So I sent my mom that newfangled Facebook Portal

“Who am I going to be worried about? Oh Facebook seeing? No, I’m not worried about Facebook seeing. They’re going to look at my great art collection and say they want to come steal it? No, I never really thought about it.” That’s my 72-year-old mother Sally Constine’s response to whether she’s worried about her privacy now that she has a Facebook Portal video chat device. The gadget goes on sale and starts shipping today at $349 for the 15.6-inch swiveling screen Portal+, $199 for the 10-inch Portal, and $100 off for buying any two.

The sticking point for most technology reporters — that it’s creepy or scary to have a Facebook camera and microphone in your house — didn’t even register as a concern with a normal tech novice like my Mom. “I don’t really think of it any different from a phone call” she says. “It’s not a big deal for me.”

While Facebook has been mired by privacy scandals after a year of Cambridge Analytica and its biggest-ever data breach, the concept that it can’t be trusted hasn’t necessarily trickled down to everyone. And without that coloring her perception, my mom found the Portal to be an easy way to video chat with family, and a powerful reminder to do so.

For a full review of Facebook Portal, check out TechCrunch hardware editor Brian Heater’s report:

Facebook Portal+ review

When we look at our multi-functional smartphones and computers, connecting with loved ones isn’t always the first thing that comes to mind that way it with an old-school home telephone. But with the Portal in picture frame mode rotating through our Facebook photos of those loved ones, and with it at the beck and call of our voice commands, it felt natural to turn those in-between times we might have scrolled through Instagram instead chatting face to face.

My mother found setting up the Portal to be quite simple, though she wished the little instructional card used a bigger font. She had no issue logging in to her Facebook, Amazon Alexa, and Spotify accounts. “It’s all those things in one. If you had this, you could put Alexa in a different room” the Constine matriarch says.

She found the screen to be remarkably sharp, though some of the on-screen buttons could be better labeled, at least at first. But once she explored the device’s software, she was uncontrollably giggling while trying on augmented reality masks as we talked. She even used the AR Storytime feature to read me a bed time tale like she would 30 years ago. If I was still a child, I think I would have loved this way to play with a parent who was away from home. The intuitive feature instantly had her reading a modernized Three Little Pigs story while illustrations filled our screens. And when she found herself draped in an AR big bad wolf costume during his quotes, she knew to adopt his gruff voice.

One of the few problems she found was that when Facebook’s commercials for Portal came on the TV, they’d end up accidentally activating her Portal. Facebook might need to train the device to ignore its own ads, perhaps by muting them in a certain part of the audio spectrum as one Reddit user suggested Amazon may have done to prevent causing trouble with its Super Bowl commercial.

My mom doesn’t Skype or FaceTime much. She’s just so used to a lifetime of audio calls with her sister  back in England that she rarely remembers that video is an option. Having a dedicated device in the kitchen kept the idea top-of-mind. “I really want to have a conversation seeing her. I think i would really feel close to her if I could see her like I’m seeing you now” she tells me.

Convincing jaded younger adults to buy a Portal might be a steep challenge for Facebook. But if it concentrates on seniors and families with young children who might not have the same fears of Facebook or practice using smart phones for video chat, it may have found a way to actually bring us closer together in the way its social network is supposed to.

Facebook launches Portal auto-zooming video chat screens for $199/$349

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Security flaw in DJI’s website and apps exposed accounts to hackers and drone live feeds

It took about six months for popular consumer drone maker DJI to fix a security vulnerability across its website and apps, which if exploited could have given an attacker unfettered access to a drone owner’s account.

The vulnerability, revealed Thursday by researchers at security firm Check Point, would have given an attacker complete access to a DJI users’ cloud stored data, including drone logs, maps, any still or video footage — and live feed footage through FlightHub, the company’s fleet management system — without the user’s knowledge.

Taking advantage of the flaw was surprisingly simple — requiring a victim to click on a specially crafted link. But in practice, Check Point spent considerable time figuring out the precise way to launch a potential attack — and none of them were particularly easy.

For that reason, DJI called the vulnerability “high risk” but “low probability,” given the numerous hoops to jump through first to exploit the flaw.

“Given the popularity of DJI drones, it is important that potentially critical vulnerabilities like this are addressed quickly and effectively,” said Oded Vanunu, Check Point’s head of products vulnerability research.

A victim would have had to click on a malicious link from the DJI Forum, where customers and hobbyists talk about their drones and activities. By stealing the user’s account access token, an attacker could have pivoted to access the user’s main account. Clicking the malicious link would exploit a cross-site scripting (XSS) flaw on the forum, essentially taking the user’s account cookie and using it on DJI’s account login page.

The researchers also found flaws in DJI’s apps and its web-based FlightHub site.

By exploiting the vulnerability, the attacker could take over the victim’s account and gain access to all of their synced recorded flights, drone photos, and more. (Image: Check Point)

Check Point reached out in March, at which time DJI fixed the XSS flaw in its site.

“Since then, we’ve gone product-by-product through all the elements in our hardware and software where the login process could have been compromised, to ensure this is no longer an easily replicable hack,” said DJI spokesperson Adam Lisberg.

But it took the company until September to roll out fixes across its apps and FlightHub.

The good news is that it’s unlikely that anyone independently discovered and exploited any of the vulnerabilities, but both Check Point and DJI concede that it would be difficult to know for sure.

“While no one can ever prove a negative, we have seen no evidence that this vulnerability was ever exploited,” said Lisberg.

DJI heralded fixing the vulnerability as a victory for its bug bounty, which it set up a little over a year ago. Its bug bounty had a rocky start, after the company months later threatened a security researcher, who “walked away from $30,000” after revealing a string of emails from the company purportedly threatened him after finding sensitive access keys for the company’s Amazon Web Services instances.

This time around, there was nothing but praise for the bug finders.

“We applaud the expertise Check Point researchers demonstrated through the responsible disclosure of a potentially critical vulnerability,” DJI’s North America chief Mario Rebello said.

Good to see things have changed.

Some law enforcement drones are dropping out of the sky

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So I sent my mom that newfangled Facebook Portal

“Who am I going to be worried about? Oh Facebook seeing? No, I’m not worried about Facebook seeing. They’re going to look at my great art collection and say they want to come steal it? No, I never really thought about it.” That’s my 72-year-old mother Sally Constine’s response to whether she’s worried about her privacy now that she has a Facebook Portal video chat device. The gadget goes on sale and starts shipping today at $349 for the 15.6-inch swiveling screen Portal+, $199 for the 10-inch Portal, and $100 off for buying any two.

The sticking point for most technology reporters — that it’s creepy or scary to have a Facebook camera and microphone in your house — didn’t even register as a concern with a normal tech novice like my Mom. “I don’t really think of it any different from a phone call” she says. “It’s not a big deal for me.”

While Facebook has been mired by privacy scandals after a year of Cambridge Analytica and its biggest-ever data breach, the concept that it can’t be trusted hasn’t necessarily trickled down to everyone. And without that coloring her perception, my mom found the Portal to be an easy way to video chat with family, and a powerful reminder to do so.

For a full review of Facebook Portal, check out TechCrunch hardware editor Brian Heater’s report:

Facebook Portal+ review

When we look at our multi-functional smartphones and computers, connecting with loved ones isn’t always the first thing that comes to mind that way it with an old-school home telephone. But with the Portal in picture frame mode rotating through our Facebook photos of those loved ones, and with it at the beck and call of our voice commands, it felt natural to turn those in-between times we might have scrolled through Instagram instead chatting face to face.

My mother found setting up the Portal to be quite simple, though she wished the little instructional card used a bigger font. She had no issue logging in to her Facebook, Amazon Alexa, and Spotify accounts. “It’s all those things in one. If you had this, you could put Alexa in a different room” the Constine matriarch says.

She found the screen to be remarkably sharp, though some of the on-screen buttons could be better labeled, at least at first. But once she explored the device’s software, she was uncontrollably giggling while trying on augmented reality masks as we talked. She even used the AR Storytime feature to read me a bed time tale like she would 30 years ago. If I was still a child, I think I would have loved this way to play with a parent who was away from home. The intuitive feature instantly had her reading a modernized Three Little Pigs story while illustrations filled our screens. And when she found herself draped in an AR big bad wolf costume during his quotes, she knew to adopt his gruff voice.

One of the few problems she found was that when Facebook’s commercials for Portal came on the TV, they’d end up accidentally activating her Portal. Facebook might need to train the device to ignore its own ads, perhaps by muting them in a certain part of the audio spectrum as one Reddit user suggested Amazon may have done to prevent causing trouble with its Super Bowl commercial.

Convincing younger and middle-aged adults to buy a Portal might be a steep challenge for Facebook. But if it concentrates on seniors and families with young children who might not have the same fears of Facebook or practice using smart phones for video chat, it may have found a way to actually bring us closer together in the way its social network is supposed to.

Facebook launches Portal auto-zooming video chat screens for $199/$349

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White House shares manipulated Infowars video to justify CNN press ban

Read this slowly: The White House’s press secretary has tweeted a manipulated video shared by the editor-at-large of conspiracy theorist outlet Infowars to attempt to justify its decision to suspend the press credentials of CNN’s chief white house correspondent.

CNN’s Jim Acosta had his press pass pulled by the White House earlier today after press secretary Sarah Sanders claimed he had “plac[ed] his hands on a young woman just trying to do her job”.

Acosta disputes this.

This is a lie. https://t.co/FastFfWych

— Jim Acosta (@Acosta) November 8, 2018

The journalist had being trying to continue asking president Trump questions during a contentious exchange at a White House press briefing.

During this exchange Trump cut over him verbally — saying “that’s enough” — at which point a female White House intern moved towards Acosta and attempted to take the microphone out of his hands.

The journalist dodged and then blocked several attempts to take the microphone by using his arm and the side of his hand against the intern’s arm, addressing her with “pardon me ma’am” as he did so, and indicating that he was trying to ask Trump another question.

You can see what happened in a video shared by NBC News which captured footage of the incident (below). In the footage the intern can be seen stopping trying to remove the mic after Acosta speaks to her. He goes on to ask Trump if he is “worried about indictments coming down in [the Russia] investigation”.

Trump does not answer, repeating “that’s enough” and “put down the mic”.

Getting no answers, Acosta does then relinquish the mic.

BREAKING: White House aide grabs and tries to physically remove a microphone from CNN Correspondent Jim Acosta during a contentious exchange with President Trump at a news conference. pic.twitter.com/fFm7wclFw2

— NBC News (@NBCNews) November 7, 2018

Far right conspiracy theorist outlet Infowars quickly spun into action after this episode — publishing a couple of posts on its website couching Acosta’s actions as a “physical confrontation with female White House staffer”, and asking in a lengthy video post whether Acosta “assault[ed] a woman?”.

In the video Infowars editor-at-large Paul Joseph Watson can be seen following the modern political disinformation playbook — avoiding personally claiming the incident constituted an assault while repeatedly showing manipulated, slowed down footage, stripped of its audio, to make it look like an assault — all the while suggestively reframing what happened to whip up hyperpartisan sentiment (‘what if this had been a conservative reporter ranting at Obama’ etc) in order to manipulate his audience to side with the president against CNN. 

Watson was also active on social media, seeding a further doctored version of footage on Twitter — which includes a repeat close crop that zooms in on the CNN reporter’s hand against the intern’s arm, making it look as if Acosta is giving her a karate chop.

Yes the incident clearly did happen. Acosta placed his hands on a woman. Do you think we're all stupid? pic.twitter.com/lbYOXtgXJx

— Paul Joseph Watson (@PrisonPlanet) November 8, 2018

This is very clearly not what the unedited video shows.

In the unedited footage Acosta can be seen essentially brushing off the intern’s attempt to grab the mic — and addressing her politely at the crucial moment, when the side of his hand is resting on her arm. She responds to his polite “pardon me ma’am” by stepped back and stopping trying to take the mic away.

Acosta then asks Trump more questions which Trump does not answer.

Now Infowars conspiracy theorists creating doctored videos to try to spin hyperpartisan junk news is not new or news. Their business model is based on manipulating viewers’ emotions to flog them, er, junk supplements.

But what is new is that three hours after Sanders issued her series of tweets accusing Acosta of inappropriately placing his hands on a young woman, the White House press secretary tweeted again — this time appearing to share the exact same doctored video that had been shared earlier by Watson, as he worked to put the Infowars’ divisive alternative spin on reality.

Sanders referred directly to the video in her tweet, claiming that “inappropriate behaviour” had been “clearly documented in this video”:

We stand by our decision to revoke this individual’s hard pass. We will not tolerate the inappropriate behavior clearly documented in this video. pic.twitter.com/T8X1Ng912y

— Sarah Sanders (@PressSec) November 8, 2018

So the White House is using video footage that’s been manipulated through a conspiracy theorist lens to justify a free speech-chilling ban on an actual journalist.

I’ll say that again: The White House is using a manipulated video shared by conspiracy theorists to justify suspending the press credentials of CNN’s chief white house correspondent.

And once more: The White House is using lies to justify pulling the press credentials of a genuine journalist.

turns out, as we probably all knew it would, that we didn't need deepfakes for nation states to start pushing lies using video https://t.co/rghBqSNcgO

— hal (@halhod) November 8, 2018

Trump has made no secret of his hatred for CNN — repeatedly badging the cable news network ‘fake news’ in myriad vitriolic tweets since taking office.

Now his administration has gone a step further in seeking to stamp out reality by using manipulated video to bar a genuine news outlet from presidential press briefings. A news outlet that the president especially hates.

Let that sink in.

It’s not just conspiracy theorists who use this kind of information manipulation playbook of course. Authoritarian regimes, terrorists, criminals, racists… the list goes on.

Now you can add the White House press secretary to that ignominious list.

We’ve reached out to the White House to ask why Sanders chose to share the Infowars video — rather than sharing unedited footage of the incident. We’ll update this post with any response.

Meanwhile, on the list of people being allowed into White House press briefings these days…

The QAnon-loving livestream lady from yesterday is back for the news conference, @willsommer @jaredlholt @oneunderscore__ pic.twitter.com/z0gDxz6KN1

— Andrew Feinberg (@AndrewFeinberg) November 7, 2018

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9 Essential Google Maps Tips for Planning Your Trips Better

Amazon Mails Out Printed Holiday Catalogs

Amazon is mailing out printed holiday catalogs to millions of its customers across the United States. Titled “A Holiday of Play”, it’s packed full of the hottest toys your kids are going to want this Christmas. And Amazon is hoping you’ll buy from them.

A Holiday of Play (and Profits for Amazon)

“A Holiday of Play” is Amazon’s first ever printed holiday catalog. And the timing is no coincidence. Toys R Us went bust and shut all of its U.S. stores in June 2018. And Amazon is clearly hoping to fill the void left behind by the iconic retailer.

The catalog runs to 70 pages, and is packed with glossy photos of toys. There are Amazon products, such as the Echo Dot Kids Edition, plus brands such as LEGO, Marvel, Disney Pixar, Barbie, Fisher-Price, Vtech, Play-Doh, Hasbro, Nerf, and Hot Wheels.

Theo loves snuggling by the fire and thumbing through the latest @amazon catalog.

And who said print was dead? pic.twitter.com/2qt9IoDkcN

— Nick Stagge (@NickStagge) November 6, 2018

“A Holiday of Play” includes actual stickers, unlike the virtual stickers you can now get on WhatsApp. And to actually buy the products listed you just scan the SmileCodes (basically Amazon’s kid-friendly name for QR codes) using the Amazon app.

Interestingly, there are no prices listed in the catalog. The obvious reason for this is fluctuations in price. However, it also makes customers much more likely to visit the actual product page on Amazon to see the price of the item they’re considering purchasing.

Amazon Is Mimicking Bricks-and-Mortar Stores

Amazon really has thought of everything here. So there’s a ready-made “Holiday Wishlist” where kids can make a note of the toys they want. And there’s even a Kindle edition of “A Holiday of Play” for when kids have thumbed the printed copy to shreds.

This is Amazon’s latest attempt to mimic bricks-and-mortar retailers. Which is ironic given that many retailers have gone bust thanks to increased competition from Amazon. Still, expect more Amazon Go stores and Amazon 4-star stores to pop up near you soon.

Read the full article: Amazon Mails Out Printed Holiday Catalogs

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Dropbox Extensions Arrive to Make Your Life Easier

Dropbox has launched Extensions as a way of making its users’ lives easier. These Dropbox Extensions will enable users to start content-based workflows without ever leaving Dropbox. Bringing an end to the days of toggling between different apps.

Dropbox Extensions Let Users Start Workflows

Dropbox Extensions are “a series of new integrations that let users start workflows” right from within the Dropbox platform. The idea is that people are storing their files on Dropbox so why not give them the tools to do things with them rather than send them elsewhere.

In order to bring Extensions to Dropbox, the company has partnered with Adobe, Autodesk, DocuSign, Vimeo, airSlate, HelloFax, HelloSign, Nitro, Pixlr, and Smallpdf. So if you use Dropbox and any of these services your life is about to get a whole lot easier.

Quentin Clark, SVP of Engineering, Product, and Design at Dropbox, said:

“We want to empower people to choose the best tools for their work by removing the friction between them. So we’re making it seamless for users to connect with partners that offer the right tools for the task at hand.”

Dropbox cites several examples of how you can use Extensions. You’ll be able to “take a contract from first draft to final PDF to signature,” “digitally fax that signed contract to its final destination,” and “annotate videos or edit images […] for real-time feedback”.

More Partners and Deeper Integrations to Come

Dropbox is starting small, with 10 Dropbox Extensions launching on November 27, 2018. However, the company is promising to “add more partners and deeper integrations” to its ecosystem in order to create less friction between the different tools people use.

This is a fantastic effort to try and make Dropbox users’ lives easier. And we hope Dropbox adds more extensions over time. In the meantime be sure to check out these Dropbox tools for creative types and these Dropbox apps you didn’t know you needed.

Read the full article: Dropbox Extensions Arrive to Make Your Life Easier

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What Is a Meme? 10 Meme Examples

You’ve surely seen the word meme in your travels around the internet. But if you’re not well-versed in internet culture, it can be difficult to find a clear explanation of what exactly a meme is.

We’re here to help. Let’s go over the definition of memes, explore their usage, and look at some examples of classic memes and those that are popular right now.

What Is a Meme?

You might be surprised to know that the word meme didn’t originate online. In fact, author Richard Dawkins first used the word in his 1976 work The Selfish Gene. The book looked at evolution and used meme to describe an idea or behavior that spreads across people in a culture.

When someone says meme nowadays, they’re probably referring to an internet meme. This is the common usage we’ll discuss here and builds on Dawkins’s use of the term.

For a basic meme definition, we’ll use the following:

A piece of media, often humorous, that spreads rapidly through the internet.

With the instant communication that services like Twitter, Reddit, and similar allow us to perform online, it’s no wonder that memes spread so quickly.

Often, memes go through small alterations like the game of telephone. Sometimes, memes even beget new memes. What’s fascinating is that the nature of online memes means we can trace their origins, evolution, and changes in popularity.

Now that we have a simple definition, we’ll look at some meme examples to help you better understand how memes originate and spread.

Meme vs. Image Macro

Before we continue, we should address a common wording mistake. Many people use the word meme to refer to any image that has text overlaid on it.

For example, here’s a random image of a guy using a computer with some text I added:

The proper term for this is an image macro; this is not a meme. Why not? Because this hasn’t spread across the internet. It’s just a random image I made. If you posted this on Reddit, nobody would recognize the format.

Some image macros are memes, but not all memes are image macros (as we’ll discuss below). And someone creating an image macro and sharing it doesn’t make it a meme.

Historical Meme Examples

Let’s walk through some famous memes from years past.

1. LOLcats

This classic meme plays on the internet’s love of cats. Its format is simple: one or more cats, usually in some adorable situation, with overlaid text. The wording is intentionally poor English that now has its own name: lolspeak.

2. Condescending Wonka

Here’s one of many examples of the Advice Animals subgenre of image macros. Advice Animals refers to an image macro template that revolves around some character trait of the animal (or person) in the image.

In this case, Condescending Wonka is exactly as it sounds. It’s an image of Gene Wilder as Willy Wonka, taken from the 1971 movie Willy Wonka & the Chocolate Factory. The meme features patronizing statements from Wonka.

3. Gangnam Style

Gangnam Style is one of the internet’s best-known viral videos. It released in July 2012 and quickly spread like wildfire, racking up more than nine million views per day for two months during the height of its popularity. Everyone from mainstream news outlets to celebrities was talking about it before long.

Thousands of people created reaction videos, parodies, and more. It was the first YouTube video to hit both one billion and two billion views. In fact, it had so many views that it surpassed the memory YouTube had for its view counter at the time. And it’s still one of YouTube’s most-watched videos.

Gangnam Style is an unforgettable phenomenon that perfectly illustrates how quickly something can spread through the internet.

4. Chuck Norris Facts

Chuck Norris has been a martial artist, actor, film director, and more in his life. But online, he’s not known for any of that. Instead, he’s become famous for “Chuck Norris Facts”, a meme that chronicles absurd feats of Norris.

These facts exaggerate his toughness, claiming impossibilities like that he can win a game of Connect Four in three moves. Norris has stated that he finds the facts funny, and has no doubt enjoyed renewed fame from the meme.

5. Do a Barrel Roll

Here’s a quote from the 1997 space shooter game Star Fox 64 that has enjoyed a long life on the internet. In the game, your wingmate Peppy advises you to do a barrel roll to avoid enemy fire.

Due to the game’s cheesy voice acting, this became an oft-repeated phrase online. It’s just one of many gaming memes that made it into the mainstream. In fact, try searching for do a barrel roll on Google and see what happens.

Recent Meme Examples

In internet time, the above memes are ancient history. Here are some of the most popular memes right now from 2017 and 2018.

6. Distracted Boyfriend

One of 2017’s top memes, this one is largely responsible for the trend of object labeling image macros (in which the meme changes by labeling the image elements). It comes from a stock image where a guy is checking out another woman while his girlfriend has an upset look on her face.

After labeling the objects, the “other woman” usually represents something tempting, while the girlfriend represents what you’re supposed to do. It has endless variations, making it a smash hit.

7. Who Killed Hannibal?

This is one of the most popular memes of 2018 and illustrates several meme principles quite well. It comes from a video clip that’s years old, is easy to modify, and continues the recent trend of object labeling.

The original clip comes from The Eric Andre Show, in which Andre “shoots” his co-host Hannibal and then turns to ask who killed him. This became a meme where the characters have labels and Andre asks “Why would X do this?” to point out everyday hypocrisy.

8. Elf on the Shelf

Elf on the Shelf is a kid’s Christmas book that came with an elf doll. The doll has gone through a few meme variations, but the latest one uses a silly rhyme.

The recent Elf on the Shelf meme includes the caption “You’ve heard of Elf on the Shelf, now get ready for” on an edited image. Like “elf” and “shelf” this image includes two rhyming items, such as “Shrek on a deck” above.

9. Shooting Stars

Another slow-burning meme, this one was built around a song released in 2008 by the artist Bag Raiders. Years later, the song started appearing in silly YouTube videos and becoming more popular.

In 2017, Shooting Stars took off thanks to the above video. The song combined with footage of an overweight man diving started a new meme format. Editing clips of people to look like they were flying through space paired perfectly with the song.

10. By Age 35

By age 35 you should have a huge box of cables but you can't throw them out because you're pretty sure you still need a couple of them but you're not sure which ones

— Lori G ?? (@LoriG) May 19, 2018

Many recent standout memes have been image macros, but not this one. It was a result of Twitter users reacting to a Market Watch article that claimed:

By age 35, you should have twice your salary saved, according to retirement experts.

Many found this absurd advice that most people have no hope of achieving. Thus came all sorts of jabs at the advice, claiming that by age 35, for instance, you should have collected all the Chaos Emeralds from the Sonic games.

If you are concerned about finances, check out how to find the best personal finance tips.

Learn More About Memes

We’ve taken a tour of five classic and five modern memes, but this is only a tiny sampling. Memes are constantly emerging and dying off—what’s insanely popular today is stale next week.

Many memes originate from corners of the internet like 4chan and Reddit. Eventually, if they stay popular, they make their way to mainstream social networks. If you keep an eye out, you’ll eventually learn to identify the latest meme trends.

For an all-around reference, we highly recommend checking out Know Your Meme. This encyclopedic resource is dedicated to cataloging the origins, use, and examples of memes. It’s a great place to learn how a meme started or see what’s popular recently.

And if you’re curious, check out responses from people who became memes.

Read the full article: What Is a Meme? 10 Meme Examples

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10 Essential Red Dead Redemption 2 Tips

Red Dead Redemption 2 is one of the most epic open world games ever made. There’s a lot to do in the game, from story missions to sidequests, from hunting animals to robbing banks. And that means Red Dead Redemption 2 can, at times, feel overwhelming.

There are some fundamental things you need to learn in order to enjoy Red Dead Redemption 2. And they should help you succeed at playing the game without dying too often. So, here are some essential Red Dead Redemption 2 tips all players should know…

1. Take Note of Your Surroundings

This may seem obvious to some, but it’s worth mentioning. Don’t just focus on your destination or waypoint. Instead, scan the horizon for places worth exploring and people worth meeting.

Smoke rising into the air means someone has a campfire. A white circle denotes a stranger mission is close by. You’ll also see or hear animals close by that may be worth hunting.

2. Always Set Destinations on Your Map

The map in Red Dead Redemption 2 is vast. So vast, in fact, that a fast travel option becomes available in Chapter 2 by upgrading Arthur’s lodgings.

However, if you are riding anywhere, always set a destination on your map, just as you would with Google Maps. The game will guide you via the shortest route, and with a destination set you can enable the cinematic camera and travel hands-free.

3. Keep an Eye On Your Cores

In Red Dead Redemption 2 your character and horse have cores that need to be maintained. Your character has cores for health, stamina and dead eye, while your horse has cores for health and stamina.

These all need to be maintained, or your character will suffer. So keep an eye on your cores, and eat, sleep, and take tonics as required. This is especially important when you’re heading into a mission.

4. Pay Your Bounties Off ASAP

For every crime you commit (even by accident) you’ll earn a bounty. This will be specific to the region in which you committed the crime, making it difficult to travel there in the future.

If you commit a crime don’t make it worse by killing people to escape the law, as that will just increase your bounty. Instead, surrender to lawmen or clear the area while they investigate. Then, as soon as you’re able to do so, go and pay the bounty off at the nearest post office.

5. Bond With Your Horse

Horses are crucial in this game. Without one you’ll struggle to get anywhere or do anything. Which is why it’s important to bond with your horse as much as possible.

Doing so will open up new moves (making it easier to get away from enemies) and increase the range at which you can whistle for your horse. And all you need to do is pat, brush, and feed your horse now and again (by standing near your horse and opening the relevant menu).

6. Greet Everyone You Meet

Red Dead Redemption 2 employs an honor system. Do good deeds (such as helping strangers) and your honor will increase. Do bad deeds (such as killing people camping in the wild) and your honor will decrease.

There are advantages to being honorable, including getting money off items for sale in shops. And one simple way of increasing your honor is simply greeting everyone you meet. Just don’t accidentally press the wrong button and shoot them dead instead.

7. Do Talk to Strangers

As kids we’re taught not to talk to strangers, but in the case of Red Dead Redemption 2 you definitely should. Even random NPCs can pass on useful or interesting information. Or provide you with a reward for helping them out.

However, it’s the strangers in the stranger missions that you should seek out. You’ll get rewards, tips, and extra strands of story often ranging over several chapters.

8. Use Dead Eye Whenever Possible

To survive in Red Dead Redemption 2 you need to be handy with your gun. You can fire off the hip or take aim in the hopes of killing someone with a single shot.

However, Dead Eye is by far the best method of winning a gunfight. It enables you to tag a number of enemies at once in slow-motion, giving you a definite advantage.

To activate Dead Eye, hold down the aim button, and then click the right stick. Everything will then slow down, allowing you to tag enemies before firing off a barrage of shots.

9. Keep Your Weapons Clean

Over the course of Red Dead Redemption 2 you’ll pick up a lot of different weapons. And unless you’re an absolute saint you’ll shoot them all numerous times as well.

Your weapons will get dirty, and when they’re dirty they’ll be less accurate and slower to load. So buy some gun oil and clean your weapons more often than your character cleans his clothes.

To clean your weapons, just open the Weapon Wheel, highlight a weapon, and press the right stick to inspect it. You’ll see the condition it’s in, and can select the option to clean it.

10. Make Friends With the Fence

In Red Dead Redemption 2, fences are black market traders who will buy and sell illicit objects. You’ll unlock one after a Chapter 2 mission, but you can also take the long ride out to Saint Denis to meet one early.

Fences are invaluable assets. They’ll buy your ill-gotten gains off you without asking questions, and sell you valuable items such as new recipes, talismans, and a silent lock breaker.

Savor Every Minute of Red Dead Redemption 2

There’s one more piece of advice that you need to heed. Which is to savor every minute of Red Dead Redemption 2. Rockstar has built a living, breathing version of the American Frontier circa 1899, and you should embrace every part of that.

Don’t rush through the storyline to get to the end. Don’t skip stranger missions to save time. Instead, camp out under the stars, visit saloons late at night, and ride your horse to the four corners of the map with the cinematic camera enabled.

This is the only way to truly appreciate the world Rockstar has created. And when you finally finish the game using our Red Dead Redemption 2 tips you should check out some other classic games set in the Wild West.

Read the full article: 10 Essential Red Dead Redemption 2 Tips

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How to Search Twitter by Location

Twitter is where some of the biggest influencers from around the world share what’s on their mind, whether it’s Donald Trump or Elon Musk. But in this flurry of worldwide messages, how do you find tweets from a specific location?

This short guide will show you how to search Twitter by location to find tweets from any particular place. Before we start, you should know the basics of how to use Twitter. Then we’ll show you how to use both Search and Advanced Search, on both desktop and mobile.

Get an Account and Enable Location

You can use Twitter without an account, and that extends to search and advanced search. But searching by location is better if you have an account and have enabled location information.

To enable Location in Twitter:

1. Go to Twitter > Profile and Settings (your display picture) > Settings and Privacy.
2. Go to Privacy and Safety.
3. Check the box for Tweet Location. If already checked, don’t do anything.
4. Scroll down, click Save Changes, and exit.

How to Search Tweets From People Near You

The easiest place-based search is to find tweets sent by people who are near your location. For this feature, even if you don’t have location enabled in settings, Twitter uses your device’s IP address (which includes the current or closest major city) to figure out where you are right now.

To search Twitter for tweets close to you:

1. Go to twitter.com.
2. In the Search bar (top-right corner), type what you want to search, and press Enter.
3. In the search results page, expand Search Filters.
4. Click the second drop-down box, and change Anywhere to Near You.

That’s all there is to it. Twitter will now show you search results from tweets sent from somewhere close to you.

You can sort these tweets based on the top tweets, latest, famous people, tweets containing photos or videos, and news tweets.

You can also choose multiple filters, such as only showing tweets from people you follow, or the language the tweets are written in.

How to Search Twitter by Any Location

The easiest way to state which area to search is through Advanced Search, which is one of the Twitter tips even pros don’t know about. Here’s how to use it to find tweets or people from a certain location:

1. Go to twitter.com/search-advanced in your browser.
2. Put in the operators you want to search in the field boxes under Words, People, and Dates. The boxes are self-explanatory.
3. The Places tab will be set to your current location by default. If you want to search for tweets close to you, don’t do anything.
4. If you want to search in a specific location other than your own, click the Places tab and type the name of a location. Don’t press Enter immediately, wait for Twitter to suggest locations in the drop-down bar, based on what you typed. This is important because there are multiple Londons and New Yorks in the world, and Twitter will show results from all places that share the name. Wait to pick the place you want, and you’ll get relevant tweets from one place you select.
5. Once you’ve got the location you want, click Search.

You will now get the search results closest to that particular place. By default, Twitter searches within a 15-mile radius from the specified location.

For Phone Users: Unfortunately, the mobile version of Twitter’s Advanced Search does not show the Places tab, or let you change it. If you’re trying this method on a phone or tablet, you will need to go to your browser’s settings and load the desktop website on mobile.

Use Twitter Search Operators for More Accuracy

Much like any good search engine, Twitter has a few search operators that make it better. It’s one of the secret ways to find Twitter search results that matter to you.

For location-based search, you need to know the two operators near: and within: and how to use them.

The near: operator is followed by the name of the location, which can be an area, city, state, country, postal code, or geocode. Out of all these, the most accurate target is a geocode.

A geocode is a location’s GPS coordinates. You can find the latitude and longitude coordinates of any place with a quick Google search, or by tracking the place on Google Maps.

The within: operator is followed by distance. By default, Twitter will use 15 miles, but if you want to reduce or expand that, add that in miles.

So for example, if you want to find tweets about pizza in Chicago with a 5-mile limit, here’s what the search term would look like:

“Pizza near:Chicago within:5mi”

It’s that simple. If you ask us, you can skip the “within” operator most times because it sometimes gives you nonsensical results, or takes away something you need to know.

For Phone Users: Both the search operators near: and within: are used in the regular Twitter search, not advanced search, and hence work on Twitter’s mobile app too.

Don’t Use Third-Party Twitter Apps

By using the above tips and tricks, you should be able to get tweets from any location you desire. And it’s best if you use these on the official Twitter app or website. While there are a few apps you can use for deep searches on Twitter, and new ones surface every now and then, we don’t recommend using third-party apps.

This is because Twitter has a history of crippling third-party apps through different means. In fact, advanced search is missing on all apps, which is just one of the features you lose with a third-party Twitter client. Instead, stick to the official app, and use the tricks above to search Twitter by location.

Read the full article: How to Search Twitter by Location

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What Is Hinge? The Dating App for People Who Hate Dating Apps

Samsung’s dual-screen folding phone is very strange and probably doomed

Let me just say that I love the idea of a folding phone/tablet device. I was a Courier fanboy when Microsoft floated that intriguing but abortive concept device, and I’m all for unique form factors and things that bend. But Samsung’s first real shot at a folding device is inexplicable and probably dead on arrival. I’d like to congratulate the company for trying something new, but this one needed a little more time in the oven.

I haven’t used it, of course, so this is just my uninformed opinion (provided for your edification). But this device is really weird, and not in a good way. It’s a really thick phone with big bezels around an small screen that opens up into a small tablet. No one wants that!

Think about it. Why do you want a big screen?

If it’s for media, like most people, consider that nearly all that media is widescreen now, either horizontal (YouTube and Netflix) or vertical (Instagram and Facebook). You can switch between these views at will extremely easily. Now consider that because of basic geometry, the “big” screen inside this device will likely not be able to show that media much, if any, larger than the screen on the front!

(Well, in this device’s case, maybe a little, but only because that front display’s bezel really is huge. Why do you think they turned the lights off? Look where the notification bar is!)

It’s like putting two of the tall screens next to each other. You end up with one twice as wide, but that’s pretty much what you get if you put the phone on its side. All you gain with the big screen is a whole lot of letterboxing or windowboxing. Oh, and probably about three quarters of an inch of thickness and half a pound of weight. This thing is going to be a beast.

Power users may also want a big screen for productivity: email and document handling and such is great on a big device like a Galaxy Note. Here then is opportunity for a folding tablet to excel (so to speak). You can just plain fit more words and charts and controls on there. Great! But if the phone is geared towards power users, why even have the small screen on the front anyway if any time that user wants to engage with the phone they will “open” it up? For quick responses or dismissing notifications, maybe, but who would really want that? That experience will always be inferior to the one the entire device is designed around.

I would welcome a phone that was only a book-style big internal screen, and I don’t think it would be a bother to flip it open when you want to use it. Lots of people with giant phones keep book-like covers on their devices anyway! It would be great to be able to use those square inches for the display rather than credit card slots or something.

The Courier had tons of great ideas on how to use two screens.

There are also creative ways to use the screen: left and right halves are different apps; top half is compose and bottom is keyboard; left half is inbox and right half is content; top half is media and bottom is controls and comments. Those sprang to mind faster than I could type them.

On the other hand, I can’t think of any way that a “front” display could meaningfully interact with or enhance a secondary (or is it primary?) display that will never be simultaneously visible. Presumably you’ll use one or the other at any given time, meaning you literally can’t engage the entire capability of the device.

You know what would be cool? A device like this that also used the bezel display we’ve seen on existing Galaxy devices. How cool would it be to have your phone closed like a book, but with an always-on notification strip (or two!) on the lip, telling you battery, messages, and so on? And maybe if you tapped one the device would automatically pop open physically! That would be amazing! And Samsung is absolutely the company that I’d say would make it.

Instead, they made this thing.

It’s disappointing to me not just because I don’t like the device as they’ve designed it, but because I think the inevitable failure of the phone will cool industry ambition regarding unique devices like it. That’s wrong, though! People want cool new things. But they also want them to make sense.

I’m looking forward to how this technology plays out, and I fully expect to own a folding phone some time in the next few years. But this first device seems to me like a major misstep and one that will set back that flexible future rather than advance it.

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Tinder now has 4.1M paying users, expects $800M in revenue this year

Facebook Dating is no challenger to Tinder-owner Match Group (NASDAQ: MTCH), which posted third-quarter earnings per share of 44 cents on Tuesday.

The company, which owns several brands of internet dating services, including Tinder, Hinge, OkCupid and PlentyOfFish, surpassed analyst’s forecasted revenue of $437 million, reporting Q3 revenue of $444 million, a 29 percent increase year-over-year.

Match says it expects to bring in a total of $1.72 billion in annual revenue.

Despite positive earnings, the company’s 4Q outlook failed to satisfy Wall Street. Match said it expects between $440 and $450 million in revenue in Q4, falling short of the $454.5 million analysts’ estimate. Shares of Match sank 10 percent in after-hours trading as a result.

Year-to-date, Match’s stock is up roughly 60 percent.

Tinder, the location-based mobile dating application, continues to be Match’s growth engine, responsible for roughly half its paid users and half its projected annual revenue. Match’s total number of paid subscribers came in at 8.1 million, up from 7.7 million in Q2 and a 23 percent increase YoY. Much of that growth comes from Tinder Gold, Tinder’s premium subscription tier that lets users see who’s already liked them without doing any swiping. Overall, Tinder’s paying user base is up to 4.1 million from 3.8 million the previous quarter.

Tinder is expected to bring in $800 million in revenue in 2018.

Hinge, another app-based dating service acquired by Match in June, is on its way up. Match says it’s seen a 5x increase in downloads since it first invested.

Tinder Gold, which lets you see who has liked you, launches today in U.S.

Match also announced that it would, for the first time, issue a special cash dividend of $2.00 per share on Match Group common stock and Class B common stock, to be paid out on December 19.

Match continues to be on the prowl for strategic M&A opportunities, said its chief executive officer Mandy Ginsberg in a statement.

“[We] have the financial flexibility to acquire companies when we find innovative products with long-term potential,” she said.

The company has reportedly attempted to acquire Tinder-competitor Bumble on more than one occasion, though the nasty legal battle playing out between the dating powerhouses makes that combination unlikely. Most recently, Bumble said it was dropping its $400 million lawsuit against Match, which had claimed Match fraudulently obtained trade secrets during acquisition talks. Bumble may refile that suit at the state level.

Dallas-based Match is owned by IAC, which will itself report earnings tomorrow after the closing bell.

Bumble drops its $400M lawsuit against Match, but this battle isn’t over

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Netflix’s hackathon produces a way to navigate its iOS app with ARKit and Face ID

Netflix’s internal hackathons have consistently produced fun and often silly hacks, from that “Netflixtendo” hack a few years ago that let you run Netflix on the original NES to the more recent “audiobook mode” that turned Netflix series into old school radio shows by way of Audio Descriptions. This year’s hackathon doesn’t disappoint either, with new hacks that are both as goofy and interesting as in years past, including a AR and Face ID-powered hack that lets you navigate Netflix with just your eyes, another designed for “Sharknado” fans, and more.

“Jump to Shark” lets viewers skip right to the good parts of the so-bad-it’s-good “Sharknado,” so they can watch the bloody action sequences with sharks, instead of having to sit through the movie’s actual plot. It’s pretty great, as the video shows.

The AR hack, Eye Nav, is fairly impressive, too.

The hack uses Apple’s ARKit and the technology that enables Face ID for tracking eye position and facial expressions. It tracks your eye position to move a pointer around the screen, then measures the time spent on the same area to trigger a “tap.”

If you want to dismiss a screen, you can just stick your tongue out.

While the resulting hack is definitely fun, there are also implications for accessibility use cases in the future.

The hack was produced in 24 hours, so it may not be stable enough for real-world use, but it’s definitely an interesting idea.

A third hack doesn’t involve Netflix, but rather the productivity software Slack, used by Netflix employees.

“LunchBot” connects coworkers who are too busy to go to lunch, by inviting them to eat lunch together – virtually, while in a Slack chat. The app also checks everyone’s calendars to make sure they’re free.

Other hacks this year included those for product improvements, enhancements to its internal tools, and some that were just for fun. A few of these were showcased in its Hackday 2018 video, such as a map for locating studio production resources, an ‘easy login’ system, and a version of Animoji using Netflix characters.

But the larger goal of Netflix’s hackathon, as you can probably tell, isn’t necessarily about creating features that will later be productized (although, c’mon…Jump to Shark!), but they sometimes serve as inspiration for features further down the road, the company says.

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Google is adding Android support for foldable screens

Big day for developer events. As Samsung was on stage getting ready to talk about its upcoming foldable phone, Google spilled the beans a bit at its own Android Developer Summit. The company briefly detailed plans bake support for folding phones into the mobile operating system.

Support for the nascent technology is going to be tough, given what’s expected to be a variety of different form factors, so Google’s been working with hardware partners. It’s first, naturally, is  Samsung. The two companies have been working closely on a device it plans to launch “early next year,” according to Google. That device is expected to debut moments from now on Samsung’s own stage.

Google is referring to the category as “Foldables.”

We just announced support for foldables at #AndroidDevSummit, a new form factor coming next year from Android partners.

Android apps run seamlessly as the device folds, achieving this form factor's chief feature: screen continuity. pic.twitter.com/NAfOmCOY26

— Android Developers (@AndroidDev) November 7, 2018

“You can think of the device as both a phone and a tablet,” Android VP of Engineering Dave Burke explained. “Broadly, there are two variants – two-screen devices and one-screen devices. When folded, it looks like phone, fitting in your pocket or purse. The defining feature for this form factor is something we call screen continuity. ”

Among the addition here is the ability to flag app to respond to the screen as it folds and unfolds — the effect would likely be similar to response of applications as handsets switch between portrait and landscape modes.

While Samsung’s is the most prominent, the company company’s Foldable isn’t expected to be the first to market. That honor will like go to Royole’s FlexPai device, though that handset has already been knocked for build quality ahead of launch. Whatever the case, Samsung’s certainly not going to be alone here, but it will almost certainly be a market leader.

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Social media content and analytics startup PressLogic raises $10M from popular Chinese selfie app Meitu

PressLogic founders Ryan Cheung and Edward Chow

PressLogic, a Hong Kong-based social media content and data analytics startup, announced today that it has raised a $10 million Series A+ round from Meitu, developer of the popular Chinese selfie app. PressLogic will use the funds to launch its new lifestyle brand GirlStyle and enter e-commerce with its proprietary algorithms, which predict what topics will trend on social media among specific groups.

The new round brings PressLogic’s total raised to $15 million. Meitu first acquired a minority stake in PressLogic last year.

After launching a data-analytics service for social media managers called MediaLens in 2016, founders Ryan Cheung and Edward Chow began creating social media publishing and marketing brands in order to show potential clients how their technology could boost audience engagement. PressLogic, their social media publishing platform, now claims a total of 8 million Facebook and Instagram followers and more than 700 million monthly content impressions across its social media profiles and websites, with about 75 percent of its visitors aged 18 to 34.

MediaLens still serves as PressLogic’s core technology, underpinning its content brands, as well as the insights it provides to partners in order to increase their social media engagement and return on investment. CEO Cheung (Chow serves as PressLogic’s CTO) told TechCrunch that MediaLens “creates a pipeline from data sourcing to content suggestion to optimization” and has an edge against its competitors because it is able to make more granular suggestions about what content is likely to be popular among specific groups based on trending topics.

With its new round of funding, PressLogic will launch GirlStyle, a lifestyle and fashion-based social network targeted to young women, as an app and website in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore, India, Korea and Malaysia by the end of this year. In terms of e-commerce, Cheung says the company will start by focusing on skincare and cosmetics by leveraging data from its online traffic and readers.

PressLogic hasn’t revealed if Meitu’s photo imaging technology will be integrated into its platform, but Cheung says it would like to extend MediaLens’ analytics to images, too, as data from photos and videos shared on social media is potentially valuable, but still difficult to transform into the kind of insights that help predict which content will go viral next.

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Android developers can now force users to update their apps

At its Android Dev Summit, Google today announced a number of new tools and features for developers that write apps for its mobile operating system. Some of those are no surprise, including support for the latest release of the Kotlin language, which is becoming increasingly popular in the Android developer ecosystem, as well as new features for the Android Jetpack tools and APIs, as well as the Android Studio IDE. The biggest surprise, though, is likely the launch of the In-app Updates API.

While the name doesn’t exactly make it sound like a break-through feature, it’s actually a big deal. With this new API, developers now get two new ways to push users to update their app.

“This is something that developers have asked us for a long time is — say you own an app and you want to make sure the user is running the latest version,” Google senior director for Android product management and developer relations Stephanie Saad Cuthbertson told me. “This is something developers really fret.”

Say you shipped your application with a major bug (it happens…) and want to make sure that every user upgrades immediately; you will soon be able to show them a full-screen blocking message that will be displayed when they first start the app again and while the update is applied. That’s obviously only meant for major bugs. The second option allows for more flexibility and allows the user to continue using the app while the update is downloaded. Developers can fully customize these update flows.

Right now, the new updates API is in early testing with a few partners and the plan is to open it to more developers soon.

As Cuthbertson stressed, the team’s focus in recent years has been on giving developers what they want. The poster child for that, she noted, is the Kotlin languages. “It wasn’t a Google-designed language and maybe not the obvious choice — but it really was the best choice,” she told me. “When you look at the past several years, you can really see an investment that started with the IDE. It’s actually only five years old and since then, we’ve been building it out, completely based on developer feedback.”

Today, the company announced that 46 percent of professional developers now use Kotlin and more than 118,000 new Kotlin projects were started in Android Studio in the last month alone (and that’s just from users who opt in to share metrics with Google), so that investment is definitely paying off.

One thing developers have lately been complaining about, though, is that build times in Android Studio have slowed down. “What we saw internally was that build times are getting faster, but what we heard from developers externally is that they are getting slower,” Cuthbertson said. “So we started benchmarking, both internally in controlled circumstances, but also for anybody who opted in, we started benchmarking the whole ecosystem.” What the team found was that Gradle, the core of the Android Studio build system, is getting a lot faster, but the system and platform you build on also has a major impact. Cuthbertson noted that the Spectre and Meltdown fixes had a major impact on Windows and Linux users, for example, as do custom plugins. So going forward, the team is building new profiling and analysis tools to allow developers to get more insights into their build times and Google will build more of its own plugins to accelerate performance.

Most of this isn’t in the current Android Studio 3.3 beta yet (and beta 3 of version 3.3 is launching today, too), but one thing Android Studio users will likely be happy to hear is that Chrome OS will get official support for the IDE early next year, using Chrome OS’s new ability to run Linux applications.

Other updates the company announced today are new Jetpack Architecture Component libraries for Navigation and Work Manager, making it easier for developers to add Android’s navigation principles into their apps and perform background tasks without having to write a lot of boilerplate code. Android App Bundles, which allow developers to modularize their applications and ship parts of them on demand, are also getting some updates, as are Instant Apps, which users can run without installing them. Using web URLs for Instant Apps is now optional and building them in Android Studio has become easier.

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