Pocket’s reading app won’t sound so robotic now

Last year, Mozilla made its first acquisition by snatching up Pocket, the Instapaper competitor that helps you save longer articles for later reading. Today, this popular reading app is getting a major update that gives its app a visual makeover, including a new dark mode, and most importantly, a better way to listen to the content you’ve saved.

Pocket had added a text-to-speech feature several years ago, so you could listen to an audio version of your saved articles, instead of reading them. Instapaper today offers a similar option.

But these text-to-speech engines often sound robotic and mangle words, leading to a poor listening experience. They’ll work in a pinch when you really need to catch up with some reading, and can’t sit down to do it. But they’re definitely not ideal.

Today, Pocket is addressing this problem with the launch of a new listening feature that will allow for a more human-sounding voice. On iOS and Android, the listen feature will be powered by Amazon Polly, Mozilla says.

First introduced at Amazon’s re:Invent developer event in November 2016, Polly uses machine learning technologies to deliver more life-like speech. Polly also understands words in context. For example, it knows that the word “live” would be pronounced differently based on its usage. (E.g. “I live in Seattle” vs. “Live from New York.”) The technology has evolved since to support speech marks, a timbre effect, and dynamic range compression, among other things.

To take advantage of the updated “Listen” feature, users just tap the new icon in the top-left corner of the Pocket mobile app to start playing their articles. It’s like your own personalized podcast, Mozilla notes.

In addition, the app has been given a redesign that gives it a clean, less cluttered look-and-feel, and introduces a new app-wide dark mode and sephia themes, for those who want a different sort of reading experience.

The redesign includes updated typography and fonts, focused on making long reads more comfortable, as well.

“At Mozilla, we love the web. Sometimes we want to surf, and the Firefox team has been working on ways to surf like an absolute champ with features like Firefox Advance,” said Mark Mayo, Chief Product Officer at Firefox, in a statement about the launch. “Sometimes, though, we want to settle down and read or listen to a few great pages. That’s where Pocket shines, and the new Pocket makes it even easier to enjoy the best of the web when you’re on the go in your own focused and uncluttered space,” he said.

The updated version of Pocket is live on the web, iOS and Android, as of today.

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What Is Bitmoji and How Can You Make Your Own?

Watch Shimon the marimba-playing robot play along to jazz, reggae, and hip hop

Shimon is a marbima-playing robot with some real soul. This crazy little robot, created by Gil Weinberg at the Georgia Tech Center for Music Technology, can listen to the other players around it and play out little ditties in response to the music. In short, it’s the world’s best jazz and hip hop collaborator because, unlike humans, Shimon can never get drunk and forget the van keys back at that Taco Bell in Fresno.

“Most of what Shimon is playing is generated using a new process where he creates hundreds of melodies off line based on deep learning analysis of large musical data sets,” said Weinberg. “Then us humans (me and my students) choose melodies we like and orchestrate / structure them into songs. It’s a new form of robot-human collaboration, at least for us.”

In this video Shimon and crew play along to Dash Smith, an Atlanta-based rapper who freestyles while Shimon and you’ll also notice another Georgia Tech product, a robotic drumming prosthesis that gives the drummer the power of four Neil Perts.

Weinberg, Shimon’s human, is excited by the new developments.

“Still under development is the other new element – we are working letting Shimon analyze in real time the rhythm, melodies and semantic meaning of the free style rapper lyrics and use this analysis to drive Shimon’s improvisation. As you know we have explored mostly improvised music, starting with drum circles moving to Jazz, rock jam-bands, and African marimba bands,” said Weinberg. “We are now ready to move to the next frontier of real time collaborative improvisation – free style rapping, where the hope is that the rapper will be influenced by what Shimon is coming up with and vice versa.”

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The 5 Biggest Cybersecurity Threats of 2019 Revealed

Over the last few years, we have seen cyberattacks occurring with increased frequency, complexity, and against bigger targets. The threats that we face from hackers, viruses, malware, and data breaches are not going away—they’re evolving, and there’s far more to come as we approach 2019.

As cybersecurity professionals and companies all around the world prepare for another year of security breaches and stolen data, it is important that you make yourself aware of the latest security threats so that you can protect yourself.

Here are the five biggest cybersecurity threats to be aware of in the coming year ahead.

1. Ransomware

Ransomware has, by far, been the key threat to cybersecurity for the last couple of years. It is going to be just as much, if not more, of a problem for years to come, and is showing no signs of slowing down.

But why is it so popular among cybercriminals?

To put it simply, ransomware has the potential of delivering huge returns—we are talking thousands upon thousands of dollars—when successful. Given that its execution requires very little effort in terms of work, it is a firm favorite among cybercriminals.

Ransomware works by taking control of a computer or network of computers and inhibiting their use (unless a ransom is paid) by completely locking the end-user out. By doing this, cyber attackers can extort eye-watering sums of money from their victims with ease.

What’s more, the widespread adoption and use of cryptocurrency and Internet of Things (IoT) devices have made ransomware even more popular. The anonymity associated with cryptocurrency and the fact that transactions cannot be traced, mean that there are more devices that can be hijacked.

2. Phishing Attacks

Another cybersecurity nightmare which has been around since the dawn of the internet is phishing attacks. It is a simple form of attack which is designed to steal personal information such as usernames, passwords, and credit card details. Stats compiled by Barkly reveal that 2017 saw phishing attacks on domestic and business users increase, and there’s every reason to expect this pattern to continue.

Often, phishing attacks appear to come from trusted sources such as your banking provider or a website you regularly use. Once you reply to a phishing email or follow its instructions, the information is sent straight to its malicious source. They can then use this information to make purchases among other things.

Most people who use the internet will come across an attempted phishing attack at least once—after all, they commonly come in the form of spam emails—so it is only vigilance and caution which can prevent you from falling victim to one. Common sense is often enough.

3. Botnets

Using a complicated and powerful network of compromised machines, Botnets are remotely controlled by cyber attackers. They execute large-scale attacks which, in extreme cases, can involve millions of unwilling computers and systems.

Hackers use botnet attacks to carry out distributed denial of service (DDoS) attacks, perform brute force attacks, send spam, and steal personal information and sensitive data. DDoS attacks can happen at any time, although research from Kaspersky reveals the period around Black Friday is particularly attractive for hackers.

Botnets are increasingly being used by cyber attackers due to the sheer power that they afford. Also, because more and more people are using internet-enabled systems each day, there are more devices that can be compromised and controlled.

Your best defense against botnets is to ensure that your machine does not become compromised by viruses and worms. It is usually the case that people are unaware that their machine has been infected until it is too late. As such,  performing regular scans with robust and up-to-date antivirus software is a must.

It only takes one malicious email or download to infect your machine.

4. Computer Viruses and Worms

Although they have been around since the birth of the internet and may even pre-date you, you should not underestimate the destructive power of simple computer viruses and worms. They are becoming ever-more problematic, often deployed in files such as spreadsheets and documents, lying dormant until activated.

Files which are infected with viruses infect the machine when opened. Worms, on the other hand, spread throughout your machine and begin replicating so that they can infect all your files. As the basic foundations upon which more advanced cybersecurity threats are built, viruses and worms are serious problems.

Because of the way we use computers and our reasons for doing so, viruses and worms are becoming more dangerous. Often, they seek to steal personal and financial information for identity theft and financial fraud. Again, by using updated and robust antivirus solutions, you can keep yourself protected.

5. Cryptocurrency Hijacking

If you have found yourself caught in the current cryptocurrency hype and have decided to invest in some, cryptocurrency hijacking—more commonly known as “cryptojacking”—is something which you need to know about.

You are more likely to be targeted by cyber attackers by demonstrating an interest in cryptocurrency. However, anybody can be a victim of cryptojacking—you need not dabble in it to be a target.

Cryptojacking works by infecting a victim’s computer with a virus which utilizes hardware resources such as processors to mine for cryptocurrency. Not only does this massively slow down and impact the overall performance of the victim’s computer, but it also provides the attacker with a passive financial benefit.

In fact, in 2018 it transpired that cryptocurrency-related crime is now more lucrative than ransomware. This looks set to increase in 2019.

The Overall Security Outlook for 2019

2019 is destined to be yet another year where cyber attacks grow in prominence. They will occur more frequently, on a higher scale, and use new technologies, exploits, and developments to do so. The bottom line is that more people around the world are now using the internet, and cybercriminals understand this. Naturally, they recognize that there is a higher potential for illicit gains and set off in pursuit of them.

It is not really the threats which are changing, though—ransomware, phishing attacks, and malware still top the list of common cybersecurity threats—it is more a case of there being more for cyber attackers to gain through the growth of the internet and the careless use of a growing number of devices. As a result, more of them are crawling out of the woodwork.

As has always been the case, your greatest defense against cybercrime is knowledge, vigilance and good antivirus software. Not sure what security software to use? See our list of the best antivirus tools for some suggestions.

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Review: The tiny $149 Echo Sub is a huge audio upgrade

Want to make your music more interesting? Add a subwoofer. That’s what Amazon did and, suddenly, the entire Echo smart speaker lineup is more interesting. If you were not impressed with the sound of an Echo, consider trying again when the Echo is paired with an Echo Sub. The subwoofer changes the game.

The Echo Sub is a small, round sub covered in the same fabric as the Echo speakers. Currently it’s only available in dark gray. It’s designed to be sat on the floor or a sturdy desk and serve up the low notes the Echo speakers are unable to reproduce. The Echo Sub does its job. When paired with an Echo speaker, the audio is more full and enjoyable, well-balanced and healthy. The Echo Sub is a must-have for Echo owners.

Review

Amazon provided TechCrunch with a pair of $99 Echo speakers and the $129 Echo Sub. This kit is available for $300, but Amazon also sells the Echo Sub bundle with two Echo Plus devices for $329 — that’s the bundle to get since the Plus models have larger speaker drivers. I suspect the difference will be worth the additional $30.

Setting up the system takes about 25 minutes. Each speaker is individually added to the Alexa smartphone app. Once all three speakers are installed, they have to be bundled in a virtual group. The app’s prompts make it easy, but I found the process buggy. When trying to combine the speakers into a group, the app would sometimes fail to locate one of the speakers. Other times, the two speakers were found, but the sub was not. Eventually, I got it configured and ended up with two Echo speakers running in stereo and a subwoofer handling the low-end sounds.

The difference an additional speaker and subwoofer makes is lovely. But it shouldn’t be surprising. Stereo is how music was supposed to be enjoyed.

Years ago the Jambox and its countless Bluetooth speaker clones convinced a generation that one speaker is all that’s needed for music. That’s a lie. One speaker gets the job done, but two, running in stereo will always be better. And in this case, with the addition of a subwoofer, it’s much, much better.

Des Rocs’ Let me Live takes full advantage of the newfound soundstage. The left and right speakers explode with activity, creating an immersive listening experience that’s not possible with any single speaker from an Amazon Echo to Apple HomePod. The stereo arrangement lets the music breath.

AKA George’s Stone Cold Classic comes alive with this setup. The Echo Sub provides dramatically more depth to the track while the stereo Echos offer a full experience. Need more proof? Turn to Van Halen’s Panama. A single speaker cannot give the same experience; the channels get muddled and mixed. But when played in true stereo with the backup of a woofer, the David Lee Roth comes alive.

I’m impressed with the sound quality of this $300 bundle. A lot of the heavy lifting is offloaded to the Echo Sub, allowing the Echo speakers to handle the mids and highs, which are clear and precise for the price point. At $300, it’s hard to find a better audio system than two Echo speakers and the Echo Sub. And the Echo’s smart features sweeten the deal.

Amazon provided two $99 Echo speakers, and they do the job. The Echo Sub can also be paired with two $149 Echo Plus speaker, which feature more significant drivers; I suspect using two of these speakers would result in even better sound and when purchased as part of a bundle, they’re only a few dollars more.

The Echo Sub works well in most situations. Compared to other subwoofers, it’s on the smaller side of the scale. It provides much-needed bass, but the woofer cannot shake walls. It does not pound, per se. It’s a great match for hard rock or pounding pop; it’s not for trunk-rattling rap. Think Arctics Monkeys instead of Post Malone.

The Alexa app allows users to adjust the amount of bass, mid and treble the subwoofer produces. I found the adjustments to be minor and unable to change the sound profile of the woofer drastically. Overall, the Echo Sub is an elegant, little sub that works well in conjunction with a pair of Echo speakers.

The Echo Sub can work with just one Echo speaker, too. Own just Echo smart speaker? Add an Echo Sub for an astounding upgrade in sound quality.

Amazon is not the only company pairing smart speakers for a new age of stereo sound. Sonos has long allowed owners to wirelessly connect speakers to create stereo and surround sound setups. Two Google Home Max can be paired to create a lovely stereo set. The same goes for Apple HomePods: Two $350 HomePods can be wirelessly tied together for a stereo kit. Each of the setups mentioned above provides great audio quality, but they’re more expensive than Amazon’s solution. Only Sonos sells a dedicated subwoofer, though.

Amazon, with the addition of the Echo Sub, now offers a great audio experience for much less than that of its closest competitors. The $129 Echo Sub is compact and capable and the best way to instantly upgrade an Echo smart speaker setup. If possible, add a second an Echo speaker to create a virtual set of stereo speakers.

The Echo Sub is an easy recommendation for homes where an Echo speaker is dedicated to music. If forced to pick between adding a second Echo or adding an Echo Sub, go for the subwoofer first.

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7 Essential Tips for Chrome Users on iPhone

How to Spot and Buy Expired Domains at the Cheapest Price

If you’ve ever spent hours trying to come up with a good domain name for your new site, you know how frustrating it can be. Don’t worry, there’s a better solution that you can use to land that premium domain name of your dreams.

Every day, hundreds of domain names get dropped from domain registrar lists. Many of those go quietly unclaimed for years.

Instead of trying to brainstorm a new domain name for your site, why not browse thousands of popular domains that have already expired?

The Domain Expiration Process

When someone registers a domain name, they don’t actually “own” that domain. They lease that domain name for a certain amount of time.

This usually ranges anywhere from one to five years.

For any variety of reasons, many people never get around to renewing their domain. When that happens, the domain expiration process follows specific steps.

1. The registrar informs the owner that their domain name has expired
2. The domain name enters a grace period (usually from 2 to 40 days)
3. If the domain is not renewed, it could be auctioned off if there are any backorders (see below)
4. If it’s not renewed or purchased at an auction, the domain is returned to the registry
5. The registry then releases the domain for public registration

There are different steps in this process where you can get the domain. The earlier in the process, the more expensive that domain will be.

Make an Offer

If there’s a specific domain that you really want, you may be able to purchase it before it goes to auction.

First, search any domain registration tool, like DomainTools.com, to see if your desired domain is available. For example, let’s say you want technews.com.

The Whois details show that the site is registered to The Washington Post

Sure enough, if you type technews.com into a browser URL, it redirects to the Technology section of The Washington Post website.

It appears The Washington Post purchased this domain to redirect it to their own site. The chance of buying this domain from The Washington Post is very low.

Trying techgeeks.com as an alternative reveals that whoever purchased techgeeks.com has listed it for sale.

You can buy the domain, but you’re going to have to cough up a lot of money.

You’ll see this a lot. There are domain investors who’ve purchased up a lot of premium domains and leave the domain unused but list them for sale for significant profits.

It isn’t always this expensive. You’ll find domains listed for anything from a few hundred dollars to several thousand.

Buying a Domain at an Auction

A less expensive option is to wait for premium domains to enter the redemption (grace) period once they expire. During the grace period, you can “backorder” the domain.

There are a number of websites that list expired domains you can backorder. Typically there is more than one person trying to backorder expired domains. In those cases, it’s likely to enter into an auction.

To find recently expired domains, you can use one of the popular services below.

ExpiredDomains.net

Expired domains lets you search through the list of available expired domains (almost 200,000 as of this writing). You can use the filter to narrow down domains with existing backlinks, a high Alexa or Dmoz rank, shorter names, and more.

When you find one you want, click on the menu icon on the right and choose from one of the backorder resources to submit your backorder.

These backorder sites are also good places to go to search for expired domain names.

DropCatch.com

DropCatch has a simple text-based search that lets you see expired domain names available for backorder.

You can see how many bids already exist, and how much time is left before the domain goes up for auction.

FreshDrop

FreshDrop lets you search for expired domains, or those that are already for sale at auction.

The database listing here seems a bit smaller than the other sites, but most of the domains are short and clean.

You can filter the search by things like whether the domain is indexed by Google, listed by Dmoz, the number of existing backlinks, and more.

NameJet

NameJet is the eBay of domain names. The filter is more limited than other sites, but you’ll see only premium domain names listed. Each listing shows how many bidders there are (unlike other sites that won’t show you this). You can place your bid higher than the “high bid”, and hope for the best.

If you organize the list by “Type”, you’ll be able to bid on sites that are already in the auction phase. Or you can backorder by bidding on a “PreRelease” domain and waiting until the auction starts (unless you’re the only bidder).

Pool.com

Pool is one of the most popular expired domain backorder services. People who’ve used it reported having the best success rates at obtaining the expired domains once they’re released.

However, Pool uses what some have called a “two-phase” auction system. This means that once you win your original backorder, Pool will then move you into the auction phase where you compete with other bidders for the domain. Pool doesn’t reveal how many bidders there are or what they’re bidding, so you have to offer the highest price you’re willing to if you want to get that dream domain.

You also can’t place backorders or search for specific domains without signing up for a free account. You’ll need to provide credit card information to do so.

GoDaddy Domain Auctions

No list of expired domain sites would be complete without including GoDaddy Domain Auctions.

The advanced search feature lets you limit by domain extension, age, number of characters, and type. Types include expiring, auction, buy now, and more.

The GoDaddy auction listing is one of the most extensive, with a lot of really good domain names ready to buy. In many cases, you may not even have to compete with any other bidders.

Buying a Dropped Domain

The easiest option is to look for domains that are past the auction stage and are just sitting out there waiting for you to buy them.

The selection may be more limited, but you can still find some great domains that people have passed up.

The best tool for this is the ExpiredDomains.net mentioned above. From the main page, just click on the Dropped Domains link to see a full list of all domains that have been dropped.

If any of these show a status of “Available” (filter by Deleted Domains), these are publicly available for purchase from any registrar.

Make sure to sign up for a free account so that you can see the full database listing of available, recently expired domains.

Buying an Expired Domain

Many people think that you need a lot of money for a great domain name. That’s not the case at all.

By using the resources above and a small investment, you’ll be able to find the perfect domain name.

If you really don’t want to spend anything at all for your domain, that’s okay too. There are lots of ways you can get a free domain name for your website. In the end, a domain name is really only a small part of your site. Really, the success of a site depends largely upon what you decide to do with it.

Image Credit: Gajus Images/DepositPhotos

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The 6 Best Free GIF Maker Apps for Mac

GIFs are more widely used now than ever with how many appear on social media. You’ll see everything from cute kittens to sassy celebrities, most of which put a big smile on your face.

In addition to GIFs for amusement are those we use for business. They work well for demonstrating steps to a process. We even use them in articles to give you a helpful visual to go with the written word.

If you want to try your hand at creating a GIF for business or pleasure, it doesn’t have to cost you anything but a few minutes of your time. So here are six great GIF makers for Mac to check out.

1. GIF Brewery 3

With GIF Brewery 3, you can create animated GIFs from an existing video file on your computer or a link to a video. You can also stitch together images and videos or record your screen.

For videos and screen recordings, set the starting and ending frames, add slices, insert overlays, and include text and stickers. Plus, you can crop, resize, change the background color, and adjust the canvas size.

When you create a GIF by stitching photos and videos, you can easily set the time delay for all items or individually. Then just save your completed GIF with a click. If you have a Gfycat account, you can upload your GIFs there as well.

GIF Brewery is one of the best GIF makers thanks to its easy-to-use interface and broad selection of options for both images and videos.

Download: GIF Brewery 3 (Free)

2. Smart GIF Maker

The Smart GIF Maker app is another great tool for creating GIFs on Mac. When you import your video, the app breaks it down into frames that you can then work with, remove, or edit. You can also use images with the app and import them with the same type of editing options. With each frame, change the drawing size, use an eraser tool, adjust the background color, and use the eyedropper for matching colors.

After you edit your frames, you can set the time delay for each and the number of loops on the main screen. When you finish creating your GIF, hit the Preview button at the top and then export it to your computer if you’re happy with it.

Smart GIF Maker is easy to use, has a clean and straightforward interface, and is available for free with an in-app purchase to remove the watermarks.

Download: Smart GIF Maker (Free)

3. Giphy Capture

Giphy Capture is a bit different than the above GIF makers. This one sticks with screen recordings for creating your GIFs. Click to start recording and then click again to stop it. Next, head to the editing area to perfect your creation.

You can set the loop type to normal, reverse, or ping-pong, adjust the size up to 640 pixels, and change the frame rate from standard to low, high, or HD. Then add a fun caption to your GIF, change the text color, style, or size, and pick an animation style like fade or scale.

If you have an account with Giphy, you can sign in and upload your GIF. Or just save it to your computer if you prefer. Giphy Capture is a neat tool with basic editing options that makes creating GIFs from your screen simple.

Download: Giphy Capture (Free)

4. Puppetry GIF Maker

Puppetry GIF Maker is one more app that you can pick up from the Mac App Store. This one currently only works with videos, but if that’s the type of file you want to use, then give it a try.

Browse for your video and then make your adjustments. Set the start and end times and you’ll immediately see the preview of your GIF. Then change the output size, frame rate, speed, and loops. When you’re done, just hit the Save button and that’s it!

Puppetry GIF Maker may not have extensive features like other GIF creation tools. But when you need to create a GIF in a hurry and want a simple tool to do it, this one gets the job done.

Download: Puppetry GIF Maker (Free)

5. Gifrocket

If you don’t mind venturing away from the Mac App Store and trying other ways to work with GIFs, Gifrocket 2 is a decent one to check out. Like Puppetry GIF Maker, this tool works only with video files.

You’ll find only basic settings here. Set your start and end times, adjust the width of the GIF in pixels, and lessen or strengthen the quality of the finished product. Then just drag your file onto the Gifrocket 2 interface. Wait a minute or so and your GIF will be ready and waiting for you in the same folder from where you grabbed your video.

Gifrocket creates GIFs from videos quickly, effortlessly, and without any hassle.

Download: Gifrocket (Free)

6. LICEcap

One more screen recording and GIF creation tool you can download directly is LICEcap. This one works like Giphy Capture and is just as easy to use. Open it up and adjust the frames per second and dimensions of the recording window. Then hit the Record button.

Before the recording starts, a popup window will appear for you to name the file, add tags, change the title frame time, elapsed time, and display mouse button presses. You can also add a title, repeat counts, and have the recording automatically stop after a certain amount of time. Click Save and your recording will begin. Hit Stop when you finish.

While creating neat animated GIFs for social media and sharing is fun, sometimes you need a screen recording as a GIF file for business. That’s when LICEcap comes in handy.

Download: LICEcap (Free)

Start Making GIFs on Mac With Ease

Each of these intuitive tools offers something a bit different than the others. Depending on whether you want to use existing images and videos or screen captures for your GIFs, these should have you covered.

For other types of projects, take a look at how to create animated GIFs with Photoshop. If you’re interested in some history, we’ve examined the history of GIFs.

Read the full article: The 6 Best Free GIF Maker Apps for Mac

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Choppy Chromecast Streams? 5 Tips to Help Fix Your Issues

Google+ for G Suite lives on and gets new features

You thought Google+ was dead, didn’t you? And it is — if you’re a consumer. But the business version of Google’s social network will live on for the foreseeable future — and it’s getting a bunch of new features today.

Google+ for G Suite isn’t all that different from the Google+ for consumers, but its focus is very much on allowing users inside a company to easily share information. Current users include the likes of Nielsen and French retailer Auchan.

The new features that Google is announcing today give admins more tools for managing and reviewing posts, allow employees to tag content and provide better engagement metrics to posters.

Recently Google introduced the ability for admins to bulk-add groups of users to a Google+ community, for example. And soon, those admins will be able to better review and moderate posts made by their employees. Soon, admins will also be able to define custom streams so that employees could get access to a stream with all of the posts from a company’s leadership team, for example.

But what’s maybe more important in this context is that tags now make it easy for employees to route content to everybody in the company, no matter which group they work in. “Even if you don’t know all employees across an organization, tags makes it easier to route content to the right folks,” the company explains in today’s blog post. “Soon you’ll be able to draft posts and see suggested tags, like #research or #customer-insights when posting customer survey results.”

As far as the new metrics go, there’s nothing all that exciting going on here, but G Suite customers who keep their reporting structure in the service will be able to provide analytics to employees so they can see how their posts are being viewed across the company and which teams engage most with them.

At the end of the day, none of these are revolutionary features. But the timing of today’s announcement surely isn’t a coincidence, given that Google announced the death of the consumer version of Google+ — and the data breach that went along with that — only a few days ago. Today’s announcement is clearly meant to be a reminder that Google+ for the enterprise isn’t going away and remains in active development. I don’t think all that many businesses currently use Google+, though, and with Hangouts Chat and other tools, they now have plenty of options for sharing content across groups.

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Google’s Apigee officially launches its API monitoring service

It’s been about two years since Google acquired API management service Apigee. Today, the company is announcing new extensions that make it easier to integrate the service with a number of Google Cloud services, as well as the general availability of the company’s API monitoring solution.

Apigee API monitoring allows operations teams to get more insight into how their APIs are performing. The idea here is to make it easy for these teams to figure out when there’s an issue and what’s the root cause for it by giving them very granular data. “APIs are now part of how a lot of companies are doing business,” Ed Anuff, Apigee’s former SVP of product strategy and now Google’s product and strategy lead for the service, told me. “So that tees up the need for API monitoring.”

Anuff also told me that he believes that it’s still early days for enterprise API adoption — but that also means that Apigee is currently growing fast as enterprise developers now start adopting modern development techniques. “I think we’re actually still pretty early in enterprise adoption of APIs,” he said. “So what we’re seeing is a lot more customers going into full production usage of their APIs. A lot of what we had seen before was people using it for maybe an experiment or something that they were doing with a couple of partners.” He also attributed part of the recent growth to customers launching more mobile applications where APIs obviously form the backbone of much of the logic that drives those apps.

API Monitoring was already available as a beta, but it’s now generally available to all Apigee customers.

Given that it’s now owned by Google, it’s no surprise that Apigee is also launching deeper integrations with Google’s cloud services now — specifically services like BigQuery, Cloud Firestore, Pub/Sub, Cloud Storage and Spanner. Some Apigee customers are already using this to store every message passed through their APIs to create extensive logs, often for compliance reasons. Others use Cloud Firestore to personalize content delivery for their web users or to collect data from their APIs and then send that to BigQuery for analysis.

Anuff stressed that Apigee remains just as open to third-party integrations as it always was. That is part of the core promise of APIs, after all.

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Google introduces dual-region storage buckets to simplify data redundancy

Google is playing catch-up in the cloud, and as such it wants to provide flexibility to differentiate itself from AWS and Microsoft. Today, the company announced a couple of new options to help separate it from the cloud storage pack.

Storage may seem stodgy, but it’s a primary building block for many cloud applications. Before you can build an application you need the data that will drive it, and that’s where the storage component comes into play.

One of the issues companies have as they move data to the cloud is making sure it stays close to the application when it’s needed to reduce latency. Customers also require redundancy in the event of a catastrophic failure, but still need access with low latency. The latter has been a hard problem to solve until today when Google introduced a new dual-regional storage option.

As Google described it in the blog post announcing the new feature, “With this new option, you write to a single dual-regional bucket without having to manually copy data between primary and secondary locations. No replication tool is needed to do this and there are no network charges associated with replicating the data, which means less overhead for you storage administrators out there. In the event of a region failure, we transparently handle the failover and ensure continuity for your users and applications accessing data in Cloud Storage.”

This allows companies to have redundancy with low latency, while controlling where it goes without having to manually move it should the need arise.

Knowing what you’re paying

Companies don’t always require instant access to data, and Google (and other cloud vendors) offer a variety of storage options, making it cheaper to store and retrieve archived data. As of today, Google is offering a clear way to determine costs, based on customer storage choice types. While it might not seem revolutionary to let customers know what they are paying, Dominic Preuss, Google’s director of product management says it hasn’t always been a simple matter to calculate these kinds of costs in the cloud. Google decided to simplify it by clearly outlining the costs for medium (Nearline) and long-term (Coldline) storage across multiple regions.

As Google describes it, “With multi-regional Nearline and Coldline storage, you can access your data with millisecond latency, it’s distributed redundantly across a multi-region (U.S., EU or Asia), and you pay archival prices. This is helpful when you have data that won’t be accessed very often, but still needs to be protected with geographically dispersed copies, like media archives or regulated content. It also simplifies management.”

Under the new plan, you can select the type of storage you need, the kind of regional coverage you want and you can see exactly what you are paying.

Google Cloud storage pricing options. Chart: Google

Each of these new storage services has been designed to provide additional options for Google Cloud customers, giving them more transparency around pricing and flexibility and control over storage types, regions and the way they deal with redundancy across data stores.

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Google expands its identity management portfolio for businesses and developers

Over the course of the last year, Google has launched a number of services that bring to other companies the same BeyondCorp model for managing access to a company’s apps and data without a VPN that it uses internally. Google’s flagship product for this is Cloud Identity, which is essentially Google’s BeyondCorp, but packaged for other businesses.

Today, at its Cloud Next event in London, it’s expanding this portfolio of Cloud Identity services with three new products and features that enable developers to adopt this way of thinking about identity and access for their own apps and that make it easier for enterprises to adopt Cloud Identity and make it work with their existing solutions.

The highlight of today’s announcements, though, is Cloud Identity for Customers and Partners, which is now in beta. While Cloud Identity is very much meant for employees at a larger company, this new product allows developers to build into their own applications the same kind of identity and access management services.

“Cloud Identity is how we protect our employees and you protect your workforce,” Karthik Lakshminarayanan, Google’s product management director for Cloud Identity, said in a press briefing ahead of the announcement. “But what we’re increasingly finding is that developers are building applications and are also having to deal with identity and access management. So if you’re building an application, you might be thinking about accepting usernames and passwords, or you might be thinking about accepting social media as an authentication mechanism.”

This new service allows developers to build in multiple ways of authenticating the user, including through email and password, Twitter, Facebook, their phones, SAML, OIDC and others. Google then handles all of that authentication work. Google will offer both client-side (web, iOS and Android) and server-side SDKs (with support for Node.ja, Java, Python and other languages).

“They no longer have to worry about getting hacked and their passwords and their user credentials getting compromised,” added Lakshminarayanan, “They can now leave that to Google and the exact same scale that we have, the security that we have, the reliability that we have — that we are using to protect employees in the cloud — can now be used to protect that developer’s applications.”

In addition to Cloud Identity for Customers and Partners, Google is also launching a new feature for the existing Cloud Identity service, which brings support for traditional LDAP-based applications and IT services like VPNs to Cloud Identity. This feature is, in many ways, an acknowledgment that most enterprises can’t simply turn on a new security paradigm like BeyondCorp/Cloud Identity. With support for secure LDAP, these companies can still make it easy for their employees to connect to these legacy applications while still using Cloud Identity.

“As much as Google loves the cloud, a mantra that Google has is ‘let’s meet customers where they are.’ We know that customers are embracing the cloud, but we also know that they have a massive, massive footprint of traditional applications,” Lakshminarayanan explained. He noted that most enterprises today run two solutions: one that provides access to their on-premise applications and another that provides the same services for their cloud applications. Cloud Identity now natively supports access to many of these legacy applications, including Aruba Networks (HPE), Itopia, JAMF, Jenkins (Cloudbees), OpenVPN, Papercut, pfSense (Netgate), Puppet, Sophos and Splunk. Indeed, as Google notes, virtually any application that supports LDAP over SSL can work with this new service.

Finally, the third new feature Google is launching today is context-aware access for those enterprises that already use its Cloud Identity-Aware Proxy (yes, those names are all a mouthful). The idea here is to help enterprises provide access to cloud resources based on the identity of the user and the context of the request — all without using a VPN. That’s pretty much the promise of BeyondCorp in a nutshell, and this implementation, which is now in beta, allows businesses to manage access based on the user’s identity and a device’s location and its security status, for example. Using this new service, IT managers could restrict access to one of their apps to users in a specific country, for example.

 

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Google Cloud expands its networking feature with Cloud NAT

It’s a busy week for news from Google Cloud, which is hosting its Next event in London. Today, the company used the event to launch a number of new networking features. The marquee launch today is Cloud NAT, a new service that makes it easier for developers to build cloud-based services that don’t have public IP addresses and can only be accessed from applications within a company’s virtual private cloud.

As Google notes, building this kind of setup was already possible, but it wasn’t easy. Obviously, this is a pretty common use case, though, so with Cloud NAT, Google now offers a fully managed service that handles all the network address translation (hence the NAT) and provides access to these private instances behind the Cloud NAT gateway.

Cloud NAT supports Google Compute Engine virtual machines as well as Google Kubernetes Engine containers, and offers both a manual mode where developers can specify their IPs and an automatic mode where IPs are automatically allocated.

Also new in today’s release is Firewall Rules Logging, which is now in beta. Using this feature, admins can audit, verify and analyze the effects of their firewall rules. That means when there are repeated connection attempts that the firewall blocked, you can now analyze those and see whether somebody was up to no good or whether somebody misconfigured the firewall. Because the data is only delayed by about five seconds, the service provides near real-time access to this data — and you can obviously tie this in with other services like Stackdriver Logging, Cloud Pub/Sub and BigQuery to create alerts and further analyze the data.

Also new today is managed TLS certificated for HTTPS load balancers. The idea here is to take the hassle out of managing TLS certificates (the kind of certificates that ensure that your user’s browser creates a secure connection to your app) when there is a load balancer in play. This feature, too, is now in beta.

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Enhance Your Creative Skills and Save Over $2000 on this Adobe Training

Every app needs a designer, and behind every YouTube success story, there is a skilled video editor. If you want to build a career around these creative skills, the Complete Adobe Mastery Bundle is a great place to start. This learning library includes 11 in-depth courses, covering Photoshop, Illustrator, Lightroom, Premiere, After Effects, and more. You can get lifetime access to the training now for just $39 at MakeUseOf Deals — that’s 98% off the regular price.

Creative Masterclass

Most creative professionals use Adobe CC every day. If you want to find work in the creative industries, it’s pretty essential to know this software like the back of your hand.

With 11 video courses, this training bundle helps you master the Creative Cloud through hands-on video lessons. Learning from experienced tutors, you discover how to design apps and edit images with Photoshop, create beautiful logos and custom graphics in Illustrator, and build amazing motion graphics using After Effects. The bundle also helps you hone your photography in Lightroom and cut perfect videos using Premiere Pro.

With lessons starting from scratch, you don’t need any experience to benefit from this training. Along with the video lessons, the courses include multiple projects to work on. This means you get real-world experience, while making a start on your portfolio.

11 Courses for $39

This training is worth $2,189 all together, but you can grab lifetime access to all 11 courses for $39 with this deal.

Read the full article: Enhance Your Creative Skills and Save Over $2000 on this Adobe Training

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Snap Originals Are Short Snapchat TV Shows

Watching TV shows on your smartphone may not sound like a good idea, but more people are doing exactly that. Whether it’s YouTube videos or Netflix Originals, people seem happy to watch video content on their slightly-too-small smartphone screen.

This has led Snapchat to commission original programming for its platform. And shows such as ESPN’s SportsCenter and NBC’s Stay Tuned are racking up millions of views. Buoyed by this success, Snapchat is getting a dozen new Snap Originals…

How to Watch Snap Originals

These Snap Originals are essentially short TV shows made exclusively for Snapchat. Which means they’re all around five minutes long, all filmed vertically, and all designed to make the most of the platform they’re being shown on.

This means there will be new episodes released every day, and Lenses and Filters released for each show. There will also be Show Portals, which let you step inside scenes from the shows. There will, unfortunately, also be unskippable ads to sit through.

The first Snap Originals to be released are Co-Ed, a new comedy about life at college, Class of Lies, a thriller about true crime podcasters who find themselves investigating a crime, and Endless Summer, a documentary series about Laguna Beach.

Those first three Snap Originals are available to watch right now, with another nine due to debut in the coming months. To find the shows, either search Snapchat for them by name, or open the Discover tab, which will soon have a dedicated section for shows.

Will Snap Originals Succeed or Fail?

With more people seemingly happy to watch video on their smartphone, Snapchat is right to try and take advantage of this trend. However, the success or failure of Snap Originals will ultimately come down to the content, so let’s hope these shows are actually good.

Snapchat isn’t perfect, so we’ve previously written about everything wrong with Snapchat, according to millenials. Some people are even suggesting Snapchat is the new Facebook. Still, teenagers seem to love Snapchat, regardless.

Read the full article: Snap Originals Are Short Snapchat TV Shows

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Sarah Friar, long the CFO of Square, is leaving to join the social network Nextdoor as its CEO

Square’s CFO Sarah Friar is stepping down to become the CEO of Nextdoor, according to the payment company’s CEO, Jack Dorsey.

In a statement issued a bit ago, he says of Friar that she “steered us through an IPO and helped build a growing ecosystem of businesses that will scale into the future.” Friar “leaves us having established a culture of entrepreneurship and discipline across the entire company. She has been an amazing leader, partner, and friend, and we are grateful for all she’s done for Square.”

Nextdoor has since released its own statement about Friar, who will assume the position in December. Quoting the company’s co-founder and outgoing CEO Nirav Tolia, the statement reads: “Sarah is one of the most highly regarded executives in Silicon Valley with an exceptionally rare mix of proven business skills, and authentic heart and soul. . . From the very beginning of our CEO search, she has been the top choice, and the board of directors and I feel exceptionally fortunate and excited for her to lead Nextdoor moving forward.”

The hire looks like a smart move by Nextdoor, the fast-growing social network that centers around neighborhoods and which, three months ago, announced that Tolia planned to step aside as soon as he found the right person to take Nextdoor “to the next level.”

At the time, Tolia had said in an email to employees that the role of CEO needed to evolve as the company evolves. He also said then that he will remain the company’s board chairman.

San Francisco-based Nextdoor has raised $285 million from investors over its eight-plus years, including from Insight Venture Partners, Benchmark, Shasta Ventures, Tiger Global Management and Kleiner Perkins. The company has soared into unicorn terrain, but it also seemingly needs to generate more revenue before it can be taken public. Toward that end, it began offering paid real estate listings roughly one year ago. The company also sells targeted ads.

Friar, often described as Dorsey’s right-hand woman at Square, grew up in Northern Ireland, the daughter of farmers. She was the first in her family to go to university, studying engineering at Oxford.

After graduating, she joined McKinsey as a business analyst in London, then Johannesburg, before moving to California in 1998 to nab an MBA at Stanford. Friar went on to spend a decade with Goldman Sachs in Silicon Valley, leaving the powerhouse bank as a managing director before spending a year with Salesforce as an SVP, then joining Square in 2012.

In addition to her work with Square, Friar sits on the boards of two powerful companies: Slack and Walmart.

Shares of Square have fallen in after-hours trading on the news.

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Apple reportedly plans to give away its TV content, because that worked well with U2

Apple has answered two questions in one day, or rather a CNBC report citing someone within the company has. Why are the shows it’s planning so allegedly boring? And what does it plan to do to get a foot in the door in an increasingly competitive streaming-media market? They’re going to repeat the success they had with U2’s “Songs of Innocence” and just shunt it right onto everyone’s device.

To be clear, the report suggests that Apple will give its original content away for free to anyone with an iOS or tvOS device (Macs appear to be excluded). Users will find a shiny new app early next year called “TV,” in which will be Apple’s full lineup of PG-rated comedy and drama, free of charge.

It sounds like Apple’s original content is going to be really, really bad

Users will have the opportunity to subscribe to “channels,” for instance HBO, through which they can watch shows from those providers. Who will be allowed on this platform? It’s unclear. How will the billing work? Unclear. Will it replace standalone apps for the likes of Netflix? Unclear. How will it differ from iOS to tvOS? Unclear.

The only thing that is clear is that Apple is working from a position of massive leverage as the only company that can or has reason to launch a shared media channel through a billion-dollar giveaway. No doubt there will be other ways they’ll pinch the competition: search and Siri functionality will probably be better for TV; it’ll have integrations with other first-party apps; they’ll default users to using the TV app when they find a show they like — that sort of thing.

Some of you may be wondering: can Apple really just spend a billion dollars on content and then give it away for free? The answer is unequivocally yes. This company is rich beyond imagining and they could do this every year if they wanted to (and in fact they might have to for a bit). Besides, this is a billion dollar investment in a platform it hopes to entrap every other popular media company in.

Here’s the plan: First you get a base level of okay shows on the TV app so it isn’t a wasteland and people can get used to it always being there along with the other two dozen permanent apps. Then you nag some partners and channels into putting their stuff on there because it’s a “more streamlined experience” or something and collect rent when they do.

Once you have critical mass you reveal your second round of content — the good stuff — and a ridiculously cheap price, like $30 per year, or less bundled with iCloud stuff. Apple doesn’t need to make money on this, unlike other companies, so it can charge literally whatever it wants. Too low and people think it’s just a hobby, too high and they won’t pay for it on top of Netflix and HBO. Sweeten the deal with special pricing you wring out of channels because they can’t afford to leave this new walled garden, and say consumers come out ahead.

Meanwhile of course this is only available on Apple hardware, so you lock people into the ecosystem more, and maybe even sell a few Apple TVs.

Eddy Cue explains Apple’s original video content strategy

Ultimately what they’re doing is buying their way into the market with a big up-front payment to shift and lock a non-trivial portion of the existing audience into their own app — a familiar maneuver.

The money, well, they’ve already spent that. And possibly on content of questionable quality. That’s the one big fault in the plan: Apple’s squeamishness may result in a TV app with a bunch of garbage on it, in which case (hopefully) no one will use it at all and the company won’t get the leverage it needs to bully other media companies into joining up.

You may remember how this kind of forced-content play worked out with U2. After they put “Songs of Innocence” on everybody’s computer, the backlash was so strong that Bono personally apologized. Turns out Apple isn’t actually a tastemaker — they just make the phones that tastemakers use.

In that case it may be that their quest to unseat the actual tastemakers of this era — the likes of Netflix and HBO, which rebuilt the TV industry from the ground up — is quixotic and doomed to failure (or at least a period of ignominious limbo).

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