Digital Information World

Recently, Jane Manchun Wong, a reverse engineering expert for various applications has reported that Facebook is working on a new Lasso Camera inside the main application.

Lasso is a short-video sharing application owned by Facebook. It was launched in late 2018 for selected regions on both iOS as well as Android. This application is considered as a competitor of TikTok, which is one of the most popular video-sharing application.

Like TikTok, users of Lasso can make/create/record dance, lip-syncing, beauty, fitness, and comedy videos. They can also record short clips like Vines. It is a standalone application especially meant for short-form videos.

Users can easily sign in to Lasso by either creating an account using Facebook or directly through Instagram. After allowing the app to access their profile, photos, and videos, they can skim through thousands of short videos that play automatically and are properly tagged with the help of relative hashtags.

Once a creator creates a video, they can share it on their Facebook and Instagram Stories.

Now, as per Jane Wong’s report, this Lasso camera is in the process of becoming a part of the main Facebook app too. This is probably a good idea to incorporate it within the main app, as this step can make Lasso more popular among a wider audience. Because Lasso’s competitor app TikTok has seen massive growth and popularity, especially in the recent months of the coronavirus pandemic.

Also read: Facebook enables Messenger Rooms for Groups and Events

Many high-profile celebrities are using TikTok for entertainment, as well as business purposes. People are earning money on TikTok through the marketing of various products and brands, and it received this kind of mass recognition just recently. So, it is not surprising that Facebook is working to get its app in the mainstream limelight too.

Let us see how this Lasso camera within the Facebook app will work out. Only time can tell how users will find this latest update on Facebook.

There has been a surprising update from YouTube recently. 720p videos are no longer considered as High Definition. Any video below 1080p falls in the category of Standard Definition.

This does not mean that any 720p video has been taken down from YouTube. They are still there, just not grouped under the HD videos anymore.

This new change has taken some YouTubers by surprise, as the entire classification of video qualities has been ingrained in the minds of all video enthusiasts for a very long time. It was the rule of thumb that any video with 360p and 480p was ‘Standard Definition,’ and 720p and above was ‘High Definition.’ As much as the resolution improved, the videos would fall in higher definition categories like Full HD, UHD, etc.

There are still many people who own monitors and displays with 720p as classic HD. But now, for whatever reason, YouTube has suddenly changed the entire definition and classification of this resolution system!

When you open a YouTube video in any browser of your choice now, if you go and select the playback resolution manually, you will find a 720p option without the “HD” moniker in front of it.

This is an unprecedented move and that too, without any apparent reason. At least YouTube has not yet stated any particular cause for this action, so, only they know why they changed something so basic, without any prior announcement. And what difference would it make when the 720p videos are still there and are still having good, viewable quality? More pixels do not necessarily add to the value or quality of the video. Many a time, 720p and 1080p videos have been downscaled and super-sampled from 4K UHD, and that is just fine.

We all know that in terms of gold standards, 1440p and 2160p are in the ‘High Definition and above’ game. But while YouTube changed the classification for 720p, surprisingly it did not change anything for 1080p. They are still under the High Definition tag.

So, it is rather unfathomable as to why YouTube changed one thing and did not change the other while it was at it?

everyone freaking out about youtube no longer considering 720p "hd"

y'all seen that steam measures your installs in GB now instead of MB right? what the FUCK
— Arcade Guy Ceej (STAY HOME & PLAY ARCADE GAMES) (@YourPalCeej) May 17, 2020

disagree cuz some people still cant watch 1080p smoothly cuz of internet and stuff soo they choose 720p. and when youtube took away the HD tag the premium feels of knowing you're watch HD video isnt there anymore. hmm i dont know, just my 3 cents. https://t.co/i6slto4WbJ
— jackfiq (@Afiq_zulkeflee) May 17, 2020

Cool. Zoom and Skype both have 720p video and they say “HD video calls”. Which is clearly a mistake.
— Marcelo Moyano (@marcelosmack) May 16, 2020

720p isn't marked as HD on youtube anymore pic.twitter.com/j5trOUAgkS
— LookAnAltAccount (@LookAnAlt) May 17, 2020

Guys, stop getting so pissed that @YouTube removed the HD icon from 720p. It's 2020, 720p looks like shit and isn't the standard anymore. 1080p is the standard and the lowest HD, that's why it's called full HD. 720p was considered HD but never full HD, so it was never really HD.
— Maayan29 (@maayan292) May 17, 2020

The community reaction is mix so far. There are many people out there who probably do not even care about the titles of the resolution in which their videos play. All they worry about is clear and well-defined video quality. A lot of people do not go and change the resolution settings manually, so they probably will not even know about this change. However, for those who worry about these things will probably find this strange and quite unreasonable!

Also read: Study Shows Quarter of Most Viewed Covid-19 YouTube Videos Contain Misinformation

Let us wait and see whether YouTube will provide any justification for this move, or it will just become a fleeting change from the company that will go unnoticed by the majority of the community?

Only time will tell whether this move will even change anything in the world of resolutions and pixels or not?

Back in March when the coronavirus pandemic was starting to become rather widespread and had begun turning into something that most people felt needed to be dealt with in some way, thereby resulting in lockdowns and quarantines, governments started to worry about the impact this would have on the world.

For one thing, more people would be at home which meant that streaming was going to become more common, something that most people would not think is much of a problem but the fact of the matter is that there are actually a number of different problems associated with this sort of thing all in all. Streaming uses up a lot of bandwidth which could overload the system if too many people are doing it at the same time. This is why Netflix and YouTube as well as other streaming platforms began to reduce the maximum quality of the streams you could watch.

Netflix has now started to go back to the regular streaming quality that we all know and love, and this is sparking some pretty harsh criticism for YouTube in general and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that the video search giant has only seemed to put a cap on video quality in India. India is an emerging market but it only has 15% of YouTube’s global audience which means that throttling speeds there would really not do much to impact the wider internet infrastructure.

YouTube was accused of making India suffer without really addressing the issue in parts of the world where it finds a larger percentage of its users, and now that Netflix has gone back to regular streaming quality people are waiting to see what YouTube’s excuse will be. The crucial difference is that in other countries the default streaming setting became 480p but users still had the option to go for higher quality streaming.

In India on the other hand, the highest available option for all videos suddenly became 480p which is such a low resolution that it made many people start commenting on the fact that it felt like it was the year 2008 once again when YouTube was a new phenomenon and 360p was the standard resolution with 240p being reserved for slow connections and 480p being a high quality option. This clearly showed that YouTube was unnecessarily forcing Indians to watch low quality videos.

If Netflix is going back to regular streaming quality then that means YouTube can as well, and every day the streaming platform delays will deprive a massive market without there being any good reason for doing so.

Also read: How The Pandemic Has Short-Circuited Our Rationality (infographic)

Cybercrime has been posing a threat to innocent internet users for a very long time. We keep hearing about online frauds, scams, phishing attempts, and about malicious URLs too, and we also know that many high-profile individuals and organizations become a target of state-sponsored cybercrime also.

There may be instances when you receive an email from a trusted contact, or a message prompting you to click on a seemingly innocent URL; there is a chance that you might end up clicking on this link because you would think that it is safe as it is from a person you know.

Sometimes, this link will direct you to Google and you will think that its nothing big...but you are wrong. Because there is a high chance that it is a phishing attempt!

Scammers often send a Punycode encoded URL, which redirects the user to a same-looking yet malicious site. Punycode is a way of converting words that can’t be written in ASCII, into an ASCII encoding. This also enables to encode International Domain Names that include non-ASCII characters by using only the Roman letters A to Z, the digits 0 to 9, and the hyphen character.

Sometimes, scammers send Open Redirects in Google. By making the victim click on this link, they can redirect them to their own malicious sites, which usually take leverage by hacking into legitimate sites for either hosting their malicious content in it or to act as intermediaries.

They need this leverage to these sites because their own malicious sites often get black-listed, and their domains are usually not trust-worthy too.

To put it simply, scammers make the victim click on an unvalidated redirect or forwards, which prompt a web application to accept untrusted input that causes the web app to redirect the user request to a URL contained within the untrusted input. These scammers basically modify the untrusted URL input to a malicious site and then after launching the victim into a phishing scam, they steal their credentials.

In their modified link, they use the same server name as of the original or a legitimate site, thus making the phishing attempt less suspicious.

Sometimes, these unvalidated redirect and forward attacks are also used to maliciously craft a URL that will mimic the original site’s control actions. This will make them pass through the application’s access control check without any problem, and then lead the scammer or hacker to privileged or secret functions that they would not be able to access under normal circumstances.

Also read: Bad Actors Are Now Leveraging Google's reCaptcha Checks To Raise Phishing Attack Success Rate

So, an open redirect to a legitimate website can be abused and make the users go from a legitimate trustworthy site to another site which is suspicious. Unfortunately, these legitimate sites are all listed sites in the search index of browsers, and that is how these scammers latch to them for their scamming attempts.

Google uses this URL for redirects: https:/www.google.com/url

This URL will redirect you to any URL on the web if you add an appropriate URL parameter like this:

https://www.google.com/url?url=http://www.example.org

If a scammer is trying to attack you, when you click the above link, you will see that you will not be redirected straight to example.org. Instead, you will probably land on a Google web page that will warn you about the page you were on was trying to send you to an invalid URL.

But this may not happen always. Sometimes the phishing URL has a second parameter, ‘sa=t’ and a third parameter ‘usg’ which might contain a unique identifier. E.g:

https://www.google.com/url?sa=t&url=http://example.org/&usg=AOvVaw1YigBkNF7L7D2x2Fl532mA

This unique identifier is hard to make, but if a site is listed on the Google search index, it has a ‘usg’ which is easily retrievable from the source code of the search results page. This is where these hackers get their third parameters, from listed sites!

Surprisingly, Google does not take much notice of this vulnerability to be abused by the scammers, and they do not have a solid policy against them either.

So, the only way to protect yourself is to not believe in every message or email, even if sent by a trusted contact. If it seems out of context and random, and your contact does not tell you the exact reason for asking you to click on a link, consider it phishy and do not fall into the trap unless you confirm it from your contact personally.

Also, check URLs before clicking in all circumstances.

Embedded tweets are an important part of the manner in which most people end up using Twitter on a regular basis, and the fact of the matter is that there are a number of different ways in which you might want to look into embedding tweets that are relevant to you. Twitter is rolling out some minor changes (as first spotted by SocialMediaToday) that don’t appear to be all that significant but the truth of the situation is that they can actually be quite impactful when you consider the various ways in which they improve how embedded tweets look.

The tweet will now be shown with rounded edges, and the text is going to be larger as well. what’s more is that the like count and engagement data will be shown in blue rather than grey. You can probably tell where we are going with this. The new embedded tweets are much more easily visible which is a very important thing to take into account if you truly want to make it so that you end up getting the very best results possible.

The improved readability is not going to be immediately apparent, but chances are that the stats will show just how much they improve the various ways in which we look into the kind of embedded tweets that we can offer to the people that follow us.

If the engagement with such tweets goes up then this will show how small and seemingly insignificant changes can actually have quite a serious impact on the kind of readability that a particular feature would have. It’s important to take things like this into account because not all changes need to be big in order to be impactful, and social media platforms often do need to make small changes like this if their goal truly is to attempt to optimize their platform in every single way, shape or form.

The vast majority of tasks these days are automated through the use of a machine learning algorithm, and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that there is a routine that can be followed and based on this routine the artificial intelligence (AI) can end up ascertaining how much inventory is needed, assess customer satisfaction as well as do all sorts of things that companies rely on in order to function in the best way possible.

If you have been depending on these machine learning algorithms for quite some time now, you might just be assuming that things will always work perfectly no matter what happens because of the fact that nothing has gone wrong yet. With all of that having been said and out of the way, the Covid-19 pandemic has proven that this might not be all that true. The pandemic has changed everything from buying behavior to supply and demand and these changes are making it impossible for algorithms to function as efficiently as they used to.

According to Will Douglas, author of the MIT Technology Review, this is a good example to describe the importance of human oversight when it comes to AI. No matter how sophisticated an AI may be, at the end of the day it is only as good as the data it is being fed. While the purpose of machine learning is to adapt to changes, the truth of the situation is that whenever a change occurs this quickly it can be more or less impossible to adapt to for the AI in question, and this is why we are seeing algorithms and machine learning models become so efficient in the crisis that we are currently going through.

Jason Phippen who works at SUSE as the global head of product and solutions also brought attention to the fact that a change in the data stream could lead to the algorithm behaving oddly, and this could be particularly dangerous due to the reason that it would have an impact on the kind of decisions that a business ends up making. One can only imagine how catastrophic it would be if a business starting using tactics that were based on AI recommendations only to find that the recommendations came from an inability to deal with a massive change in the type of data that was being seen.

Human oversight in this regard could be as simple as data management. We are not quite able to enjoy self sustaining systems just yet, so at the very least managing the data that goes into the machine learning algorithm can make it so that sudden changes can be eased into the AI framework, allowing it to adjust and thereby ensuring at least to a certain extent that the decisions that are being made are going to be reasonable in some way, shape or form.

This is very important when you consider just how much more we are going to start relying on data streams in the future, and how AI and machine learning algorithms are going to end up playing an even larger role in our lives in the coming years.

Also read: This AI Meme Generator Is Making More Hilarious Memes Than Humans

If you check out a random user profile on Instagram you are going to see that said profile will have a number of tabs. Posts, mentions and IGTV listings are the three tabs that are standard in such situations but the fact of the matter is that there are a lot of other options that could potentially be available at any given point in time, and the good news is that Instagram’s new update has added one new tab into the mix which is basically a Guides section for the various profiles that you would potentially come across on the social media platform.

The Guides section will essentially be a curated feed that influencers can use to attempt to contextualize their content in some way, shape or form. It will also help make influencers and content creators a lot more approachable to people that had not heard of them previously. Users would be able to share Guides that they like to their stories which is the sort of thing that can really make it a lot easier for the average content creator to get more traction and make it so that a much higher number of people pay attention to the content that they are creating at the end of the day.

It’s interesting to note how similar the new guide section looks like to Pinterest. This goes to show the influence that Pinterest is having on the world of social media. With user numbers higher than ever before, Pinterest has gone from a social media platform that no one really paid attention to all the way to a contender in the social media world, one that has become so popular that even the likes of Instagram has started to model some of its features which is an indication that Instagram is taking the competition that Pinterest is providing quite seriously all in all.

The launch for this new tab is focusing on tips that are going to help you through the coronavirus pandemic, as well as a number of other tips that are focused on your general wellbeing. However, it seems pretty logical to assume that most content creators and influencers who are going to be using this new feature would end up using it for things like promoting new content as well as for collaborations and sponsorships in order to make it so that more money can be earned.

Brands will also likely start using this new feature to promote new products and the like, something that could change the face of Instagram in a way that some might not consider to be all that ideal all in all.

Chances are that you know a developer who has an Android app that has been developed using Firebase. After all, this startup that Google acquired in 2014 provides an excellent app building toolkit, one that can make it very easy for developers to create an app that has some form of cross platform compatibility and can enable them to make an app highly secure as well which is important if you consider how many different security threats there are that you might face on any given day especially when you are an Android user.

With all of that having been said and out of the way, while Firebase does have the potential to make extremely secure apps, this doesn’t mean that all app developers will have configured the settings adequately enough that the app would truly end up being as secure as you might want it to be all in all.

There are over 150,000 apps on the Play Store that have been created using Firebase, and it turns out that over 4,200 of them are leaking sensitive data that would put you at risk including email addresses and the like all of which should have been held far more securely than what actually ended up happening. While nearly 12,000 apps are revealing Firebase databases, only about 4,200 are actually insecure enough that malicious actors can hack into said databases and acquire all of the necessary information at the end of the day, i.e. according to Comparitech investigation.

It turns out that over 7 million email addresses have been leaked because of these 4,200 apps. That’s not all. 4.4 million usernames have also been leaked, and it’s also important to realize that over a million passwords have been compromised as well. When you also take into account the 5 million phone numbers that have been stolen in this manner you will start to get a sense of how truly serious this situation is and how much of an impact it would have on the kind of security you might be able to enjoy on an Android platform.

Also read: AV-Test Conducted A New Research To Determine The Best Antivirus For Android Users

What is truly shocking is that this data breach occurred as a result of the fact that the app developers did not use the adequate security settings that were available to them. This is sheer negligence and it has resulted in a massive data breach that could have widespread consequences. IT is important that every link in the chain is secured otherwise problems like this are bound to end up occurring on a regular basis. Industry decision makers should take this into account and try and ensure that precautions are taken by all concerned parties otherwise things will keep getting worse as time goes by.

PCMag performed a survey and found that 68% of users believe that smart gadgets listen to them when they are not aware, and the data is shared with companies by those devices.

No doubt, smart home devices have made our lives easier, and offer us a range of benefits. However, a lot of consumers are concerned about a significant potential drawback - using a device that is always on in the house, and could be listening to the conversation of users.

PCMag performed a survey on 2,075 consumers from the United States asking them their opinion and preferences about smart home devices. PCMag found that consumers were concerned about their privacy. Privacy was the top concern of these users regarding smart home appliances. According to survey, the consumers were concerned about their privacy particularly while using smart speakers. These smart speakers come with built-in voice assistants and maybe listening to everything you say.

The voice assistants, these smart speakers have built-in them, include Google Assistant and Alexa. The majority of the respondents said that they believe smart home appliances listen to users even when they are not aware. They said that these smart home appliances share the data with companies who are the providers of these products. PCMag found that 68% of people believe that smart home appliances share their data with the companies behind these products.

People who bought a portal from companies including Google, Amazon, and even Facebook were concerned about their privacy. The rest of 32% of respondents stated that they believe smart home appliances do not listen to them, and according to them, these smart home devices are not a threat to their privacy.

According to PCMag, the recent reports state that Amazon hires thousands of employees only to listen to what users are saying in the recording proximity of an Echo device which is Alexa-enabled. The employees after listening to users have to transcribe and annotate the data gathered. Then the Amazon employees feed back anything they learned into Alexa’s software. However, Amazon states that this happens only with a small number of recordings of the consumers. According to Amazon, the company records the conversation of users only to improve the consumer experience of their products.

Smart assistant devices including Alexa are designed to listen to users only when triggered by any voice command or some other wake word. However, it seems that this is not always the case, and these products might be listening to you even when you are not aware. If you are wondering what steps you could take to protect your privacy while using smart home appliances such as smart speakers or other connected products, you can disable the active listening feature on smart assistants such as Google Assistant, Alexa, Siri, or Cortona.

Kevin Mayer, new TikTok CEO plans to focus on areas such as gaming and music when he takes the helm at the continuously-growing video app on June 1 of this year. He is the formal head of streaming services at Disney and during an interview with The Wall Street Journal, Mayer stated that he will be focusing at sharply large adjacent businesses as well as growing TikTok’s main video business. TikTok has a massive impact on the music industry and Mayer plans to focus on music and gaming.

Trending songs on the social-video app have marked on Billboard’s Hot 100 singles chart every month, and TikTok has been used by popular artists such as Drake for promoting their new songs via some dance challenges. Tiagz also wrote songs directly referencing TikTok trends and built a fan base of millions of listeners.

Advertisers have also started using the TikTok’s dance and music trends to spread brand awareness among the audience. While companies such as Warner Bros and e.l.f. Cosmetics used the app to generate billions of views.

According to CEO Movers+Shakers Evan Horowitz, TikTok’s nature as a platform is that it has become one of the main platforms where artists are releasing their songs currently. As TikTok is continuously growing popular among Gen Z audience, video gaming companies and esports brands have also started to focus the social-video app.

ReKTGlobal, a gaming and eSports company, announced a partnership with TalentX Entertainment earlier this month. TalentX Entertainment is a TikTok-focused management company, and both companies plan to develop a new roster of gaming developers to help gaming companies reach the audience on TikTok via influencer marketing more quickly. As significant esports brands such as Team SoloMid (TSM), 100 Thieves, and FaZe Clan have created verified official accounts on TikTok, the video gaming content is slowly taking up more of the content on TikTok’s suggestion landing pages.

Although many eSports brands and video game companies have started to use TikTok for reaching their audience, it is still the early days for gaming content creators on TikTok’s platform. CEO TalentX Gaming Jason Wilhelm during an interview with the Business Insider stated that TikTok is not yet set up for streaming video games, but the company will figure out a way to do so.

Image Credits: Jesse Grant / Getty Images

Read next: TikTok Rolls Out Youth Portal, A Single Destination For Teens And Parents For Safety Resources

Over the last couple of months, almost all “non-essential” businesses have been encouraging employees to work remotely. But does remote work affect productivity? To find this out, Valoir (a renowned research firm) conducted an extensive survey in which the participants were those people who are working remotely due to the ongoing pandemic. Valoir made the study results public in a May 2020 report.

When it comes to Productivity, a fall of just 1% was observed. This drop is surely impressive since one of the major concerns associated with remote work was that the productivity would fall drastically. However, a 1% decrease is merely 0.5% percent of the total US GDP. Moreover, 20% of workers claimed that there hasn’t been any change in their productivity since the lockdown guidelines took effect.

The survey also showed that the average length of a workday is around 10 hours. Interestingly, over 40% of the survey participants voted in favor of working from home in the future as well.

Now, let’s shed light on Technology. When almost 3% of an average working day is spent on tackling technological challenges related to remote work, it’s high time for companies to improve their digital infrastructure for better workflow, worker mobility, and stable access. The survey in question showed that nearly one in every eight workers is utilizing online collaborations and sharing programs such as Google Docs and Slack.

Distractions can’t be counted out when it comes to working from home. Nearly one in every third worker (32%) cited social media as the most distracting element. Children took the second spot with 24%. In order to ensure maximum performance while working with distractions, people are mostly working for 10 hours daily (minus the weekends).

While remote working is fun, there are some underlying Concerns that workers have. Due to economic uncertainty, people have become thoughtful about their financial future. And this is a concern shared by 27% of the workers. Getting sick while working remotely turned out to be a concerning factor for 23% of the workers. Illness of family or loved one, recession, and company viability took the next three spots in the list of concerns for workers operating remotely.

In the end, a 1% decrease in productivity reflects how it doesn’t matter much whether people work from offices or homes. The report stated that despite how long the current situation lasts, it will leave a lasting impact on how people perceive an average workday for years to come.

The report also made a very good point that workers should take it upon themselves to establish a considerable work-life balance. Additionally, advice for people to become technologically self-sufficient and work on being more collaborative was also stated in the report.

Read next: The Art Of Managing Momentum (infographic)

Coresight has conducted research that has been recently published by Retail Dive. According to the research, it has been observed that due to the coronavirus pandemic, there is an increasing trend in the role of Augmented and Virtual Reality technologies, especially in the retail industries of the world.

This report outlines different AR and VR applications, which encompass the approaches of visualization of the product, virtual trials, and virtual access to product information, and malls.

Apple has already taken a step forward in this direction by updating its Quick Look AR tool, which was launched in 2018 and incorporates a direct checkout feature.

This research points out that Home Depot is a major retailer that has incorporated the AR/VR technology so far.

This is quite interesting and a major step forward in the field of e-commerce. Due to the coronavirus pandemic, the entire world has faced serious repercussions. According to recent reports, the profits of the entire world from the past four years have gone down to zero due to this pandemic. This is how adversely it has affected the world economy.

Due to the closure of retail shops and malls amid the pandemic, the trend of online shopping and e-commerce has seen exponential growth. People who are staying at home have no other choice but to resort to online shopping experiences if they need something from outside.

Keeping this in mind, retailers and different brands have started incorporating AR and VR technologies which can then help the customers to take different actions from their homes before buying a product. These technologies can let the consumers preview a product virtually, or to get other valuable information about the product and brand through various virtual tools.

According to a report from the International Data Corporation in 2019, it was expected from the retailers to spend around $1.5 billion on the development of AR and VR technologies in the year 2020. And interestingly, this was predicted slightly before the pandemic hit the world. So, it also means that the world was already moving in the direction of increased reliance on these technologies to improve the user experience for online shopping and e-commerce.

However, with the pandemic in full force now, the aid from these technologies has become mandatory. Many international brands like L'Oréal, Suitsupply, and Kendra Scott have recently introduced virtual reality tools for their online customers.

Unfortunately, there is a downside too. Now that the need for the AR and VR headsets has increased, a recent report from the IDC suggested that due to the pandemic, it is expected that there is going to be a decline in shipments of these gears.

Also read: The History Of Augmented And Virtual Reality [INFOGRAPHIC]

Now, this is going to be a problem, considering that the demand has increased, but the supply will be affected. There is another possibility that even if the shipments will resume after a while, the prices of these gears will skyrocket too.

Let us wait and see how everything unfolds in the future as it is all blurry at the moment. No one can say with surety about what lies ahead of all of us.

Photo: Starkvisuals / Pixabay

Read next: Buyers Demand Strict Penalties Against Brands Relying on Fake Reviews! (infographic)

Small businesses are the most affected sector of the sector due to COVID-19. Small to medium businesses (SMBs) usually do not have safety nets to rely on like large corporations and often dependent on tight margins. Therefore, it is expected that 7.5 million small businesses in America might shut down permanently in the coming few months if they are unable to operate regularly and recover their costs.

Facebook recently released a report based on a response from around 86,000 people, who either own, manage or work for SMBs. It also included data from 9,000 self-employed personals, who operate personal businesses, providing goods or services.

The report sheds light on the insights of small and medium-sized businesses while also pointing out different areas where opportunities are growing.

It showed the percentage of SMBs of various sectors that are affected and unable to operate due to the on-going pandemic and the lockdown. As many businesses found alternate ways to operate like work from home or focus on delivering online, it is difficult to access the actual impact of lockdown.

According to the report, the most effected are the personal businesses as 52% shut down, followed by 43% cafes and restaurants shutting down along with 41% of the grooming, fitness, and other services closing during the pandemic. Whereas, 31% of the small and medium-sized businesses closed completely in the last three months.

Many businesses had to go into forced hibernation and in the last six weeks, approximately 36 million people have been unemployed in the US.

Now the question arises how many businesses are expected to bounce back and recover after the lockdown ends?

It is not easy to estimate how things will get back on the track, as the longer the lockdown situation prevails, the more critical the economic condition is expected. However, many of the SMBs are positive about their future.

There is much uncertainty in the situation right now and the majority of the people are hoping for the economy to get back on track and expect a decrease in the unemployment rate. A very small amount of segment is expecting a point of no return in terms of businesses growing again any time soon.

Even the businesses that are currently running have faced set back in revenue generation. Growth plans have not been as effective as expected but owners are optimistic about the future.

Several businesses have been shifting towards online opportunities and digital payments, which is an advancement towards the next generation consumers.

People who have been shopping online during the COVID-19 might become accustomed to it, providing the already online businesses to build a stronger connection with consumers and prepare themselves for the next generation of consumers.

Also read: Instagram’s New Guides Section Can Help Users and Businesses Connect

In 2019, the e-commerce retails sales from the e-commerce sector were only 16% in the US and the figure is increasing and expected to continue growing.

Not only the retail sector, but the COVID-19 has also prompted other businesses to explore the digital world and find online ways to continue their operations, where people are spending most of their time in the current situation. SBMs are also given a chance to explore new markets through online opportunities though initially, it might not be a smooth journey.

According to a recent study, humans and artificial intelligence systems can perform better when both of them work together to tackle problems. The research was done by Eric Horvitz Chief scientist Microsoft, Ece Kamar the Microsoft Research principal researcher, and Bryan Wilder, a student at Harvard University and Microsoft Research intern.

It seems that Eric Horvitz first published the research paper. He was hired as Microsoft principal researcher back in the year 1993 and the company named him Microsoft Chief Scientist officer during March. He led the company’s research programs from the year 2017 to 2020. The research paper was published earlier this month and it studies the performance of artificial intelligence teams and humans operating together on two PC vision projects namely breast cancer metastasis recognition and Galaxy categorization. With this proposed approach, the artificial intelligence (AI) model evaluates which tasks humans can perform best and what type of tasks AI systems can handle better.

In this approach, the learning procedure is developed to merge human contributions and machine predictions. The artificial intelligence systems work to tackle problems that can be difficult for humans while humans focus on solving issues that can be tough for AI systems to figure out. Basically, AI system predictions generated with lower accuracy levels are routed to human teams in this system. According to researchers, combined training of human and artificial intelligence systems can enhance the galaxy classification model for us. It can improve the performance of ‘Galaxy Zoo’ with a 21 to 73% decrease in loss. This system can also deliver an up to 20% better performance for CAMELYON16.

The research paper states that the performance of machine learning in segregation overcomes the circumstances where human skills can add integral context, although human teams have their own restrictions including systematic biases. Researchers stated in the paper that they have developed methods focused on training the AI learning model to supplement human strengths. It also accounts for the expense of inquiring an expert. Human and AI system teamwork can take various forms but the researchers focused on settings where machines would decide which instances required human absorption and then merging human and machine judgments.

Also read: The Hidden Impact Of AI Crime Fighters (infographic)

The research paper was published on May 1 on preprint repository arXiv. The title is ‘Learning to Complement Humans’ and extends years of research work in machine-human cooperation. Eric Horvitz and Ece Kamar previously worked together on a research paper that was released back in the year 2012. The paper describes how artificial intelligence can blend human and machine labor. This paper also examined the Galaxy Zoo performance compared to that of humans.

Horvitz, during the year 2007, worked on a policy to examine when human assistants should interfere in consumer conversations with computerized receptionist systems. The researchers also stated in the paper, ‘Learning to Complement Humans,’ that they see opportunities of studying extra aspects of human-machine cooperation across various settings. While studying a different type of teamwork, Open Artificial Intelligence research experts have looked at machine assistants operating together in games such as hide and seek, and Quake 3.

Photo: Ipopba / Getty Images

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Google has rolled out the much anticipated and talked about Dark Mode for its Search app. The new update that has been a part of beta testing for a couple of months is now available on all operating systems.

It is expected to see a wider release in the coming weeks. People who have received the updated version on their devices, especially those running on Android 10 or iOS 13; no action is necessary to enable the dark mode as the app itself updates according to the device’s display settings.

Users who are using iOS 12 may have to enable the feature manually. Also, if someone does not like the automatically applied Dark Mode, they can easily turn it off as per their preferences.

As mentioned before, this Dark Mode has been in talks for a long time, since its launch for mobile devices in 2019. It is basically a browser extension that allows a visually ergonomic experience for the users.

When it is enabled, it makes the web interface appear dark. Blue light/white interfaces are known to increase strain on eyes and adversely affect the eyesight. Therefore, a dark-themed interface is a welcome change for its obvious benefits.

However, when Google released this feature, as much as people appreciated it, they found a glaring glitch that took out all the benefits of a dark interface.

The interface would turn all dark, but the web content settings would remain unchanged. When a Google search was performed, the results page would be all dark themed, but when a particular search item would be opened, it would remain unaffected.

By applying some codes manually, this problem could be addressed to some extent, but the overall results were still not satisfying, and would not benefit anyone for long.

However, the good news is that now that the speculations are over and Google has finally started rolling the Dark Mode out for mobile devices, it has been noted that there is no need to manually update the device.

You can also choose to have the Google App use a light or dark mode different from your system default. To do this, go into the Google App settings and choose the mode that you prefer. This is also how to set dark mode for the Google App in iOS 12.
— Google SearchLiaison (@searchliaison) May 19, 2020

It seems rather straight-forward and direct, without any problems for the users. This is an additional advantage to provide a hassle-free experience to the users, and it is highly commendable of Google to keep it simple and user-friendly.

Since it has an automatic updating system, more people will be able to explore the advantages of the Dark Mode and will be able to judge it wisely, which is indeed a good measure. Even if people choose to turn it off later, they still will be taking a step based on their intelligent judgment. In a way, Google is giving out “free-will” to its users and such actions are bound to make the consumers happy and satisfied.

Let us wait and see how people will react to this handy update. It will not only ease the unwanted stress on their eyes, but it will also improve the battery life of their mobile devices. And that is simply great!

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As a lot of people across the globe are still staying indoors due to COVID-19 lockdowns, they are finding ways to stay connected with their loved ones. During the last seven days, ‘ways to stay connected’, ‘virtual love,’ and ‘virtual dance party’ remained the top Google Search trends. People searched for the question ‘how to stay in touch’ four times more than the question ‘how you can clean your room’ during the last month.

Google shared its search trends for the last seven days, in tweets, and top searches display that the masses have started to find ways to stay connected instead of searching relaxing music and breathing exercise which were amongst the top searches previously. Here we will discuss the top search queries to help you understand the change.

The company noted that people have been searching for the question of how to stay in touch with friends and family members during the lockdowns more than ever. This change in the trending searches displays that connecting virtually is now the new normal for individuals across the globe. This change is obviously due to the COVID-19 pandemic and companies such as Microsoft and Google have also made virtual connectivity easier for us via products like Microsoft Teams and Google Meet.

Additionally, Google disclosed that people have been searching for ‘virtual hugs’ more than ever during the last seven days. The term was searched more in the Philippines than anywhere else in the world during the last month. While people in Australia searched for virtual flowers more than anywhere else in the last 30 days and Indians searched for quarantine birthday wishes more than anywhere else in the world in the last month.

Sending 🖥 love 💓: From a “virtual hug” to “quarantine birthday wishes” 🎁🎈, see how the world is searching to spread good vibes 💫 while inside → https://t.co/91B0jLaVqT pic.twitter.com/5czLAEZby5
— Google (@Google) May 18, 2020

A large number of individuals across the globe searched for ways to stay healthy and fit during the lockdowns. The virtual dance party is so far the most searched ‘virtual dance’ query of the year 2020. Group calls, group phone, and group watch have also been in the trending searches during the last month.

Also read: How COVID-19 has Affected the Small Businesses? Facebook Report Revealed the Truth

Photo: AFP via Getty Images

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Oculus VR, a division of Facebook and the founders of one of the most famous Oculus Quest VR headsets has pointed out some interesting insights in a recent event.

Marking the first anniversary of the Oculus Quest, the company highlighted that the trend of public interest towards advanced VR applications has increased in recent times. Since last year, the use of VR has grown a lot, with people spending more than $100 million on Oculus Quest content alone.

Oculus Quest is an all in one gaming console, which has several unique features. It does not need to be connected to a PC, and it can potentially function anywhere without any major problem. It features two six degrees of freedom (6DOF) controllers and runs on a Qualcomm Snapdragon 835 system. Allowing a perfect VR gaming experience to its users with its hand-tacking feature, it allows the users to interact with the virtual world with only their hands. The system uses machine learning to analyze the inputs from the gear’s four cameras. This allows it to recognize the location and pose of the user's hands while playing.

Oculus also noted the increased demand of Oculus Quest headsets during the global lockdown. They say that the interest in new VR tools and apps has been there before the pandemic hit the world, but now, it has spiked beyond the company’s expectations even.

Oculus has reported that during the Facebook: Game Developer Showcase, more than 20 of their tiles have surpassed the $1 million revenue mark on Quest alone, while some of its top 10 titles have generated more than $2 million revenue.

Now, these are huge figures, and they surely tell where the public interest is leaning towards now and in the future.

Aside from the gaming front, Facebook is also looking for more ways to incorporate VR technology in social connectivity and business. It is working on some tools that can introduce social media elements in the VR space, by integrating it with designated VR groups on Facebook, so that Oculus users can connect more easily.

Another interesting thing that Facebook and Oculus are working on is to facilitate business collaborations within the VR space. Through the help of a tool called Immersed, users will be able to share multi-screen presentations, and it will give the feel as if colleagues have teleported into the same space to work together in VR, making them feel as if they are in the same room.

Now, this is going to be extremely relevant in the coming times. There is a recent shift towards remote working options due to the coronavirus pandemic, and the world experiencing the pros of this new working situation, it is expected that it might continue in the future also. Tech giants like Twitter have already announced that they can let all their employees work from home in the future if they wish.

Also read: What does the average American PC gaming setup look like?

This shift in the trend is a source of evolution in the VR technologies, and just like Facebook, other companies are also expected to bring out more collaborative VR/AR tools and applications.

Right now, the consumer VR options are under experimental phases. Some brands and retailers are working with new AR/VR tools to facilitate online shopping, but that time is not far when the VR/AR space will become the norm!

When the virtual world will provide so much, who would want to come back to reality?

Read next: Facebook Might Launch Smaller Oculus Quest VR Headset in 2020

The Cambridge Analytica scandal was a massive embarrassment for Facebook. It brought the issue of data privacy into sharp focus for the general public. The scandal has had both immediate and long-term effects on Facebook's public image, and it has affected how societies and legislators view social media ever since.

What Happened?

Beginning in December 2015, reports started to emerge that Cambridge Analytica was providing services for political campaigns using data harvested from Facebook users without their consent. However, this story didn't gain much traction at first, and Facebook would only say that they were investigating the matter. A year later further reports appeared. Finally, coordinated international reporting in March 2018 after the emergence of a whistle-blower brought the story into the mainstream.

An app designed by a data scientist from Cambridge University was used to harvest the data. Cambridge Analytica arranged for several hundred thousand Facebook users to complete a short survey for academic use. This included obtaining their informed consent. However, because of the way that Facebook is designed, the app was able to access the personal data of friends of the survey respondents, as well as the respondents themselves.

How Many People Were Affected?

Initial reports suggested that the data set included information of around 50 million Facebook users. Cambridge Analytica disputed this and claimed that it had only collected the data for 30 million Facebook user profiles. Ultimately, Facebook themselves confirmed that 87 million were affected by the data breach.

Of those, 70.6 million were United States citizens, 6.7 million of them from California. Facebook sent messages to users that it believed had been affected by the hack, offering only vague details about what the information likely included. The data points listed by Facebook included the user’s public profile page, likes, birthday, etc., were relatively harmless. But they disguised the real magnitude of what had occurred.

With the data it had access to, Cambridge Analytica was able to create detailed psychographic profiles. They were able to characterize millions of Americans, most of whom had not consented to share their data. These profiles could then be used to determine what sort of advertising or messaging would be most effective at swaying people's votes towards a particular candidate or policy.

What Were The Consequences?

What's the story broke properly in 2018, the most immediate effects were both public outcry and a serious knock to Facebook's share value. In the following days, $100 billion was wiped off Facebook market capitalization. When the initial apology tour did little to quell public discontent, Mark Zuckerberg had to testify before the United States Congress.

Amazon suspended Cambridge Analytica's access to its AWS cloud infrastructure. Governments in both India and Brazil demanded Cambridge Analytica to immediately report any instances of data from the breach being used to influence political campaigning in the respective countries. Meanwhile, lawsuits are progressing through a number of regional courts in the United States.

Facebook’s reputation has still not recovered from the scandal and potentially never will. Cambridge Analytica no longer exists, but all the main people involved in its inception and operation have escaped punishment. They are free to set up more businesses in the same mold and there are already reports that this is exactly what has happened.

Tip of the Iceberg?

Facebook is a behemoth. It was easily able to shoulder the $5 billion fine from the Federal Trade Commission to settle their investigation into the scandal. The paltry $663,000 fine levied by the UK’s Information Commissioner’s Office made even less of a dent. With GDPR now in place, Facebook would face much harsher penalties if they were to repeat the same behavior today. Right?

Actually, it turns out that Facebook is still playing fast and loose with user data. And it is still making it far too easy for personal data to be extracted from the platform and then monetized, misused, or just left out in the open for anyone to find.

Following the Cambridge Analytica scandal, Facebook banned thousands of third-party apps as a security measure against any more data breaches occurring.

Facebook Vs MA

A case is currently working its way through the Massachusetts court system. It could force Facebook to reveal much more about the third-party apps that were suspended from the platform in the wake of the Cambridge Analytica scandal. Facebook has fought hard up until now to keep many of the details about the apps it suspended secret.

Facebook made a big deal out of the fact that it had removed thousands of apps from the platform. It had hoped to score a much-needed PR win. However, it was immediately cagey about exactly which apps it had suspended or why. There were also widespread reports of legitimate small-time apps being suspended.

Facebook has less than 90 days to consider its response. But the company has already indicated that it is likely to appeal.

If Facebook does reveal the information it has been compelled to, we may finally understand the true scope of third-party app abuse on Facebook. You can always delete your Facebook account, right? Given that Facebook also owns apps like Instagram and WhatsApp, it is vital that they are scrutinized properly. Especially when it comes to the personal data of their users.

Photo: Adam Berry / Getty Images

The chief of Facebook-owned Instagram, Adam Mosseri stated that buying Giphy was not all about getting user data. He stated on Monday that Facebook acquired Giphy, an animated-gif company for $400 million. The Giphy is a library of animated gifs that can be integrated with other applications, and various companies Twitter, Apple, and Slack have built Giphy into their respective applications. The acquisition of Giphy was not about to acquire the user data of Giphy, Mosseri says. Facebook bought the company for $400 million on Friday and announced that it would integrate the animated-gif company into its Instagram app.

Mosseri posted a series of tweets on Monday regarding this aspect. In one of his tweets, Mosseri said that the company acquired Giphy because this animated-gif company is a great service for users that needed a home. He stated that Giphy has an expressive content creator community, full stop.

Mosseri claimed that he was the sponsor of the deal in which Facebook acquired Giphy for $400 million. He said that acquiring user data was not the motivation, and Facebook was not focusing on acquiring Giphy’s user data.

Mosseri while explaining his point stated that most of the companies that tap into the wide library of gifs featured on Giphy’s website, use proxies and VPNs to limit the amount of data Giphy can access. Mosseri states that Giphy’s user data can further help Facebook-owned Instagram to understand what type of topics are trending across the world among users. This means that Giphy’s user data can only help Instagram to understand the trending topics among users.

However, Mosseri admitted in a tweet that Giphy’s user data can be a little helpful for Instagram. He stated in a tweet that yes, Giphy’s user data is valuable. However he also explained that the data is not enough, and stated in the tweet that Giphy has little user data. We can say that Instagram is not primarily focusing on Giphy’s user data, and the aim of the acquisition was to provide Giphy a home.

Also read: eMarketer Forecasts That Instagram And Snapchat Will Experience Higher Engagement Growth During This Year Compared To Facebook

Instagram collaborated with Giphy back in the year 2018. Facebook-owned Instagram has been a key partner to the animated-gif company, Giphy since January 2018. The two companies at a deal back in 2018 and it was decided in the deal that Instagram Stories would feature Giphy’s animated gifs. The partnership allowed Instagram users to add Giphy’s animated gifs in their Instagram Stories. With the new feature, Instagram users were able to include background-less Giphy’s animated gifs in their Stories which made Instagram Stories more fun for the users. Both the companies developed a sticker engine containing a huge library of Gifs.

Photo: Matt Winkelmeyer/Getty Images for Wired

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Every other day there is news from major tech giants doing one thing for the community or the other. This time, Facebook has come up with a brilliant solution for the economic crisis that the world is currently going through due to the coronavirus pandemic.

To give a major boost to the e-commerce industry, Facebook has announced the launch of an online shopping feature, Shops. It is going to provide a free storefront for various businesses on Facebook and Instagram. In turn, big third-party services like Shopify, WooCommerce, and BigCommerce will power these shops while they convert social media platforms into online shopping stores and malls!

This is a wonderful decision by Facebook, especially in these extremely trying times. The pandemic hit the world at the end of 2019 and within two-three months, it collapsed the world economy due to the shutdowns of all types of businesses. It especially affected smaller businesses in the worst way possible. Now, Facebook wants to step forward and give these drowning businesses a chance to revive by using it as their storefront for their e-commerce and trade.

The CEO of Facebook, Mark Zuckerberg suggests that expanding e-commerce is imperative to rebuild the world economy. The repercussions of this pandemic have not left us with many choices since it is still going strong and, in many areas, businesses, retail shops, restaurants cannot open as yet. According to a survey, if the lockdown continues for another three months, many of these businesses will completely die, without ever getting a chance to grow back again.

Therefore, solutions like online food delivery by restaurants and online shopping have to be made simpler and more common in the whole world, to help build the community stronger again.

While this pandemic has done so much damage, online sales have seen growth in the otherwise bad situation. Solo entrepreneurs at Etsy have seen their revenue doubled in comparison with the past three years by selling knitted fabric face masks and baked goods. With the help of Facebook and Instagram, more local businesses will get a platform and it will also benefit Facebook.

The business model is such that it will be free to create Shops, businesses can buy ads from Facebook to further promote their products. So, through these ads, payments, checkout fees, and other ways, Facebook will get more earning opportunities too. It will be a win-win situation for both parties.

Almost 160 million small businesses are using Facebook and Instagram as their storefront currently. With Shops, there is a chance of more improvement in the e-commerce experience by storing users’ paying credentials in one place.

Today we're introducing Facebook Shops, which will make it easy for businesses to set up a single online store on both @facebookapp and @instagram, and soon @messenger and @WhatsApp too pic.twitter.com/bBloRGBFzP
— Facebook (@Facebook) May 19, 2020

Shops can be promoted through Facebook and Instagram Stories or in ads, and they can be spotted on the business pages of companies and brands on both platforms. Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp will provide Customer Support, and will also show catalogs of their selling items. These items will also be available for purchase directly from the shop, or through the Facebook Shops, the user will be redirected to the company’s website. From there, the user will be able to choose and make the transaction directly. Buyers will be able to save items for later purchasing too.

In the chat windows, brands and creators can tag items from their Facebook and Instagram catalogs too, while enabling the users to tag items or make purchases through live streams also.

Facebook also plans to incorporate some loyalty programs, rewards, and points with these online shops. While Instagram is planning to display brands on its already existing shop account that highlights the items for purchase. Maybe later, they will add a special shopping tab to Instagram’s navigation bar too.

Shops have been launched on Facebook in the US already, but Instagrammers have to wait for a little while.

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Was Cambridge Analytica Just The Tip of The Iceberg? We Might Soon Find Out

What Happened?

How Many People Were Affected?

What Were The Consequences?

Tip of the Iceberg?

Facebook Vs MA

Facebook Did Not Acquire Giphy For User Data, States Instagram Head Adam Mosseri

Facebook launches online ‘Shops’ to start building up the economical backbone amid the coronavirus pandemic