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Google Comes Up With More 3D Characters For Its Users, Experience The Virtual Dinosaurs In Real World Through The Phone Camera

July 2, 2020, 5:48 am
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Since Google has been adding 3D characters like cats, scorpions, bears, tigers, and a wide range of animals, now it’s time to experience an extinct animal. This all started one year ago through Google I/O. It uses animation that was used in Jurassic World Alive. Every day the technology is modernizing making impossible things possible.

The modernized technology has now made it possible to see dinosaurs’ through Augmented Reality. Dinosaurs’ have been extincted and since then people had a longing thirst to see dinosaurs in the real world. Of course, technology couldn’t bring them back, but you can experience dinosaurs through your phone camera. Imagine what a Brachiosaurus would look like in your garage or your room.

Like dinosaurs have a large family; ranging from different groups and belong to different family backgrounds, existing in different colors, height, and weight. The dinosaurs that will be available for your experience will be Tyrannosaurus rex, Velociraptor, Triceratops, Spinosaurus, Stegosaurus, Brachiosaurus, Ankylosaurus, Dilophosaurus, Pteranodon, and Parasaurolophus.

Here comes the interesting part. This augmented reality includes scaling technology for obvious reasons. It is not possible to adjust a dinosaur in your room. Hence for the virtual experience, the software will use the scaling technology. The dinosaur size will be adjusted according to the surroundings or the environment.

Android users and iOS users both will be able to experience dinosaur augmented reality. However, due to hardware limitations, every android and iOS user might not be able to experience the virtual dinosaurs. If you are an android user you need to have ARCore Supported Devices to experience this new technology. On the other hand, if you are an iOS user, you need to have 11th major release by iOS or above. If you possess any of the above devices, type dinosaurs on the Google app or Google. For iOS users, they need to search it on the chrome browser.

This invention is a mixed effort of Google and 3 D designers of Ludia, Amblin Entertainment, and Universal Brand Development. Camilo Sanin of Ludia stated that to come up with this 3D invention, our character designers had to pay attention to every part of the dinosaur. Either it is the color, skin pattern, or skin irregularities. Artists paid attention to every aspect of the dinosaur. They collected every possible information about the animal.



Next: How Will Tech Lead The Economic Recovery? (infographic)
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Google Will Now Show Free Product Listings In Its Main Search Result

July 2, 2020, 5:59 am
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People in the U.S may have already seen how Google brought a massive change to the Shopping search tab earlier this year that basically allowed businesses to feature free product listings as picked by Google’s algorithms rather than investing their money in paid ads. Well, continuing with more enhancements in the similar idea, Google is now allowing free product listings in the main Google Search results as well all across the US.

Prior to this change, Google only used to show sponsored links in the “product knowledge panel” which only appeared at the time when a user had searched for a product that had a matching list on a particular eCommerce website. While till date, the sponsored links were merely paid ads, but now the panel is going to replace them with free listings.

The feature of free listings will first come on mobile for the users in U.S and then desktop. However, with its implementation shopping ads aren’t going anywhere as well. In fact, they will now appear on top of the page just like other ad units.

Google shifted to free listings in April this year and it has been a successful venture for them with 70% increase in clicks and 130% increase in impressions for both free listings and Shopping tab. These stats were a result of an experiment that involved a control group of a certain percentage of Google traffic that didn’t move to the new experiences as a comparison.

According to the executives, Google has chosen to offer free listings in order to help businesses that have struggled to connect with their customers during the pandemic. But if we also look at the other side of the story, then there has been enough pressure for Google from Amazon as well.

Over the years, Amazon has successfully been able to take away a considerate part of Google’s search ad revenue. This was even proved by an analyst firm eMarketer who showed in their report in the fall of 2019 that Google’s share of search ad revenue is expected to go down from 73% in 2019 to 71% in 2021. This is because more internet users search for products directly on Amazon.

Furthermore, as the coronavirus pandemic has made customers go for online shopping more, this has resulted into a great favor for Amazon who is already enjoying a 26% increase in its first-quarter earnings. But then eMarketer has predicted that Google’s ad revenue will drop for the first time this year - a 5.3% decline which will bring the total down to $39.58 billion, mostly due to less advertising spending by businesses.

The paid listings alone won’t be enough for Google’s Search Service to compete with Amazon. The company will have to work on more ways to offer more best matches for a particular search query by the user.

Nevertheless, Google’s shift to free listing is good news for advertisers as they will enjoy more visibility. Now, it will be entirely on advertisers that how would they plan to make an impression with more range of products.



Read next: Google Comes Up With More 3D Characters For Its Users, Experience The Virtual Dinosaurs In Real World Through The Phone Camera
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Google Photos Will No Longer Create An Automatic Backup Of Social Media Folders

July 2, 2020, 6:08 am
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Google Photos has always been one of the favorites mostly because of the convenience it provides and the space it offers. However, the new changes might affect the platform’s reputation just a bit as according to the recent news coming from Google’s headquarters, Google Photos will no longer create automatic backups of images and videos that are a part of folders created by social media apps like Facebook, Instagram, and Whatsapp.

Google has turned off the feature to let people save their internet resources (e.g cloud space in this case) because people have been sharing more pictures and videos throughout the COVID-19 pandemic period. Still, users will have the option of turning auto-sync on for selected apps or also run manual backups of selected folders, but the feature won’t remain available as default with immediate effect.

Previously Google’s photo backup platform used to store all images and videos stored on any Android or iOS device - even the ones which were saved in folders made by social media apps present on the phone. If you have been relying too much on this automation and you think you have important data stored on Google Photo because of this then you don’t have to worry much as the Photos backed up and organized as a part of social media app folders will remain unaffected with the change. Users can go to individual folders in the Google Photos app and turn on the “back up & sync” feature if they really want to.

While Google has also provided a handy guide to re-enable the feature as per your choice, removing the auto-sync part for social media folders will only create more mess for users who love storing memes, pictures of a family event or generic pictures coming from platforms like Facebook, Whatsapp or even Snapchat.


Photo: Shutterstock

Next: Google Comes Up With More 3D Characters For Its Users, Experience The Virtual Dinosaurs In Real World Through The Phone Camera
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According to Apple these are the best iPad and iPhone apps you can download

July 2, 2020, 6:40 am
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Recently, Apple unveiled the best apps for its iPhones and iPads, and here are the winner apps.

Apple unveiled its best eight apps of the year 2020 through the Apple Design Awards which is a part of an annual developer conference named WWDC 2020 and along with the release of best apps, we also received insight on the iOS 14, iPadOS 14, watchOS 7 and so many more new updates soon to be launched by the platform during this year.

According to the list released by Apple, the best apps include categories of productivity and creativity apps along with the best of the game apps included in the list as well.

Just so you know, not all the apps on the list are new so we think that the best design awards are given based on the improvements in apps by new updates and the best game apps were all released within the past year and two of the best game apps are also a part of Apple Arcade.

Below is the list of the apps that won the Apple Design Awards.

Best apps of the year

The first best app on the list of Apple Design Awards is Shapr 3D which is a drawing app with assistance from the computer and is used for iPads to create 3D drawings and is basically used by designers and artists as a go-to tool without the need of an actual computer.

The second best app is also an iPad-only app named Looom which is used to create hand-drawn animation and particularly used in looping animations and users can use Apple Pencil or even finger to sketch and animate via this app.

Even though. Sibelius is considered as a computer program to write music but according to the Apple Design Awards 2020, it seems that app named StaffPad plays a similar role for the tablets and enables the users to hand-write notation and later on edit it further and according to above apps it’s also available only on iPad.

The last app with the best creativity is actually available on iPad and iPhone as well named Darkroom which is a photo editing app and has been popular among users for a while now. If you look at it, it is pretty much simple as compared to Photoshop, and that's the main feature of this app that anyone can make great-looking artistic pictures easily via this app.

Best Game apps of the year

According to the list provided by Apple, Sayonara Wild Hearts is a Flagship Apple Arcade game and is now the first game app in the list of Apple Design Awards 2020. This game provides its user an arcade action along with very aesthetic vibes and some strong music element too,

The second-best game of the year is a non-Apple Arcade game named Song of Bloom and if you take a look at it, it is difficult to explain the likes of these apps as compared to others because it’s a puzzle game and users have to think outside the box to finish the variety of puzzles.

The combination of a cartoonish art style along with oblique narrative focus and a little gameplay, the typical Apple Arcade game named Cards Fall won the hearts of the people as its giving users the experience of reliving memories of the American high school and you can check it on the app store.

If you’re a lover of the game named Journey on the PS3 then this final award-winning app named Sky: Children of the light is definitely for you because it is made by the same developer and also displays a lot of common features with its predecessor as you can explore a big cartoon world with it along with strong multiplayer focus. you can check this app on your app store.



Read next: Apple may achieve "the next big thing" in security that Microsoft is still struggling with - a password-less web
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One of the Largest DDoS Attacks in History Launched Against the Unnamed Hosting Provider

July 2, 2020, 6:49 am
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Amazon is a company that is known for setting records. However, in February 2020, Amazon Web Service, easily considered one of the most comprehensive cloud platforms, set a record that the company might have been happy to do without. Amazon sustained a 2.3 terabit per second DDoS attack. Thankfully, they could successfully defend against this attack that was reported to last multiple days. Before this, GitHub had the record for sustaining the largest DDoS attack, a 1.3 Tbps second attack that happened in 2018.

What Is a Denial of Service Attack?

A DDoS attack is an onslaught that happens in rapid succession. The goal is to make a computer system unresponsive, rendering it unavailable. The attack is carried out by sending excessive requests, communications, and additional data input. The goal is to overload the system of the victim. The force of the attack is multiplied by using several Internet connections and multiple devices to send simultaneous attacks as opposed to using one computer and one Internet connection.


Photo: Creator: Tashatuvango / Credit: Getty Images/iStockphoto

As it has with many other things, reports show that the COVID-19 pandemic has facilitated an increase in DDoS attacks. The first quarter of 2020 saw not only an increase in the number of attacks but also an increase in the intensity and length of attacks. We should note that the first quarter of every year typically sees an increase in DDoS attacks, but the first quarter of 2020 saw an 80 percent increase over 2019. This was unexpected.

Imperva also sustained several unprecedented attacks in May 2020. Two of these attacks lasted for up to six days. The attacks had over 150,000 requests per second. What was even more impressive about these attacks is that they originated from thousands of unique IP addresses. In one case, they originated from over 28,000 unique IPs. In another attack, they were from over 3,000 unique IPs.

What was the source of these attacks? They came from China, the United States, and the Philippines.

They also came from computers around the country - specifically cheap and discounted hosting servers.

In a 12 month study of uptime and downtime across all major hosting companies in Australia, ecommerce expert Nathan Finch found that free VPS hosts and discounted hosting companies were being actively targeted by malware to act as bots in a larger cheaper botnet army. VPS instances were being used to send our malware to adjacent networks effectively recruiting an army of computers.

What Is the Best Way to Measure a DDoS Attack?

DDoS attacks can be measured by bandwidth or by forwarding rate. The criteria used to measure an attack can affect how the largest attack in history is determined.

When we are measuring attack by bandwidth, we are looking at the capacity to send the data via an Internet connection. When measuring an attack by the packet forwarding rate, we are looking at the number of packets network devices are processing.

Larger scale DDoS attacks usually are two-pronged, using both the bandwidth and packet forwarding rate to saturate the victim’s network and forcing it to crash.

Attackers are becoming more sophisticated and aggressive in their approach. Attacks that in times past were large are now viewed as commonplace. Just because higher packet attacks are happening with greater frequency does not mitigate the threat they pose or the frustration they cause for businesses that are bombarded by them daily.

Why We Have Seen a Rise in Cyber Attacks during the Pandemic

The first reason is that cyber criminals are opportunist. The COVID-19 pandemic has exposed several vulnerabilities simultaneously that bad-faith actors have been trying to expose.

In response to the pandemic, many organizations were forced to transition to having their employees work from home. This meant that millions of employees were relying more heavily on the Internet to do their work, and they were using Internet connections that lack high levels of security.



To counteract this, many businesses have sought out third-party software designed to improve security for work at home employees. However, because of the sudden onset of the pandemic, businesses have been making these decisions quickly. They have tried to implement new security procedures without having time to properly train their employees how to use them or on the importance of taking extra precautions now that they are working from home.

Since work from home employees are unfamiliar with the new security software being installed on their devices, many become frustrated and revert to using personal email addresses and other forms of communication that lack the needed security.

Criminals are taking advantage of these vulnerabilities, especially by using phishing scams that are targeted at certain employees. It’s interesting to note that while DDoS attacks have been targeting corporate interests, DNS hijacking is also on the rise.

DNS hijacking is a technique where a cyber criminal will change DNS settings, redirecting a person to a website that seems legitimate but has malware. A troubling trend in DDoS that seems to have picked up since the COVID-19 outbreak are attacks that originate from multiple countries instead of originating from just one region or one country.

Are DDoS Attacks Losing Some of Their Bite?

There was a time when DDoS attacks were bigger news. However, it seems like they are losing some of their power. This is thanks in part to content delivery networks that mitigate their power.

For example, the AWS shield is a tool that Amazon uses to manage DDoS protection. In February’s record-breaking attack, it seems like the attacker hijacked a Connection Less Lightweight Directory Access Protocol server. CLDAP is a protocol that is often targeted in DDoS attacks because it makes it possible to significantly amplify the data being sent.

However, it is telling that the record-breaking DDoS happened in February 2020 and it has only been in the public consciousness during the summer months. This is an obvious indication that these types of attacks do not have the same impact that they did years ago. Or, more accurately put, it shows that if a company or service takes the appropriate measures to protect against DDoS attacks, they are more of an annoyance than a threat.

This by no means indicates that DDoS attacks are going anywhere. As the Internet of Things continues to grow and as we find ourselves in a world where our refrigerators can be hacked, it is likely that more devices will become victims of DDoS attacks. Routers, cameras, and similar devices have been and will continue to be targets for cyber criminals. As vulnerabilities surface with these devices, they will be exploited. Devices take a lot longer to patch than operating systems, so the duration of these attacks will be longer.
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Google Sheet Comes Up With A New Feature AI-Backed Smart Fill and Smart Clean Up That Will Make The Data Error Free And Consistent

July 2, 2020, 10:07 am
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Google comes up with some handy features to facilitate its users. Google sheet is testing an artificial intelligence (AI) based smart fill to ease the annoying job of filling every cell in the sheet. This feature will facilitate the user by auto-filling the cell. The intelligence of the feature will auto-fill the cells. It will learn the pattern and fill each cell. In simple words, this feature helps in auto-filling the data and reduce the work burden from the user.

For instance, a user is willing to create a file that has a full name column in it. As the user will start typing the first name, the software will perceive the pattern. Once the software has learned the pattern, it will initiate a formula and auto-fill the rest of the columns, reducing the work burden on the user. It will make the data consistent and error-free.



Not only this but the smart compose will let the user minimize mistakes and produce even effective content. It will delete the repeated words; reduce spelling errors and grammatical errors. Once you have imported the data, “Data Clean up’ panel pops up. This panel suggests you remove repeated phrases, clear rows, and correct formatting issues.



When you are done with the formatting and correcting you can go through the entire document. Furthermore, the smart features of the sheet highlight the data in such a way that you can come up with a summary in no time. Such as, it will highlight the most repeated value; you can easily analyze the data and jump to the conclusion.

This edition comes with a very smart feature that can detect the natural voice, analyze it, and answers it. For example, you made a sheet regarding students. You can simply ask “Which student has the highest score?” The smart feature will detect the voice, evaluate it and the sheet will answer the question. Isn’t it amazing?

However, currently, G Suite customers cannot experience this new feature. They have to wait for next year.

Two years ago, Google launched the Quick Access tool. It was a machine learning-powered suggestive tool, which users could use for editing sheets, slides, and docs. Latter Google rolled out a new feature of auto-correcting content in Spanish. Before this, the autocorrect was only available in English.

Read next: Google Photos Will No Longer Create An Automatic Backup Of Social Media Folders
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Report Reveals Due To Pandemic, Global Apps Earned Over $50 Billion In The First 6 Months Of 2020

July 2, 2020, 2:00 pm
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Since the lockdown has locked people in their houses, have limited physical source of entertainment. Consumers are now frustrated and annoyed by staying home for so long. In search of entertainment, people started downloading games on their phones. Of course, when there is nothing, the game is the only source of entertainment. Senor Tower reported that the global app has earned over $50 billion in the first half of the year 2020 through downloads. This makes up almost a 23% increase. This is all because of people staying at home and has nothing else to do.

Apart from the global apps, Apple is also on the list as usual. Apple has earned up to $32.8 billion. Apple App Store generated thus the revenue from downloads, in-app purchases, premium apps, and subscriptions. The fascinating part is that this entire surplus is generated within the first half of the year 2020.



Talking about apps individually, Tinder earned the lion’s share at the beginning of 2020 i.e. first half of the year. Tinder earned around $433 million through Google play store and Apple App Store. This is almost 19% of the year 2020. In 2019, the app generated a revenue of $532 million. People staying at homes took it as an entertainment and mind freshener. In April 2020, Tinder updated and made its Passport premium feature free for all other free users.



After Tinder, YouTube stands 2nd on the list. The video platform earned almost $431 million. Another short video sharing app TikTok shared a huge chunk in the earning. It earned up to $421 million, ranking 3rd on the list. However, due to a few reasons, the app has been banned in many countries.

For the first time, Google Play Store defeated Apple’s App Store downloads. Around 71.5 billion downloads were made in the first half of 2020. It counts for almost 26%. On the other hand, Apple’s App Store enjoyed 18.3 billion million downloads. That makes up around 22.8% more downloads as compared to 2019. Last year, in 2019, 14.9 billion downloads were made.



The first time installs from Google Play store made up to 27.3% download which means 53.2 billion downloads. This counts as 3 times more downloads as compared to Apple App Store.

When it comes to top non-gaming app by downloads, TikTok leads the chart in first six month of 2020. While, Facebook-owned Whatsapp Messenger was the second most downloaded app in the non-gaming category.



Game and social media platforms are the sources of fun and entertainment for people during the pandemic. This is the reason why downloads have shown a huge surplus.

Read next: Study Reveals Marketers Rely Heavily on Video Ads to Drive Downloads
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Microsoft Is Beta Testing A New Look In The Windows 10 Start Menu

July 2, 2020, 6:30 pm
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You may get a new-look Start Menu in Windows 10 as the company has recently teased a new theme which indicates that the new Start Menu design will be transparent. The company has made significant visual changes to Start Menu in the recent Insider Preview Build of the Windows 10 operating system.

The Build 20161 of the Windows 10 operating system on the Dev Channel introduces theme-aware tiles in the Windows 10 Start Menu. The Start Menu has been freshened up with a streamlined design in which the solid color back-plates behind logos of applications in the list have been removed. Now, Microsoft has applied a uniform background to the tiles which is partially transparent.

Additionally, the new design also works with dark mode as well as light theme. However, you can still improve the final look by applying an accent color to the Start Menu. For this, you will have to initially turn on the dark mode. Then, navigate to Settings, and click on the Personalization section. Now, tap the Color option and you will see an option that says ‘Show accent color on the following surface.’ Enable this option for Start, taskbar, and action center.



Other new features introduced in this update include the ability to Alt-Tab between applications and sites while you are using the Edge browser on your PC. Now, you can flick through all open tabs alongside open applications. However, you can still choose to change the settings back to the ‘classic’ Alt-Tab experience.

The company has decided that it will evaluate the performance of individual default properties by monitoring diagnostic data as well as user feedback. This will help the company to offer a cleaner, more personalized, and amazing experience to users when comes to the Windows 10 Taskbar. For instance, the default applications pinned to the Windows 10 Taskbar will be changed for new accounts dependent on whether you have linked an Android smartphone or an Xbox Live account.

Lastly, it has also been seen that the company is improving the notifications in Windows 10. In the new updates, the company has added the logo of application to the top left corner which will allow you to easily see where a specific notification came from. Microsoft is also improving Settings. Now, the information you usually find in the System page of the Control Panel is being moved to the About page in the System option of Settings.

Read next: This New AI-Based Algorithm Created By Microsoft Helps To Restore Old Photos
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Facebook caught leaking inactive users’ information with developers

July 2, 2020, 11:00 pm
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Facebook once again was involved in a controversy regarding the sharing of users' data. Facebook stated that thousands of developers have had access to data from inactive users, which is erratic behavior on part of the company, especially when they have had incidents regarding user privacy in the past.

Following the Cambridge Analytica crisis in 2018, Facebook set new guidelines in place that obstructed developers from gathering data from users that had been inactive for 90 days.

As users are able to connect third-party applications to their Facebook accounts, developers can gain access to information to sensitive information from apps that had been linked to users' accounts. Facebook did not reveal how much time had passed since this security breach nor did they disclose how many users were affected by it. Facebook said that around five thousand developers were affected in the past several months. The company also did not exactly specify what type of data had been viewed and shared among developers.

Facebook claims that the issue was fixed as soon as it was discovered and, reassured users, that no more data was shared other than that which users had authorized in the privacy settings when the account was still active. The company also stated that the cause of the issue was still being investigated and that they will continue to prioritize transparency in any ad all upcoming updates.

This incident has just worked to worsen Facebook's already bad PR. Users thought that since the incident in 2018 Facebook would be wary of letting any more issues regarding user information and data occur, that is what should be expected of a social media network worth five hundred billion US dollars. Apparently, the scandals and conspiracies suffered by Facebook were not as change inducing as the public thought. Facebook weathered a wide array of scandals ranging from issues regarding data privacy, Russian meddling, and the propagation of fake news. Zuckerberg and the team at Facebook had to issue multiple apologies to the public but the scandals did not cease. The only question that remained at the end was if Facebook is committed to changing and adapting but in light of recent events, that does not seem to be the case.

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, is already under fire due to an ad boycott involving several hundred companies due to the recent civil rights protests. This month-long boycott is set to begin on Wednesday, the third of July. this boycott means a lot of revenue will be lost. Hopefully, Facebook will update its policies and safeguard user data more vigorously.



Read next: Facebook Previewed The Thinnest Virtual Reality Headset Introduced Till Now
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WhatsApp Announces Exciting New Features

July 3, 2020, 12:05 am
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WhatsApp is arguably the most popular messaging service in the world, and the messaging platform has just announced a string of new features that will be rolled out in the coming weeks many of which were part of a preplanned strategy and some of which have been prioritized and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that the covid-19 pandemic has made certain features a lot more useful than others.

One feature in particular that has been prioritized due to the pandemic is an update to video calling. With Zoom seeing a pretty astronomical rise in the past few months because of the fact that it was uniquely positioned to help those that were social distancing, quarantining and isolating themselves to stay in touch with their friends and loved ones. Group video calling is now possible, and you can start a video call with up to eight people at a time. These video calls would be encrypted, and the features contained therein are quite reminiscent of Zoom with one particular feature being that you would be able to tap on a member’s video to maximize it. This is being done to help Facebook compete with Zoom as well as Google which it is attempting to do through a wide variety of platforms that it owns and operates.

Some other new features that you are going to get are animated stickers which are sure to be a success since stickers help you add a lot more personality to your overall conversations since text on its own doesn’t do a lot to help your tone get across. Another feature involves the ability to add contacts on WhatsApp using a QR code. People that use WhatsApp on desktop are also going to be quite pleased due to the reason that they would now be able to use dark mode while they are using the desktop version of this messaging platform.



Read next: Report Reveals Due To Pandemic, Global Apps Earns Up to $50 Billion In The First 6 Months Of 2020
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LinkedIn Introduces Admin Credits to Limit Spammy Page Invites

July 3, 2020, 1:21 am
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Have you ever received a ton of page invites which seems to indicate that the admins of various pages are simply sending these invites to as many people as possible. This is a good way to make it so that pages can get more followers but with all of that having been said and out of the way it is important to note that it really reduces the quality of followers that a page would be able to get and some might say that it is a misuse of the admin privileges that users are able to get once they have ended up becoming the admins of a particular page.

LinkedIn is well aware of this problem, and the social network has attempted to provide a solution to it in a new update. If you are the admin of a page, you would be able to notice now that you have 100 admin credits. Every time you send an invite to a user, you would end up using one of your admin credits. This is essentially limiting the number of invites that any admin would be able to send.

This is a pretty clever way to limit spammy invites and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that admins would now have to be a little discerning about who they end up sending invites to. Rather than sending mass invites they would most likely end up trying to ascertain who would genuinely be interested in whatever it is that they are offering. LinkedIn has an image to maintain, an image that makes it seem like a serious social media platform that people can end up using for things like networking and the like. Techniques like this can help maintain the legitimacy of the platform to a pretty large extent at the end of the day.



Read next: Google Sheet Comes Up With A New Feature AI-Backed Smart Fill and Smart Clean Up That Will Make The Data Error Free And Consistent
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Google Pays Apple Approximately $1.5 Billion In The UK Alone To Remain Safari’s Default Search

July 3, 2020, 2:00 am
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According to a report from Reuters, the United Kingdom regulators are scrutinizing a longstanding deal between two tech giants- Apple and Google over the default search engine in the Safari browser.

The UK government’s Competition and Markets Authority compiled an updated report, which highlights that Google paid Apple a hefty $1.5 billion (or £1.2 billion) in 2019. Google pays Apple each year in the United Kingdom alone to remain the default search engine in Safari. According to the report, this deal creates a major barrier to entry and expansion for rival search engines to Google.

The report also suggests either limiting the ability of Apple to monetize these types of deals or to provide people a choice of search engine upon setup. Such deals indicate the value that Google places on these default positions. The Safari browser has relied on Google for many years, making Apple’s iPhone a significant revenue-generator for Google’s smartphone ad business. It has also been providing Google with a competitive edge over its competition.

Court documents revealed back in the year 2014 that Google paid Apple $1 billion to secure its default position on the mobile Safari browser in the United States, and analysts suggest that the amount would have been increased in the years since. Although Apple has never revealed the revenue it generates from such deals, it is estimated that the company earns nearly $9 billion every year from these types of placement deals.

Regulators are now concerned over the massive United Kingdom deal. Rival search engines to Google such as Microsoft-owned Bing and DuckDuckGo may not be in a position to pay such large payments to become the default search engine in the iPhone Safari browser. People primarily access the internet via smartphones, which account for more than two-thirds of general searches being performed by the consumers.

Regulators in both the European Union as well as the United States are looking at Big Tech over concerns that the power and size Silicon Valley companies make them anti-competitive. However, the European Union seems to be far aggressive in terms of enforcing such rules and imposing fines on tech giants. During the last ten years, the European Union has handed Google several multibillion-dollar fines. Moreover, the regulators are now looking into Apple over the company’s management of the Apple App Store, and the fee the company charge app developers.


Photo: Raymond Boyd via Getty Images

Read next: Google Will Now Show Free Product Listings In Its Main Search Result
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LinkedIn Adds Two New Features, Followers Analytics For Pages And Audio Recording Of Your Name

July 3, 2020, 4:22 am
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LinkedIn has been widely used job-hunting platform. Since this pandemic has made the situation worst, people are more eagerly active on this platform. To keep users' interaction in view, LinkedIn has launched a new feature for business pages to analyze who is following your page. According to the screenshots shared by Matt Navarra, the option itself defines its availability as it has been highlighted with a label ‘new’.

The new option is available in the analytical tab. You can tap and see who has been following you. This is beneficial to see which type of people are following the page and what content would they prefer. Although LinkedIn pages are not made for traditional entertainment content still it is a good idea to make your page look engaging. This option can also help thank the specific follower for the following. However, this list of followers is not available for downloading purposes. You can only view it online. Through this new addition, a LinkedIn user can also keep an eye on how other or similar pages have been processing regarding followers and profile engagement.



Here comes the most fascinating part. LinkedIn has now added an audio option. A user can add audio to its profile. This will help the profile visitors to know the name pronunciation. Of course the situation becomes very frustrating when someone mispronounces the name. Isn’t it a good idea to teach people about your name before they visit you? Whenever a user opens his profile, an option will prompt up. It will offer to add name pronunciation. You can tap on the option. Once you have tapped a built-in audio recorder will appear. You can record your name and save it. Whenever a visitor will visit your profile he will be able to know the pronunciation of your name.



Read next: LinkedIn Launched A New Tool To Measure Various Impacts Of The Coronavirus Pandemic
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SmartReply, finally made available to YouTubers to help respond to Fans

July 3, 2020, 6:30 am
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Google’s four-year-old Artificial Intelligence based technology, SmartReply is now being made available for YouTube Creators. The purpose of this is to suggest responses to messages in responses to messages received in Android’s Messages, Gmail, Play Developer Console, and elsewhere. Recently, Google announced that it will launch an updated version for SmartReply for YouTube Creators which will allow the content creators to quickly and easily interact with their fans in the comment section.

The feature is being launched on YouTube Studio, which the creators use to manage and maintain their YouTube presence, grow their channels, engage with their fans, and check their statistics (watch-time, views, etc.). YouTube Studio’s comment sections can be used by the creators so that they can view, filter, and respond to comments from across their channels.

Responding to comments and interacting with a large YouTube following can be very time consuming for creators such as PewDiePie (105 Million followers) for example. This is where SmartReply aims to help content creators.

Creators will be able to use suggested replies from SmartReply to respond to comments coming from their viewers instead of typing them themselves. If a viewer, for example, says something about wanting to know about what is coming next, the SmartReply feature will automatically suggest responses like “Stay tuned for more!” or “More to come!”

This SmartReply feature built for YouTube is different than that of the one designed for email. The email version of SmartReply has the technology to process words and short phrases, whereas the SmartReply designed for YouTube can process more assorted content like emojis, ASCII art, and company notes. YouTube commenters' comments often contain slang, abbreviated words, and inconsistent use of punctuation. This is one reason why it was so difficult for Google to implement the system on YouTube.

Google also comprehensively explained as to how it overcame such technical challenges on its AI Blog which was recently updated. Google also said that it wanted to develop a system where SmartReply only made suggestions when it was very likely that the creator would want to reply to the comment and when the feature has the ability to recommend a reasonable reply. For this to happen the system needs to be trained to recognize the comments that activate the feature.

According to Google SmartReply is the first Cross-lingual and Character byte-based version made available, and it is accessible for Spanish and English comments.

The company is positive that SmartReply can be made available for even more languages, due to the present strategy it is using.



Read next: YouTube Tests New Analytics Overview, That Will Help Creators To Get Better Insights About Their Content And Audience
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Facebook Rolls Out A Game Changing Feature For Businesses To Re-Engage Their Old Buyers, Available In Facebook Ad Manager

July 3, 2020, 11:00 am
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Facebook comes up with an exciting feature for marketers to re-engage their potential audiences. As the pandemic has forced everything to shift on digital means, keeping this thing in view, Facebook added a gaming-changing option, first spotted by Matt Navarra and Michael Vittori, that will help the businesses to re-engage interested consumers.

Go to Facebook Ad Manager and click on the Custom Audience option. You’ll find a new option "Shopping", tap on it, it will come up with 3 new options:

People who viewed products – this will show the audience who has viewed your products or gone through your products.

People who added any products to their basket – If a user adds something to his cart while scrolling the page, it will be visible in this section.

People who purchased any product – Any client that has brought your product will be shown here.

According to an infographic from Wishpond, this new feature can increase 70% more engagement to the shopping pages, as re-targeted ads are more effective as compare to other conversion strategies. This is because it is easier to grab an old client especially if they had a good experience, rather than a new one.

This new addition will help digital marketers grab new consumers too. Know how? You as a marketer can use previous reviews as a base. This will attract more customers to your product pages. The new customers will see the page engagement and prefer buying from the well-performed pages.

Digital advertising is currently ruling the marketing world. Social media marketing also called SMM carriers a huge chunk of digital marketing. Facebook plays a very important role in Social Media Marketing. Platforms like Facebook and Instagram are like a “must-have” these days. People usually tend to search on Facebook and Instagram when they are looking for something. A well-engaged page will help in grabbing the customers. This new feature has been rolled out to all businesses.

Facebook is always working over something new and to give a better experience to its users. Let's see how people would react to this.




Next: Facebook Collaborates With Fact-Checking Platform To Help Users Detect Fake Information Being Shared On Social Media
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Facebook Decided To Take Down Its Lasso App, As It Resembled Instagram’s Reel Feature And Known as As TikTok’s Clone This Month

July 3, 2020, 2:00 pm
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Facebook had decided to take down its Lasso app. This Lasso App is identical to that of Instagram’s reel feature. This Lasso app and Instagram reel feature were said to be cloned of TikTok. TikTok is a China-based app that enables its users to create a short video with background music, adding transitions, effects, filters, texting, and creating fascinating slow-motion videos. Josh Constine stated that Facebook had decided to pull the app back because it resembles Instagram feature Reel.

Lasso App was accessible to a few parts of the world only. Lasso was launched in November 2018. Now in 2020, Lasso users received a notification that clarifies that they won’t be able to use the app from 10th July 2020. The notification further suggested they should download or save any video on their phones if they want to keep it with them.

Not only Lasso but Facebook has also decided to shutdown Hobbi app. This app is Pinterest inspired app. Like Pinterest, people shared images to give a visual experience related to project, goods, and services. Hobbi was launched back in February 2020, but now they are discontinuing the usage of the app.

The Hobbi app is shutting down because according to reports, people didn’t accept the app. The company was mocked and people made fun of it. The app was criticized for being unoriginal. TechCrunch reported that users have received a notification that the app will be suspended. However, unlike other apps, this app won’t be missed. Sensor tower reported the app was only downloaded 7,000 times in U.S. So the main reason for taking down this app is the criticism that it received from the users.

Facebook is a widely used app and it is connecting users for a very long time. It has always worked to give a better experience to its users. However, due to unfortunate reasons, Facebook had to take down it’s the by-product. Lasso app is being eliminated because it resembles Instagram Reel feature. On the other hand, Lasso is being eliminated because it didn’t receive a positive response. Let's see if the app will come up with something new and better. Till then, fingers are crossed.



Read next: Facebook caught leaking inactive users’ information with developers
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Instagram Stories Get More Priority Due to Continuous Surge in Usage

July 3, 2020, 6:30 pm
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Stories was initially a feature that was pretty much exclusively offered by Snapchat, and the fact of the matter is that it was a pretty popular feature. Facebook decided to integrate this feature into its own properties and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that Snapchat was targeting demographics that Facebook was struggling with at the time, and Stories have become very popular indeed especially on Instagram where they have been seeing a steady rise in both usage as well as prioritization on the company side.

A couple of months ago, Instagram decided to offer a double row view of stories. Basically, whereas previously you would see a single row of stories that you could look into on the platform now you would be able to see two rows which would allow you to get sneak peeks at more stories which is the sort of thing that Instagram would definitely want since it is trying to push the usage of this feature as much as possible since it was getting a lot of engagement.

A new update that is being tested out would make it so that you might just end up getting a full screen array of the various stories that you could potentially end up checking out. This is something that Instagram has been experimenting with since at least April if not even earlier than that, and the fact of the matter is that the social media platform is now testing it quite widely which means that normal users might end up seeing it rolled out to them.

Instagram is in many ways becoming a Stories centric platform, and while the regular timeline is just as important Stories have quickly started to become even more important for a wide variety of reasons and this could tell us a very important tidbit about the direction that Instagram might just end up taking in the near future.



Read next: Report Reveals Globally Apps Earned Over $50 Billion In The First 6 Months Of 2020
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Statistics Reveal Google Chrome’s Dominance of the Desktop Browser Market

July 3, 2020, 11:00 pm
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When it comes to browsers that you might end up using in order to surf the internet, Google Chrome is the choice that ends up coming to mind most often. However, other browsers such as Firefox also seem popular, and Microsoft’s new Edge browser has generated a fair amount of buzz as well, so it can be easy to assume that Chrome is just one of the many browsers that people often end up using on a regular basis for a wide variety of reasons.

However, it is important to note that when you look at the numbers it starts to become easier to see just how much control Google Chrome actually has on the market and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that it has 70.19% share of the market , i.e. according to NetMarketShare. While Microsoft Edge has seen a slight increase from 7.86% to 8.07% and Firefox has gone from 7.23% to 7.58%, these changes are pretty miniscule and the numbers themselves are tiny when compared to just how widespread the usage for Google Chrome generally seems to be.

Google isn’t doing that well when it comes to Operating System Market Share. ChromeOS has a tiny 0.41% share of the market which goes to show that not all of Google’s attempts end up being this successful. It is also important to note that Linux has been seeing a rise in popularity for quite some time now as well, going from 3.17% to 3.61% over the last month. Windows is still going strong with its market share increasing slightly over the past month, and MacOS is not doing so well since it is seen a small reduction in its market share over the past month.



Read next: Google Might Bring Another Bottom Tab Switcher On Chrome For Android
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TikTok highlights unique marketing opportunities for brands

July 4, 2020, 2:00 am
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TikTok recently launched its new Business platform. According to TikTok, the new offering would provide business users with a wide variety of case studies and emphasize on the need of making TikTok’s instead of Ads for marketing.

However, the new feature lacks a lot of tools to enhance the business user’s creativity. Yes, there is the Creator Marketplace for influencer marketing and the self-serve ad platform for a few advertisers. But the overall offering of the Business platform is not actionable enough for the broad community of marketers.

TikTok says that they are offering brands with a range of opportunities to connect with the users. In the graphics below, check out the advice by TikTok on how brands can make the most use of the ‘distinctive TikTok.’




Read next: TikTok Is At Risk Due To Bot Accounts, That Are Causing Manipulation In Algorithms
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SellCell’s Recent Data Displays That iPhones Lose Less Value Over Time As Compared To Other Smartphones

July 4, 2020, 6:30 am
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Most electronics become more affordable for consumers as technology advances. For instance, you can consider how a mammoth flat-screen Television used to be a signifier of wealth at one time. However, it is not the case with smartphones as they seem to get more expensive as a new smartphone model is released in the market.

Flagship models such as Apple iPhones and Galaxy series provided by Samsung are very expensive. The Samsung Galaxy S20 Ultra costs around $1499.99. However, SellCell, a phone retailer has now released new data displaying which smartphones lose the most value over time.

According to the data provided by SellCell, flagship smartphones might be worth the investment over time as compared to lower-cost smartphones provided various other brands. SellCell provided a graph that shows that the iPhone XR lost 53.2% of its value since the year 2018. In comparison, the LGV40 ThinQ has lost 79.10% of its value since the year 2018. The LGV40 ThinQ is a serious competitor in the Android space for iPhone XR.

iPhone XS and iPhone XS Max lost 56.0% and 56.8% of their value respectively. In comparison, it seems that Google smartphones have lost more value over time as the value of Pixel 3 and Pixel 3XL decreased by 72.40% and 75.6% between 2018 and 2020. Samsung smartphones also lost most of their value during 2018 and 2020. The value of Galaxy Note 9 decreased by 79.20% since 2018, and Galaxy S9 lost more of its value- 83.6%.

Sony X22 Premium lost 89.70% of its value, which is the highest as compared to other smartphones. There are a lot of factors that impact the value of a smartphone over time. It seems that people prefer to buy used iPhones over the used Android smartphones of the same generation.

One of the major reasons to buy a new smartphone is because your current smartphone is outdated. However, in the case of iPhones, Apple supports its products for longer periods and even the oldest models such as iPhone 6 or 7 keep getting the latest features and security updates.

You may look into various factors while purchasing a new smartphone, it is recommended that you also consider the resale value of that model. Some people also resell their phones before purchasing a new one, and it is worth checking out the potential value of a smartphone ahead of time.



Read next: Does Apple offer support for its vintage iPhone lineup (Chart)
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