, as well.”
So a differently stripped, more civically minded Twitter is seeking to emerge from the bushes.
Twitter users who fall foul of its new automated malicious behavior checks can expect to have to pass some sort of ‘no, actually I am human’ test — which it says will “vary in intensity”, giving examples such as a simple reCAPTCHA process, at the lowest friction end, or a slightly more arduous password reset request.
“More complex cases are automatically passed to our team for review,” it adds.
There’s also an appeals process for users who believe they have been incorrectly IDed by one of the automated spam detection systems — letting them request a case review.
Another welcome if tardy addition: Twitter has added support for stronger two-factor authentication as Twitter users will now be able to use a USB security key (using the U2F open authentication standard) for login verification when signing into Twitter.
It urges users to enable 2FA if they haven’t already, and regularly review third party apps attached to their account to revoke access they no longer wish to grant.
The company finishes by saying it will continue to invest “across the board” to try to tackle spam and malicious automated activity, including by “leveraging machine learning technology and partnerships with third parties” — saying: “These issues are felt around the world, from elections to emergency events and high-profile public conversations. As we have stated in recent announcements, the public health of the conversation on Twitter is a critical metric by which we will measure our success in these areas.”
The results of a Request for Proposals for public health metrics research which Twitter called for earlier this year will be announced soon, it adds.
In April, the company revealed the next app that would be given a spruce up: Chrome. It’s something Google needs to get right; Chrome is the world’s most popular browser with about 60 percent of the market share on both desktop and mobile.
The new layout is expected to go live to all users later this year. But if you can’t wait that long, you can easily grab a sneak preview of the design right now. But how? Keep reading to find out more.
How to Unlock the Chrome Redesign Preview
You can see what the Chrome of the future will look like by enabling two Chrome flags. The flags are available on Mac, Windows, Linux, and Chrome OS. Follow the instructions below to get started.
Note: Previously, you needed to be running the Canary version of Chrome. That is no longer the case.
Open the Google Chrome browser.
Type chrome://flags into the address bar and hit Enter.
In the search bar at the top of the page, type top-chrome-md.
Locate the flag called UI Layout for the browser’s top chrome and select Hybrid from the drop-down menu.
Return to the search bar and type secondary-ui-md.
Find Material Design in the rest of the browser’s native UI and set the drop-down menu to Enabled.
Restart your browser.
Warning: All the flags are experimental. You might encounter unexpected problems when using them.
Of course, the Chrome flags can do far more than merely let you preview the new design. They can even help you speed up your browser.
Kik is a popular messaging app for Android (and iPhone), but maybe its appeal has wore off for you. Perhaps none of your friends use it anymore, or maybe you’re a parent and you want to delete your teenager’s account due to the Kik cryptocurrency scheme.
Whatever your reason, you can delete your Kik account permanently or deactivate it temporarily. Here’s how.
How to Deactivate Kik and Delete your Kik Account
For some reason, Kik doesn’t let you delete your account through its mobile app. You’ll need to do so through its website portal. Head to the Kik account deactivation page. You’ll see that Kik offers two options for deactivating your account: temporarily or permanently.
Temporarily deactivating your Kik account means you won’t get any more messages, and other users can’t search for your name. Anyone who’s talked to you will also no longer have your name in their contacts list.
If you temporarily disable your account, you can sign back in to enable it again. Visit the Kik temporary deactivation page and enter the email address you used to sign up. You’ll receive a link via email you can use to deactivate it.
Permanently deactivating your account means that everything above happens, plus you won’t be able to access your account anymore. This is essentially deleting your Kik account, with no option to get it back and access your messages.
When you’re sure you want to permanently delete your Kik account, open its permanent deactivation page and enter your username, email address, and why you’re leaving. Confirm that you want to do this, and click Go to delete it.
Instagram’s latest assault on Snapchat, FaceTime, and Houseparty launches today. TechCrunch scooped back in March that Instagram would launch video calling, and the feature was officially announced in at F8 in May. Now it’s actually rolling out to everyone on iOS and Android, allowing up to four friends to group video call together through Instagram Direct.
With the feed, Stories, messaging, Live, IGTV, and now video calling, Instagram is hoping to become a one-stop-shop for its 1 billion users’ social needs. This massive expansion in functionality over the past two years is paying off according to SimilarWeb, which estimates that the average US user has gone from spending 29 minutes per day on the app in September 2017 to 55 minutes today. More time spent means more potential ad views and revenue for the Facebook subsidiary that a Bloomberg analyst just valued at $100 billion after it was bought for less than $1 billion in 2012.
One cool feature of Instagram Video Calling is that you can minimize the window and bounce around the rest of Instagram without ending the call. That opens new opportunities for co-browsing with friends as if you were hanging out together. More friends can join an Instagram call in progress, though you can mute them if you don’t want to get more call invites. You’re allowed to call anyone you can Direct message by hitting the video button in a chat, and blocked people can’t call you.
Here’s how Instagram’s group video calling stacks up to the alternatives:
Instagram – 4-way plus simultaneous browsing
Snapchat – 16-way
FaceTime – 32-way (coming in iOS 12 this fall)
Houseparty – 8-way per room with limitless parallel rooms
Facebook Messenger – 6-way with up to 50 people listening via audio
Instagram is also rolling out two more features promised at F8. The Explore page will now be segmented to show a variety of topic channels that reveal associated content below. Previously, Explore’s 200 million daily users just saw a random mish-mash of popular content related to their interests, with just a single “Videos You Might Like” section separated.
Now users will see a horizontal tray of channels atop Explore, including an algorithmically personalized For You collection, plus ones like Art, Beauty, Sports, and Fashion depending on what content you regularly interact with. Users can swipe between the categories to browse, and then scroll up to view more posts from any they enjoy. A list of sub-hashtags appears when you open a category, like #MoGraph (motion graphics) or #Typeface when you open art. And if you’re sick of seeing a category, you can mute it. Strangely, Instagram has stripped Stories out of Explore entirely, but when asked, the team told us it plans to bring Stories back in the near future.
The enhanced Explore page could make it easier for people to discover new creators. Growing the audience of these content makers is critical to Instagram as it strives to be their favorite app amongst competition. Snapchat lacks a dedicated Explore section or other fan base-growing opportunities, which has alienated some creators, while the new Instagram topic channels is reminiscent of YouTube’s mobile Trending page.
Instagram’s new Explore Channels (left) vs YouTube’s Trending page (right)
Finally, Instagram is rolling out Camera Effects design by partners, starting with Ariana Grande, BuzzFeed, Liz Koshy, Baby Ariel, and the NBA. If you’re following these accounts, you’ll see their effect in the Stories camera, and you can hit Try It On if you spot a friend using one you like. This opens the door to accounts all offering their own augmented reality and 2D filters without the Stories camera becoming overstuffed with lenses you don’t care about.
Instagram’s new partner-made camera effects
What’s peculiar is that all of these features are designed to boost the amount of time you spend on Instagram just as it’s preparing to launch a Usage Insights dashboard for tracking if you’re becoming addicted to the app. At least the video calling and camera effects promote active usage, but Explore definitely encourages passive consumption that research shows can be unhealthy.
Therein lies the rub of Instagram’s mission and business model with its commitment to user wellbeing. Despite CEO Kevin Systrom’s stated intention that “any time [spent on his app] should be positive and intentional“ and that he wants Instagram to “be part of the solution”, the company earns more by keeping people glued to the screen rather than present in their lives.
Instagram’s latest assault on Snapchat, FaceTime, and Houseparty launches today. TechCrunch scooped back in March that Instagram would launch video calling, and the feature was officially announced in at F8 in May. Now it’s actually rolling out to everyone on iOS and Android, allowing up to four friends to group video call together through Instagram Direct.
With the feed, Stories, messaging, Live, IGTV, and now video calling, Instagram is hoping to become a one-stop-shop for its 1 billion users’ social needs. This massive expansion in functionality over the past two years is paying off according to SimilarWeb, which estimates that the average US user has gone from spending 29 minutes per day on the app in September 2017 to 55 minutes today. More time spent means more potential ad views and revenue for the Facebook subsidiary that a Bloomberg analyst just valued at $100 billion after it was bought for less than $1 billion in 2012.
One cool feature of Instagram Video Calling is that you can minimize the window and bounce around the rest of Instagram without ending the call. That opens new opportunities for co-browsing with friends as if you were hanging out together. It also makes it more functional than Bonfire. However, Bonfire allows for unlimited number of video chat partners across different rooms, while Snapchat launched group video calling with up to 16 friends in April. Facebook seems to have the technology to allow more chat partners, though, since Messenger can do six-way calls with up to 50 friends listening in over audio. More friends can join an Instagram call in progress, though you can mute them if you don’t want to get more call invites. You’re allowed to call anyone you can Direct message by hitting the video button in a chat, and blocked people can’t call you.
Instagram is also rolling out two more features promised at F8. The Explore page will now be segmented to show a variety of topic channels that reveal associated content below. Previously, Explore’s 200 million daily users just saw a random mish-mash of popular content related to their interests, with just a single “Videos You Might Like” section separated.
Now users will see a horizontal tray of channels atop Explore, including an algorithmically personalized For You collection, plus ones like Art, Beauty, Sports, and Fashion depending on what content you regularly interact with. Users can swipe between the categories to browse, and then scroll up to view more posts from any they enjoy. A list of sub-hashtags appears when you open a category, like #MoGraph (motion graphics) or #Typeface when you open art. And if you’re sick of seeing a category, you can mute it. Strangely, Instagram has stripped Stories out of Explore entirely, but when asked, the team told us it plans to bring Stories back in the near future.
The enhanced Explore page could make it easier for people to discover new creators. Growing the audience of these content makers is critical to Instagram as it strives to be their favorite app amongst competition. Snapchat lacks a dedicated Explore section or other fan base-growing opportunities, which has alienated some creators, while the new Instagram topic channels is reminiscent of YouTube’s mobile Trending page.
Instagram’s new Explore Channels (left) vs YouTube’s Trending page (right)
Finally, Instagram is rolling out Camera Effects design by partners, starting with Ariana Grande, BuzzFeed, Liz Koshy, Baby Ariel, and the NBA. If you’re following these accounts, you’ll see their effect in the Stories camera, and you can hit Try It On if you spot a friend using one you like. This opens the door to accounts all offering their own augmented reality and 2D filters without the Stories camera becoming overstuffed with lenses you don’t care about.
Instagram’s new partner-made camera effects
What’s peculiar is that all of these features are designed to boost the amount of time you spend on Instagram just as it’s preparing to launch a Usage Insights dashboard for tracking if you’re becoming addicted to the app. At least the video calling and camera effects promote active usage, but Explore definitely encourages passive consumption that research shows can be unhealthy.
Therein lies the rub of Instagram’s mission and business model with its commitment to user wellbeing. Despite CEO Kevin Systrom’s stated intention that “any time [spent on his app] should be positive and intentional“ and that he wants Instagram to “be part of the solution”, the company earns more by keeping people glued to the screen rather than present in their lives.
