Digital Information World

With virtually all of America gripped in one of the most dramatic social crises of the year, a sense of routine has begun to emerge. A big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that black people have been systematically disenfranchised as well as oppressed for centuries now, and even after the civil rights movement ostensibly won a great deal of equality for black people, the number of black individuals that are killed by police officers is much higher than that of any other race.

It seems like the big shots at Silicon Valley would like everyone to know just how much they care about this particular situation. The fact of the matter is that they have commented on it at great length, calling for an end to inequality as well as for an end to this systematic oppression that the black community continues to face. This is indeed a good gesture, but at the end of the day a lot of people are criticizing Silicon Valley because of the fact that while they may like to talk the talk, they hardly seem to be willing to walk the walk so to speak.

Over two decades ago, Reverend Jesse Jackson publicly criticized Silicon Valley due to its tendency to support the ventures of white people over those of black people. This level of inequality can be dangerous and it needed to be addressed, but nearly a quarter of a century later it seems that Silicon Valley has not tried to make things any better which makes their comments on the important of social justice ring rather hollow all in all.

If you look at the numbers, only about 4% of the employees in Silicon Valley are black when it comes to venture capital firms which are the ones doing all of the investing and thus have quite a bit of power. If you look at startups that are backed by venture capitalists, only 1% of them were started by black entrepreneurs. This indicates that there is a bias that is making it difficult for black people to get recognition for their own innovations, and at the end of the day this is the sort of thing that can be quite dangerous for the tech industry as a whole.

Some of the biggest tech companies are suffering from major issues in representation, and this tends to affect black people the most. Apple has only one black board member which is one more than it had two decades ago; not a lot of progress all in all. Only one out of the 123 top ranking Apple executives was black, and a total of only 3% of its top leaders are black which is the same number as it was 6 years ago when Apple first started releasing such statistics. Latinos represent more than double this number which is still quite low.

The same rings true for Alphabet, the company that owns Google. Around 3.7% of Alphabet employees are black, and the number is even lower for leadership positions. Essentially, people would like Silicon Valley to start putting its money where its mouth is and actually work towards elevating black communities as much as possible.

Read next: Visualizing the best companies and industries to work for (infographic)

The social media giant, Facebook on Wednesday, stated that the company is not collecting or sharing the personal data of its users or their location data with Facebook’s partners such as researchers, humanitarian experts, or academics to tackle the worldwide crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic.

Laura McGorman in a blog post explained that Facebook has developed a differential privacy and security framework. This privacy framework secures the privacy of people in aggregated sets of data by making sure that no one is able to identify particular individuals in these sets of data.

Facebook rolled out ‘Data for Good’ back in the year 2017. The goal behind launching ‘Data for Good’ was to empower partners with data to help make further progress on significant social issues.

Public health officials have been using the data provided by Facebook during the last few months to inform decisions about the coronavirus across regions including Asia, North America, and Europe. The company explained in a statement that Data for Good only aggregates data collected by Facebook from its family of apps and then it shares the collected data in a de-identified way. The data helps researchers and academics to resolve major social issues.

The new framework developed by Facebook makes new datasets available for public use to help inform the public sector response to philanthropic situations such as the coronavirus outbreak. The company also explained that Facebook only provides access to aggregate information to research partners who are enrolled in the ‘Data for Good’ program. Some datasets formatted to prevent re-identification of any individual are being released for public use.

For instance, Facebook uses techniques such as spatial smoothing to produce aggregated location data to protect users’ privacy. You can also choose to share your location information if you want to in the Location History setting or whether you want to participate in surveys or not.

Facebook explained that the company does not collect any extra information for the ‘Data for Good’ program such as for advertisers. During April, Mark Zuckerberg stated that if Facebook uses information in a responsible way, the company could help people respond to the current situation and it may help us get started on our way to recovery from the virus. He also stated that this type of data can help the world in many ways but it is important to protect the privacy of people.

Read next: Facebook’s New Manage Activity Feature Makes It Easier to Bulk Delete Posts

COVID-19 has changed life as we know it. Events have been canceled, physical contact is limited, and large crowds are a big no-no. As a result, many businesses worldwide have either significantly slowed down or closed up shop altogether.

Despite all the doom and gloom around, it's business as usual for many companies around the world. Some businesses have actually seen an increase in activity as a result. But even with the increase in business, these companies have had to adapt to the COVID-19 crisis affecting us all. During these times, it's important that your business adapts to the current business climate as well. Here are a few ways on how to successfully change your pricing strategies so that your business can survive COVID-19.

Focus on Digital & Remote Sales

While B2B purchases will still be happening in the near future, there very likely won't be any physical meetups anytime soon. With traditional sales being throttled by COVID-19, digital and remote sales have become more important than ever. And many B2B companies know this as well. Statistics show that B2B companies see digital interactions up to 3 times more important than traditional sales in the foreseeable future. While many businesses have been slowly transitioning to digital and remote sales options, the current business landscape should be all the motivation you need to go all-in on these sales models if you haven't already.

Cut Down or Shift Advertising Dollars

Advertising as a whole has gone down. While many companies have put out at least one advertisement to address the COVID-19 crisis, outside of companies that sell essential products, most companies have cut down on advertising dollars whether it be on TV, social media, or any other platform.

While many products and services won't sell well in this climate, it's still business as usual. And as a result B2B buying will still occur. Change your marketing strategies accordingly. Adjust your advertisement spending depending on the type of items you sell. Aggressive marketing strategies aren't the way to go, especially if the item isn't considered to be essential. Don't turn off the businesses you deal with just to make money. B2B businesses need to be more compassionate given the circumstances.

Change Your Spending Habits According to What's Selling

While overall spending has declined as a result of COVID-19, there's still plenty of money being spent. With that being said, consumers and businesses alike have shifted how they shop. Certain items that might've once been an afterthought all of a sudden have higher priority over others.

And this applies to B2B companies as well. As a result, companies are paying real close attention to their recent transactions. For example, Pros B2B price strategy article states that paying attention to how customers are spending will help you assess how customer priorities have changed. Look over recent purchases from your customers and act accordingly.

Companies around the world are quickly having to adjust to the new normal forced upon us by COVID-19. Take some time to adjust your business practices so that your company can survive the current business climate going forward.

Photo: Freepik / Gesrey

Snap Inc. stated that Snapchat will no longer promote the United States President Donald Trump’s Snapchat account in the app’s Discover section. The company, while explaining the reason, stated that Trump’s incendiary comments during the last week made his account ineligible for the Discover section which is the curated section for Snapchat users to explore fresh content.

The company stated in a statement that Snapchat will not strengthen voices that encourage racial violence as well as an injustice by providing them free promotion on the Discover section of the Snapchat app. The company also stated that injustice and racial violence should not be given any place in our society.

Snapchat announced that the company stands together with those people who seek equality, justice, love, and peace in the United States. After the company made the announcement, its shares fell by 2.4%. The United States President Donald Trump’s account on the Snapchat app consists majorly of campaign content. Trump’s Snapchat account does not have the informal rhetoric, Trump often uses on his most favored social media platform - Twitter. The company added that his account will continue to remain public and users who follow him or search for his account on Snapchat will be able to access his account.

Joe Biden, a Democratic rival who is seeking to oust Donald Trump in the upcoming Nov presidential election, stated in a video he posted to Snapchat that he was proud to run for president, and still be on the Snapchat app. Brad Parscale, Donald Trump’s campaign manager stated that Snapchat is trying to rig the upcoming election by suppressing Donald Trump’s content. Parscale also accused the company that Snapchat is promoting Biden and encouraged people to destroy the US by promoting ‘extreme left riot videos’ across its platform.

Twitter also labeled a lot of tweets posted by Trump and stated that those tweets violated Twitter’s rule on misinformation. However, the social media giant Facebook refused to take any action on similar posts, and this prompted an employee protest. However, Snap Inc. did not specify which comments the company found inciteful. Evan Spiegel, Chief Executive told staffers that the company decides what type of content will be promoted in the Discover section. Snap made this decision over the weekend.

Photo: SIPA USA/PA Images

Read next: Snapchat Attempts to Aid Victims of Domestic Violence With In-App Support

A recent study published by the team from Carnegie Mellon University’s Security and Privacy Institute (CyLab) found that only a third of users change their passwords after a data breach announcement.

The study is based on data taken from actual browser traffic. It was earlier presented at the IEEE 2020 Workshop on Technology and Consumer Protection.

The research team assessed real-world web traffic collected with assistance from the university’s optional program - Security Behavior Observatory. Where, people can sign up and share their full browser history for the purpose of academic research.

The dataset for this specific researched included information from home computers of 249 participants, taken between January 2017 and December 2018. It accounted for web traffic, passwords used to log in to the website, and stored inside the browser.

As per the results, the team said that out of the 249 users, only 63 had accounts on breached domains that publicly announced a data breach during the collection interval. From these 23 users, only 33% or 21 users visited the breached sites to change their passwords – while only 15 changed passwords within three months of the data breach announcement.

The team also analyzed the complexity of the user’s new passwords and said that the users who changed their password (21), only 9 created stronger passwords while the rest were titled as weak and similar to the passwords of their other accounts that were stored inside the browser.

The study concluded that internet users should be enforced with knowledge regarding password safety and tips on choosing a better or unique passwords. Additionally, the researchers criticized the hacked websites who almost never told the users to reset their passwords on other accounts.

Also read: More Than 1 in 10 People Have Had Their Streaming Account Hacked

Comparatively, the study was small in scale. However, it gave a real-life view of user’s practices when it comes to passwords by actually looking at the browsing data rather than taking generic responses from the participants.

The study is titled ‘How do people change their passwords after a breach’ can be found here in PDF format.

Photo: Gettyimages

Read next: Ransomware Threats Increased By Fourteen Times In Only One Year

The ad security firm, Confiant carried out new research. The results were a little disturbing as they showed that secure contexts like sandboxed iframes may not be as secure as they are thought to be! They allow drive-by-downloads that may subject the system to cyber-attack.

A drive-by-download is spontaneous downloading that begins when a user visits a site and a file starts downloading without ever taking the permission of the user.

This technique is quite dangerous because it can be misused to infect the user with some unwanted or corrupted software or malicious program. Such things sometimes prompt users to download or click on things that will bring harm to their system.

Usually, these issues occur because of integrating more content on web pages. This content often comes from third parties like social networks, ads, widgets, etc.

When a web page has more content like this, it usually helps the webpage grow in size, but it also displays some things to the users that are not completely controllable.

Some of these external contents, like advertisements, are integrated through the <iframe> tag. Now, these are things that have a great security risk, so to make things more secure for the users, W3C added the ‘Sandbox’ attribute in the HTML specifications. This attribute limits the action from an iframe within a web page and makes it quite secure and protected.

Despite the precautions, in January 2020, the a news site got hacked and a malicious script was injected that started displaying original looking but fake Google Play Protect and Adobe Flash overlays to the users. These overlays would prompt the users to download a malicious APK file that would install the Anubis banking Trojan on Android and web devices.

It was initially construed as a mal-advertising campaign, but Confiant’s researcher Eliya Stein found out that these drive-by-downloads were initiated by the JavaScript embedded in the page.

Stein decided to check if the same script could cause a drive-by-download of an APK file in sandboxed cross-origin iframes.

A cross-origin iframe is basically an iframe having a different hostname.

Stein created a proof-of-concept page to test different browsers. This special sandboxed iframe had all those restrictions that are normally used by ads.

The conclusion was that Chrome 83 and Microsoft Edge both block the sandboxed cross-origin iframes, so the drive-by-download technique cannot work unless downloads are manually ‘allowed’ by a developer to the sandbox value.

However, Mozilla Firefox and Brave do not prevent the downloads in cross-origin iframes. While Safari would try to download the APK file but thankfully does not complete the procedure.

Mozilla Firefox’s developers later completed the code to block downloads in sandboxed iframes and this code will be added to the browser soon, which is a good step.

Some Android browsers would prompt the user to download the file but issue a warning that the file could be dangerous, and the rest of the mobile browsers showed inconsistent behavior.

Read next: Saving Edited PDFs on Google Chrome Will Now Be Easier Than Ever Before

Just a month ago it seemed like pretty much every single person out there was claiming that Zoom was something that they would want to end up using on a regular basis. A big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that people were on lockdown and this seemed to be the best option that would allow them to stay in touch with people as well as to get work done through meetings and the like.

However, as the Zoom name starts to become genericized with people referring to video calls from competitors as Zoom meetings, the company has released a statement acknowledging that they have peaked to a large extent. With competitors mounting stiff competition, including the likes of industry giants such as Microsoft and Google, one might assume that Zoom is now down for the count and now that it has had its moment in the sun the company will fade back into the obscurity from whence it came.

If you think this way it is understandable, but at the end of the day Zoom has managed to do something incredible. The service only has 10 million users in December, but now that number has gone up to 300 million. This is a huge growth spurt, one that is going to have a lasting impact both on the industry as well as the company itself. The company has also seen a 169% increase in revenue from last year, earning a massive 328.2 million dollars so far, and if you look at the company’s users then you would see that the number of accounts that belong to companies with 10 or more employees has gone up by an enormous 354% percent all the way to 265,400, something that indicates that the company might be set at least for the near future.

Read next: First Quarter Report for 2020 Shows Massive Drop in Smartphone Sales Due to Covid-19

The situation in America is worsening after three police officers have been arrested and are facing charges for the use of excessive force and subsequent killing of a black man. This is having a widespread effect on society and it is also making it so that the tech industry is being impacted as well in ways that you might not have thought to be all that possible before. A lot of social media platforms are starting to put forward a message of social justice and are trying to make it so that these messages gain traction on their platform.

Pinterest is no different as it seems that the social media platform is looking into trying to boost content that would raise awareness for these issues. Resources that would help parents explain the situation to their kids are also being shared widely, and the fact of the matter is that organizations that can help in this regard are also being promoted so that the average user can end up donating to them. All of this is being done so that a certain level of awareness can be obtained when it comes to the problems that this country might be currently facing.

According to a blog post published by Ben Silbermann, Pinterest will also be removing advertising on search results for the query “black lives matter” so as not to draw attention away from this very important subject matter. This is something that will help retain the focus of users on the matter at hand, and it certainly shows that Pinterest is attempting to put profits before money in a way that is really admirable and can serve to be a real breath of fresh air if you think about the manner in which it might impact the industry as well as the various people that tend to end up using Pinterest on a regular basis.

Image credit: Bloomberg | Getty Images

Read next: New Pinterest Feature Could Help You Buy What You See

On Tuesday, Creator Insider published a video talking about the New Studio Report, Live Alerts for Merch, and much more. YouTube has merged two existing monthly insights related to revenue performance and subscriber’s performance in a new report in Studio. A new analysis of views has also been included. You will see a monthly bar chart displaying the performance of the last thirteen months. It will help you to quickly analyze your monthly performance and you will also be able to identify potential seasonal trends. You can find the new tool in YouTube Analytics present in your channel overview.

Creator Insider's host Tom Leung also talked about a new feature that YouTube will introduce fairly soon. The company is planning to enable Live Alerts for Merch very soon. Live Alerts for Merch will enable YouTube content creators who are using tee spring will see alerts in their live chats if a viewer buys a product from their store. These alerts are also visible to other viewers which means that if a content creator is hosting a live stream and uses YouTube merch, whenever any user will buy a tee-shirt, everyone else in the chat will be able to view it. Your YouTube merch should also be connected to the tee spring. The new feature will help creators drive more awareness as well as sales.

Moreover, YouTube in its efforts to support the coronavirus relief has also expanded the availability of the YouTube Giving feature. The company has now enabled around 40,000 YouTube content creators across the United States, the United Kingdom, and Canada. In fact, the new tool will allow campaign organizers to link to their fundraisers directly. It will allow others to join and add it to their own videos on YouTube. Google.org and YouTube are matching 2 dollars for each one dollar donated up to five million dollars if someone participates in the coronavirus solidarity response fund for the World Health Organization. This campaign is hosted by the United Nations foundation channel and this fundraiser has successfully raised around 1.8 million dollars. If we add Google.org and YouTube’s matching, the amount would be 5.3 million dollars.

Also read: YouTube Sheds Light on New “Satisfaction” Metric With Videos

If you are a person who uses YouTube’s paid digital goods such as super chat, super stickers, merch programs, or channel memberships, we have an update for you as well. It has been seen that more and more YouTube channels are generating extra money via these monetization programs. It has been reported that more than 80,000 YouTube channels have generated money by using these paid digital products during the past 28 days. This displays a 20% increase since March and more than 40% increase since January of this year. You should also note that around two million viewers have bought their favorite first super sticker, super chat, or YouTube membership since the beginning of March 2020.

Read next: Research Shows That YouTube Influencers Are Most-Trusted By Consumers

The market share report for May 2020 has revealed the Microsoft Windows has managed to recover from the slight dip in market share that it had previously been suffering from. The drop from 57.34% to 56% is actually quite significant when you also factor in the steady decline that Windows 7 has been experiencing, an OS that is Microsoft’s 2nd most popular offering. This seemed to indicate that users were beginning to go elsewhere in order to make it so that they would be able to use their computers as far as operating systems were concerned.

However, the market share for Windows 10 has gone back up to 57.83%, something that seems to indicate that the operating system is now even more popular than it was a couple of months ago. If you combine the share that Windows 10 and 7 have of the market you would begin to understand the sheer dominance that Microsoft holds in this particular area, but the fact of the matter is that Apple has managed to keep things quite steady for quite some time now with its market share of just under 10% staying quite consistent over a long period of time.

Linux is seeing a pretty significant boost in its market share, with about 3.17% of users using Linux based operating systems which is about double the numbers that we were seeing in March. This kind of growth means that the average user might just be a lot more amenable to the kind of alternative browsers that are out there, many of which have made a name for themselves as being adequate alternatives to big browsers such as Windows. Linux is always considered to be the best decentralized option and an increasingly tech savvy audience is definitely going to keep adopting it more and more often as time goes by.

Read next: Microsoft News and MSN Employees Laid Off as Companies Shift to AI Based Operations

Incognito is a private browsing mode that is enabled in different browsers. Users use this mode for several purposes like bypassing content paywalls, overcoming different content filters and limitations, or to simply avoid going through the security steps if possible. Some modes even work against aggressive tracking features that some websites use to block these sites from tracking the users and monetizing the traffic at their site.

These issues cause serious damage to the financial status of these websites, and these are the reasons that prompt websites to employ methods to detect the incognito modes and block them as much as possible, like integrating scripts that can detect the incognito modes easily.

Last year, Google tried to take care of this issue and hamper the efforts of these websites to block the users from using the incognito modes.

When Google released its Chrome 76 in July 2019, they incorporated an update that prevented the websites to use a FileSystem API. This FileSystem detects the browser mode that a person uses while browsing.

Before the release of Chrome 76, the FileSystem API was not available in the incognito mode. The operators of websites had to query this API to look into the browser mode that the user was using.

So, when Google released the Chrome 76, it partially activated the FileSystem API for the incognito mode also, such that there was a hard limit of 120 MB storage space amount that incognito windows could access.

However, this update did not completely serve the purpose and within a week, programmers discovered Google’s trick. So, in response, they developed some scripts that could probe Chrome 76’s FileSystem API to see the amount of storage space that a website could access. If it was 120 MB, these programmers would instantly know that the user was using incognito mode.

Programmers released two more scripts in August 2019 and they became very popular with online content publishers.

Considering the situation, Google had vowed in August 2019 to solve this issue to block the scripts and other methods that websites use to block incognito mode detections.

Sadly, Google has not yet been able to fulfill this promise. Websites are still able to detect incognito mode in Chrome, all the Chromium-based browsers like Microsoft Edge, Vivaldi, Brave, and Opera and all the browsers which share the core of Chrome's codebase.

Now some developers have shared the scripts from last year to the non-Chrome browsers like Safari and Firefox so that they allow the sites to block the users in incognito mode. So, this is kind of urgent now for Google to fix this issue as soon as possible.

Recently, Google has faced a class-action lawsuit because of its ad division being accused of tracking the browsing activity of users even if they were using incognito mode.

Now, it is a well-known fact that advertisers like Google use indicators to track the users in all the modes. Advertisers and website operators will still be able to see information like IP addresses and other traffic data. So, blocking the incognito mode may not really stop them from tracking the users' activity, but if Google comes up with a solution for this issue, it will be good for their image with the users and help in redeeming their faith.

It has been reported that Apple is adding an audio feature to its News+ platform. 9to5Mac first spotted that iOS v13.5.1 which was publicly released recently is accompanied by the first beta iOS v13.5.5. According to 9to5Mac, ‘Apple News+ Audio’ is hidden within the latest update.

The new audio feature will offer audio versions of stories to those users who have subscribed to Apple News+. It seems that a new ‘Audio’ tab will be added to the existing Apple News application. The new Audio tab will provide News users with access to recorded versions of news stories through an interface that will be similar to that of Apple News.

According to the insights provided by 9to5Mac, subscribers will see the recorded versions of news stories in media player. The media player in which the recorded stories will appear will takes a similar form as the media player in Podcast. The media player will enable skipping, rewind, as well as playback speed adjustment. With the new feature, users will be able to rewind fifteen seconds and skip to the next recorded news story.

Users will also be able to adjust the playback speed according to their needs. Only those users who have subscribed to Apple News+ will be able to access the complete recorded version of news stories. However, the Audio tab will be visible to all Apple News users. If you have not subscribed to Apple News+, you will still be able to listen to previews of recorded versions of news stories available.

Also read: A New Report Compares The Global Popularity Of iPhone And Android Smartphones

We are also still not clear how much content will be made available by the company in recorded form. However, 9to5Mac reported that those who have subscribed to Apple News+ will be able to access and listen to recorded news stories in their entirety. The beta code also suggests that the company will also add support integration with Siri into the new audio feature. We are not yet sure when the new audio feature will be released for public use. However, it is expected that the company will roll out the audio versions of news stories with iOS v13.5.5 update as the feature is developed and waiting to go.

Read next: Apple Release iOS Version 13.5.1 By Blocking The Most Advanced Jailbreak Tool

Twitter released a series of tweets from its official Safety account to clarify the content policies in the wake of its ongoing battle with President Donald Trump.

The feud started after Twitter placed a fact-check label on a couple of tweets by Trump regarding mail-in ballots. President Trump responded to the ‘label’ by issuing an executive order under Section 230 of the Communications Decency Act that would strip social platforms of liability protections.

Twitter again placed a label on another tweet by Trump that made reference to the death of George Floyd and the riots in the USA. The microblogging site said that the tweet by the President violated its rules about glorifying violence.

The company also repeated its content policy, which includes material that is:

· Decrease potential for likely harm

· Decrease harmful bias and incentives.

· Decrease reliance on content removal.

· Increase diverse perspectives.

· Increase public accountability.

Twitter says that the above-mentioned policies accumulate everything we wish to remove from our platform. They also said that they are trying to remove misinformation from their network by putting a ‘fact check’ label on the controversial tweets.

According to Twitter, when the posts are labeled, the users can determine their own viewpoints regarding the authenticity of the information.

The company further said that they are trying to be more transparent regarding their policies and sharing every change publicly to keep the viewers in the loop.

Photo: GLENN CHAPMAN via Getty Images

Read next: Twitter is rolling out its new docked DM chat window for more web users

On Tuesday, SensorTower released estimates of the most downloaded apps in May 2020 (in the non-game category) TikTok was the most downloaded app.

With more than 111.9 million installs, TikTok has seen a record increase in growth which is twice what it was last year. Twenty percent of its total downloads were found to be in India, and around 9.3% of the total downloads were in the US.

TikTok not only topped in the Overall Downloads category, but it also topped in the Google Play downloads.

Zoom was the second most installed app in the Overall downloads non-game apps category. It ranked first in the Apple Store Downloads, and third in the Google Play Downloads.

Zoom has seen 43 times increase in growth since last year, with around 94.6 million installs in totality. 17% of its downloads were in the US and India.

This exponential growth in Zoom makes sense because of the lockdowns implemented all over the world due to the coronavirus pandemic. Offices and educational institutes were shut down and to keep working and studying from home, people relied heavily on Zoom and other collaborative tools like Slack, G Suite, and Microsoft Teams.

Facebook-owned WhatsApp ranked third in the Overall Downloads category among the non-game apps. It ranked second in the Google Play Downloads, while eighth in the Apple Store Downloads.

In Apple Store Downloads, YouTube was ranked third as the most famous installed app. It ranked ninth in the Overall Downloads category.

Facebook was found to be standing fourth in Overall Downloads, Apple Store, and Google Play Downloads.

Facebook Messenger was ranked fifth in the Overall Downloads and Google Play Downloads, while it stood seventh in the Apple Store Downloads.

Instagram was found to be standing on the sixth position in the most downloaded apps in all categories.

Other apps that made it in the top ten most downloaded apps list are Google Meet, Aarogya Setu, Snapchat, SHAREit, and Gmail.

Also read: Mobile Gaming Is Going To Have A Blockbuster Year 2020, Beating PC And Console Gaming

These estimates by the Sensor Tower Store Intelligence platform include the downloads of all these apps worldwide between 1st May 2019 to 31st May 2020. These estimates include only unique installs and do not include Apple apps and Google pre-installed apps.

The figures that they present are basically the aggregate installs of all app versions, like Facebook and Facebook Lite, and the estimates for the Android apps do not include third-party stores at all.

An overview of the top five ranked most downloaded apps in all stores and categories shows the trend that people were leaning towards during this period. Most apps saw a dramatic surge in popularity and growth during the months when lockdown and shelter-at-home policies were implemented globally.

Read next: First Quarter Report for 2020 Shows Massive Drop in Smartphone Sales Due to Covid-19

WhatsApp has recently announced a new update in its cross-platform and multi-device feature. This update is currently going through the testing phase, and this is very good news for all because, with all its functionality, this limitation was still there. It could have caused harm to its popularity in front of other apps that provide seamless cross-platform and multi-device functionality.

It seems that WhatsApp has been working tirelessly to provide a great user experience. With the improvement in the WhatsApp group video chats, beta testing in progress for QR Codes, and encrypted backups, now this news is extremely positive. This new update is going to bring a dynamic change in the overall functionality of WhatsApp while stretching the bounds of end-to-end encryption and working on WhatsApp’s performance for the security of users’ messages and media.

WhatsApp has played a vital role in changing the course of the messaging world. It is simple to install, easy to use and since the beginning, it has provided a lot of benefits over SMS by pulling texting away from the networks to cross-platform apps.

SMS services have their own limitations. They are not very cost-effective, and they do not offer the kind of communication that WhatsApp and other apps offer.

Even Blackberry Messenger had some proprietary limitations, so, in front of all these messaging services, WhatsApp served as a modern method for cross-platform messaging.

However, now most of the people use multiple messaging platforms on their phones. Messaging apps like Signal, Telegram, and Wickr provide specialist alternatives, but Facebook Messenger, Apple’s iMessage, and the Rich Communication Services (RCS) upgrade to the ever-present SMS service pose some real challenge for WhatsApp to up its game as well.

Both RCS and iMessage find a way to build into the operating system of the phone on which they are installed. But their main issue is that they are not inter-operable between Android and iOS, and for RCS especially when there is no Wi-Fi or a secure mobile data connectivity, it reverts to insecure SMS and MMS system built in the phone.

But if the SMS system is made secure and it gets updated, then there is going to be a problem for WhatsApp!

Although WhatsApp provides a web-view and different desktop fronts, its cross-platform functionality on multiple devices still lacks in front of the smooth running and completely savvy apps like Signal or iMessage. It does not provide an app for the iPad, and it does not run effortlessly on a tablet device. ‘Signal’ is trying to become a mainstream alternative and iMessage is also working on improvements like the ability to edit sent texts and some other better desktop options. So, WhatsApp needed to take a big step in the right direction too.

As per WABetaInfo’s report, WhatsApp is now going to give a much better cross-platform experience with the linking of multiple devices synced with each other. It is in the beta testing phase right now, and its entire functionality is not known as yet, but it seems that the message history will have to be transferred from one device to another or the cloud with the help of a stable internet connection. It will have to keep the end-t-end encryption feature functional and work on multiple encrypted endpoints in transport or a central repository for them to securely sync.

Let us wait for this feature to roll out. It looks like it relates to another update of encryption of messages and media history backups, stored in the cloud with Android or iOS operating systems. If these updates are all linked, it will be a mind-blowing upgrade from WhatsApp for sure!

Read next: Scammers to Emoji Lovers: 6 of the most Common Types of Users on WhatsApp!

Google is introducing a new feature to its My Business Portal. The new feature will be useful for both- consumers and business owners. New types of business hours are being added that can be displayed on Google Maps. These business hours can also be displayed on other products for different various different aspects of a business.

Previously, business owners were only able to fill out their regular business hours while they were filling out their business hours on Google Maps, Google’s web mapping service. However, there were some exceptions available for business owners while filling out business hours such as holidays. But, now the company is making this feature more flexible for users.

Now, Google has added a new ‘More Hours’ section into the ‘My Business’ portal. The More Hours section will provide users the ability to include additional types of business hours. These additional business hours may be applicable to their respective business. The types of these extra business hours can vary wildly from one business to another. However SearchEngineLand spotted a few examples such as takeout, happy hour, pickup, drive-through, delivery, senior hours, and many more.

Google explained on a support page that if you are a business owner, you can use these extra business hours independently of normal business hours. You should also note that the new feature will only be made available for select types of businesses like restaurants, etc. You can also set the business hours on a per-day basis if you want to.

More business hours option will not appear until a user has already set regular hours. Users can also select the business hours for particular services their business offers like a pickup, drive-through, takeout, and delivery, etc. You may also note that users can only set Certain More business hours for particular types of businesses.

Moreover, the More business hours option will only appear for selected days of the week and surface to consumers Google Search as well as Google Maps. It is evident that the new feature was inspired at least in part by the impacts of the COVID-19 pandemic on businesses around the world. However, the feature will also be useful once the situation is under control. It will be very useful for users when they will be able to display business hours directly from a Google Maps listing for specific services or promotions.

Screenshots: Searchengineland.

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Featured photo: Sopa / Getty Images

Google has been working on featured snippets to highlight content within a specific article. Now, after years of testing out the new feature, the company has finally rolled out the featured snippets to the web page highlight tool. It was seen during the last few years that the company has tested to highlight content on a web page. A featured snippet appears within the Google search results, and when a user clicks on the standalone box, Google highlights the relevant content in yellow, a user is looking for within a specific article.

Now, the new feature is live and it works on most of the Google featured snippets and on maximum browsers. Danny Sullivan from SearchLiaison team stated in a tweet that Google has been testing the new feature for five years, and now the feature went live during the last week. He also stated that the company has done this frequently with AMP (Accelerated Mobile Pages) pages since December of the year 2018. Google tested this feature with Hypertext Markup Language (HTML) pages during 2019, and the company now does it frequently with HTML pages since last week.

Now let’s discuss how the new feature works. When you perform a search on Google via desktop or a smartphone, and if a featured snippet appears, click on that featured snippet. After a person clicks the featured snippet, the browser may anchor the user down and highlight a specific text in yellow color. The text you saw in the featured snippet will be highlighted in yellow on that specific webpage.

Danny Suvillan also added a link to a help document in his tweet. The help document says that ‘when a user clicks on a featured snippet, they will be taken directly to the text they saw in the featured snippet on the source webpage. This is no markup required by webmasters and it takes place automatically. The webmasters do not need to manually enable the featured snippet.

However, if your web browser does not support the underlying technology required for this feature, you will be (as usual) taken to the top of the source webpage by tapping on featured snippets. Moreover, Google will do the same if Google’s network is unable to analyze the exact position to direct a click within any webpage.

You might be thinking about why you should care about the new functionality. The new functionality could impact the ad market. As we have stated above, it takes users directly to a specific part of the page, people visiting your website may skip down past advertisements as well as call to action statements. Search Engine Optimization (SEO) experts will have to take measures to track if their website is doing this within the Google Search. SEOs are recommended to replace their ads and call to actions in a more appropriate position, where searchers will not possibly skip them, in light of the latest feature released by Google.

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We all know that Zoom has become one of the most popular video calling service providers during the coronavirus lockdowns. While the coronavirus pandemic has impacted numerous companies badly, video calling applications have experienced an increased number of users. During the past few months, Zoom has become a significant video calling app.

Zoom has not gained all of this increased attention during the lockdowns without its fair share of scrutiny. Users have been criticizing Zoom for its security and privacy practices. However, Zoom has now confirmed that the company will not provide end-to-end encryption to free users for video conversations. According to a report published during the last week, Zoom was planning to add stronger encryption to video conversations for paid subscribers only. Now, Eric Yuan, Zoom CEO confirmed this report today that paid customers will get stronger encryption for video calls.

Alex Stamos, a security consultant at Zoom is explaining the company’s current position. In simple words, the company is currently making efforts to stop abuse across Zoom’s platform and wants to be able to prevent harm from individuals who use the Zoom video calling app for bad purposes. Zoom CEO, Yuan stated that the company wants to be able to operate it together with the Federal Bureau of Investigation and local law enforcement. Yuan’s statement was considered controversial, however, Stamos explained that his statement was unclear. Stamos went on to further explain the decision made by the company and stated that Zoom is currently facing a ‘challenging balancing act’ of trying to enhance security and privacy. The company is also trying to reduce the human effect of the abuse of Zoom’s product.

Now, the Trust and Safety team of Zoom is able to enter a meeting visibly. Zoom’s Trust and Safety team can also report a meeting if they find a particular meeting abusive. However, end-to-end encryption would prevent the company employees from entering a meeting and report if the meeting is abusive. Moreover, there will not be a backdoor to allow it because it will defeat the whole purpose of end-to-end encryption.

Alex Stamos also noted that a significant proportion of meetings use tools and functions that are not compatible with E2E encryption. The current system of Zoom will provide end-to-end encryption to business as well as enterprise users. However, there is another significant distinction. If your organization is on a business plan but Zoom is not charging you any fee, the company will also provide you end-to-end encryption for video conversations. For instance, organizations such as schools will get end-to-end encryption even if they are not paying but are on a business plan. Alex Stamos, the security consultant at Zoom added that Zoom’s recent stance will not entirely eliminate abuse, however, this stance will help the company to reduce the harm. We are not yet sure when the new changes will take place as the company has not announced a roll-out date for the new end-to-end encryption tools.

Photo: ANTHONY WALLACE/AFP via Getty Images

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Facebook recently enabled its data portability feature all over the globe. It was initially rolled out for European countries, and now, after almost 6 months, it has been released for all users around the world, and that is great news.

This feature enables the users to directly transfer a copy of their photos to Google Photos, a photo storage service that stores photos through encrypted transfer. There is no need for the users to download the photos and then manually upload them.

This option of transferring a copy of photos and videos is given in the ‘Your Facebook Information’ settings menu. This is the same menu which used to give the option of ‘download a copy’ of any kind of information related to what the users need to download, including photos. But this option is not so convenient for most users as it provides a huge load of information that users may not even understand!

So, this mechanism of direct transfer is not only hassle-free, it is less time consuming and more efficient.

Although photo transfer has become easier now with the help of this feature, however, the choice narrows down to Google Photos only when it comes down to the location of storage. Facebook has said that support for other services is being worked on too, but it will require collaboration with developers to build the adapters necessary for photos APIs. This depends on an open-source effort called the Data Transfer Project.

This project started in 2018 and it was backed by various tech companies that wanted to develop a platform- to- platform data portability system. In a wider context, this type of powerful platform portability system can have a deleterious impact on competition and digital markets.

Some powerful tech companies will have to put some extra resources into data portability with a joint strategy to take care of the antitrust action which may bring a downfall to the dominant empires when they try to rebalance digital markets. But if the platforms build a solid case in favor of this platform-to-platform portability, this might help them with the new regulations in the digital markets without causing any apparent harm.

So far, the countries where Facebook had enabled this feature, no specific number of Facebook users who made use of this photo transferring tool is known, but it is said to have become quite famous, nonetheless.

Facebook also received positive feedback from stakeholders who have been showing their interest in the product from the beginning when it started to roll out.

It is hoped that it will become very popular once people start becoming aware of it and when new data types and destinations are added to the tool.

We have seen that Facebook is continuing to grapple with challenging questions about what type of content should be allowed or blocked on Facebook’s platform. The company is still working on its upcoming ‘Content Oversight Board.’ The initial training as well as the onboarding phase of the Oversight Board has been slowed due to the coronavirus pandemic. The new Content Oversight Board will help to relieve some of the pressure, related to this aspect, on Zuck and Co. However, the Content Oversight Board is looking over the ongoing situation and stated that the current events in the US have been painful for all the Board members.

As Facebook is one of those organizations focusing on free expression as well as human rights and has a global scope, the company recognize that various communities are facing other issues currently, it is not possible to ignore what is currently happening in the cities of United States. The Content Oversight Board is made up of various experts in different fields such as constitutional law and politics, and civil rights, etc. The Board will help the company analyze its best way forward on content rulings including those related to content posted across Facebook’s platform by political leaders.

However, the board stated that the company is not in a position to make decisions on current issues. However, when the Content Oversight Board will be in a working state, they will make tough decisions without considering the company’s reputation, or economic as well as political interests. The Board stated that the members are not here to defend Facebook, and the board will be transparent in the decisions.

Currently, the Content Oversight Board is going through its final training. The final stages of the Board’s training include instructions related to the Case Management feature that the company has developed to facilitate the operations of the Board. It is expected that the Board will be operational by the end of the year 2020. This also indicates that the Board will be in place in time for the United States Election. The Board may also be able to provide a powerful boost to the company’s efforts in this space. However, the company will always have the authority to overrule the decisions made by the Content Oversight Board. The Oversight Board also noted that the company created the Board to make binding as well as independent decisions related to the toughest issues related to content across Facebook and Instagram apps. How the company treats content posted by public personalities that may violate Facebook’s community standards falls under the Board’s scope. Moreover, the Board expects that this issue will be one of the most challenging cases the board will consider when it goes operational in the next few months.

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