Digital Information World

A recent survey made by Hubspot shows YouTube videos with length around 2 minutes get more engagements and views. This indicates that increasing the depth and length of the video may potentially help the YouTube channel rank better and win more views.

And your lowest hanging fruit to make a long video is merging short YouTube videos as one. However, keep it real, combining videos on YouTube this year isn’t as easy as it was in 2017 – a time YouTube app gave the option to merge videos online. Now, you can’t combine videos together on YouTube directly.

No worries. Because merging multiple videos into one for uploading to YouTube as well as other social media takes just a few steps and can be done using online free video merger or desktop freeware.

Web-based or Desktop Video Joiner?

Many of you are torn between web-based and desktop software when combining videos for YouTube. Just take these factors into consideration before you make a decision: video properties, software compatibility, ease of use, privacy security, and network condition. See the comparison table below:

Generally, you can simply merge small YouTube videos online if there’s no requirement on output quality, aspect ratios, watermarks, or processing speed.
But if you need to fast combine 1080P/4K high resolution clips with large size safely without quality loss, then using a desktop program like VideoProc and VLC media player will make your life easier.

In case you have various demands, this post can shed up a light for you as it demonstrates how to combine videos on YouTube in 3 different ways, namely, with two desktop software apps and one online merger.

VideoProc: How Do I Combine Multiple Videos (in 3 Seconds)?

VideoProc, a multifunctional video joiner that runs on Windows and Mac, provides its users with the easiest solution to merge any videos for YouTube without losing quality. Benefits to the support of level-3 hardware acceleration technology and the application of high-quality engine, it can merge 4K UHD videos in MP4, MOV, HEVC, WEBM, and any popular or rare formats at speed 47x faster at most than real-time play.

Step 1. Click on Video, hit +Video, and then you drag & drop many video clips to VideoProc.

Step 2. Check on the Merge option and then Click RUN. VideoProc already starts to merge videos.

Tips:

Tap the triangle button next to Option to rearrange the clips.
To optimize the video for YouTube, click on Target Format, and choose MP4 (H.264+AAC) as the output file format.
Click on Toolbox to obtain trim, cut, crop, rotate, subtitle, filter, watermark, and many other editing features.
VideoProc has an official tutorial to merge videos easily. If you prefer video tutorials, watch below.

VLC media player: How to Merge Videos in VLC? （5 Steps

Despite VLC media player is favored by people who are not in the mood to dabble in strange applications, this tool itself is not easy to use unless:

1) The source videos are in the same resolution, bitrate, frame rate, aspect ratio.

2) You have basic knowledge about video and audio codec. Otherwise, you may experience A/V out-of-sync, distorted pictures, black bars, and many other errors.

Also Read: How to Merge Video in VLC without Error.

Step 1. Visit the official site, download the latest version of VLC and have it installed on your computer.

Step 2. Double-click the VLC icon on your computer to launch up the software. Click on Media > Open Multiple Files and choose File > Add to import multiple clips from the hard disk to VLC.

Step 3. Navigate to the option of Convert/Save, hit the downward triangle button to find Play, and click this.

Step 4: Click on the tool icon to obtain options for changing video properties.

Step 5: Click on Save and hit Start to begin merging multiple videos into one.

How to Merge Video Free Online?

The ways to merge videos online by using different web-based software are just about the same. Take the watermark-free app, Kapwing, as an example,

Step 1. Drag and drop short videos that are less than 7 minutes to Kapwing.

Note: Paid accounts can cope with files up to 1GB. However, the whole process may take hours. To compare with the said VideoProc MP4 joiner which is capable of combining large videos in minutes, online video merger is definitely a choice of time-consuming.

Step 2. Click on Trim to reset the start and end time of each clip. If necessary, click and drag the clip up/down to arrange the position.

Step 3. Click on Publish, Kapwing starts to merge many videos as a single MP4 file. After that, you can sign in with Google/Facebook account for downloading the outcome without a watermark.

When it comes to running any kind of business, what people are saying about you really matters. In this modern day and age where the internet has ended up becoming such a big part of our lives, it is important to realize that online reviews are undoubtedly going to be a big part of the way you operate your business. A lot of business owners don’t think that online reviews matter all that much but the truth of the situation is that they do matter quite a bit, and a recent survey indicates that they are way more important than you might initially be thinking.

This new survey has indicated that all businesses are impacted by online reviews. Newer businesses might suffer a bit more because of the fact that older businesses have their reputation that they can rely on, but the difference isn’t enough to make older businesses feel like they can do whatever they want. Negative reviews negatively impact newer businesses 100% of the time and older businesses 97% of the time so the difference really isn’t all that much if you think about it.

Younger people tend to be more forgiving if a negative review is not addressed, but over half of them would stop using a business’s products and services if a bad review is not addressed at least in some small way, shape or form. However, for people in their 30s the number is much higher at 61%, and it is as high as 75% for people in their 40s.

Positive reviews are also important. About 97% of the time, a positive review resulted in positive returns for the business in question. Hence, focusing on maximizing reviews is the sort of thing that you should definitely think about if you are responsible for running some kind of business enterprise.

With all of that having been said and out of the way, it is important to note that there is a way for you to make bad reviews hurt less and that is by reaching out. 33% of respondents in their 20s would improve a negative review if the problem is addressed and 27% would remove the review entirely so there is clearly something that can be gained from at the very least acknowledging the mistake that you have made and ensuring your customer that nothing like this would happen in the future.

Check out these infographics for more insights:

Charts courtesy of: Zenbusiness.

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Facial recognition technology is employed for various purposes, whether for biometric identification on the airports, or on the public CCTV cameras. Many smartphones now have this technology for unlocking their system.

On states level, many countries use facial recognition technology for mass surveillance also. However, despite it being used in 98 countries of the world, there still are some that do not approve of it, and some countries have even banned it.

In the US, 59% of the citizens believe that facial recognition technology should be implemented, especially for law enforcement.

Even the Department of Homeland Security has discussed a ‘Biometric Exit’ plan, which will use this technology for all air travelers by the year 2023 to identify their visa status.

Several cities like San Francisco believe that this technology can be abused by their government, therefore, they have pushed to implement a ban on this technology. But even then, whenever there is a natural disaster, like a hurricane, this technology becomes an effective means to identify displaced people too, so its usefulness cannot be disregarded.

Coming to South America, this technology has come in handy in curbing down crime rate. In Brazil, Interpol was able to capture the second-most wanted criminal with the help of facial recognition technology.

So, Brazil is now planning to create a biometric database of its more than 209 million citizens. While many are in its favor, some people are a little apprehensive that this technology’s implementation could prevent them from expressing their opinions against their government or political parties.

Belgium and Luxembourg governments completely and officially oppose the use of facial recognition technology.

80% of Europeans are apprehensive about sharing their facial recognition data with governments and authorities.

But even with so much apprehension, 26 European countries still use it.

This technology came in handy to check on quarantine breaches amid the coronavirus pandemic in Russia, while Moscow operates with more than 100,000 facial recognition enabled cameras!

Turkey will be using 30 domestically developed kamikaze drones with AI and facial recognition technology for their border security. While Israel uses this tech to keep an eye on Palestinians across twenty-seven West Bank checkpoints.

UAE has bought discreet smart glasses to scan the crowds. All positive matches will show up on an embedded lens display.

In Kazakhstan, this technology may completely replace public transportation passes!

China is quite famous for its usage of this technology for mass surveillance as it has the highest ratio of CCTV cameras to citizens in the world, which is one camera for every twelve citizens.

They even employed contact tracing methods through biometric identification during the coronavirus pandemic. South Korea, Singapore, and Taiwan also used facial recognition technology to monitor temperatures of their citizens while also spotting the people without masks.

China is exporting this technology by providing finances and telecommunication and surveillance infrastructure to African countries like Kenya and Uganda now too.

So, it seems that whether people like it or not, this technology is not going anywhere. It is going to stay for a long time.

Infographics courtesy of: Surfshark.

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A report has been published by the Boston Consulting Group that sheds the light on how Gen Z consumers are responding to COVID-19, relating it to future digital behaviors.

This includes responses of more than 9500 consumers above 16 years old in the US, UK, Canada, and France and looks at behaviors that have increased amidst lockdowns and are expected to remain somewhat based on BCG’s predictions.

The report notes that Gen Z consumers have been largely affected by the COVID-19 pandemic the most in terms of behavioral shifts. Gen Z and Millennial consumers seem to have changed their behaviors and spending more than older generations. Unsurprisingly though, they are expected to remain on the newly developed patterns due to their receptibility, far off the disruptions caused by COVID-19.

E-commerce has grown more in the last eight weeks than the decade before that. Younger users, who have grown up with digital shopping options are willing to adapt to the ‘new’ normal, which is likely to intensify the shift away from physical shopping according to BCG’s predictions.

Gen Z and Millennials are influencing the shift to e-Commerce since the pandemic began. According to a survey, 33% of these consumers have increased their online spending with a net increase of 6%, whereas, 23% of older generation’s consumers, with a net increase of 1%, have increased their online spending. Due to the shifting of existing products, services, and retailers to online platforms, and the increase in digital-only or digital-first marketing is causing the acceleration of eCommerce.

This is expected because people can’t visit stores so they’re shopping online more. But whether these trends will hold after the lockdowns is what BCG is estimating with its own ‘New Normal Predictors’ approach.

According to this, Gen Z and Millennials will partially sustain the increase in the time they are spending on digital media, including video streaming and gaming. BCG also predicts that Gen Z shopping will be affected in several important areas.

It is expected that a net 10% of consumers will increase their spending on packaged food and drinks, 12% on household products, and 6% on personal care and health products as compared with their spending before the outbreak. Consumers also expect to balance these increases by reducing their spending on products like alcohol (8% reduction) and by delaying purchases of expensive items like vehicles and electronics (20% reduction).

Such trends combined with the growth of e-Commerce call for important planning for the future. It is also expected that online markets will win with Gen Z and Millennials in the ‘new normal’, with an increase of 16%, with physical markets expected to lose the most to their online counterparts.

It’s logical to assume that the lockdowns are going to cause a consumer shift just because people will realize how convenient, and money-saving online shopping is which, within a few months, will become a habit for many.

Despite your disagreements, it’s still worth considering how the future stages of consumption will impact your approach. Some trends may hold and this can have a major impact on your planning.

Back in the year 2015, Google Chrome introduced its data saver mode which could save up to 70% of users’ bandwidth by not loading images on a webpage when the users were on a slow connection. Later in 2019, the company replaced the data saver functionality with a Lite Mode. In the Lite mode, photos and other large files are compressed server-side. It also aims to enhance Chrome’s performance on budget Android smartphones.

Now, it seems that the company is working on a Lite Mode that extends to videos, and forces them to play in SD quality. Techdows reported that Google is bringing LiteVideo support to Chrome for Android to complement Lite Mode to further increase data savings for users by playing clips in low-resolution quality. Chromium bug tracker spotted that the new feature is known as LiteVideos, and forces sites return SD quality videos in favor of HD quality clips.

The new feature simulates low bandwidth conditions by throttling media responses and allow MSE players to lower the resolution of videos and increase data savings for users. The resent report from Techdows also notes that the LiteVideos feature will not be limited to the Android version of Chrome. It will also be available on the Windows, Linux, and Mac versions of Chrome as well as Chrome OS.

Currently, the new feature is available in the Canary release of Chrome 86. The option is scheduled to go stable in late September or early October of this year. You can activate the new option by turning on two flags in chrome: //flags. The two flags are ‘Enable LiteVideos’ and ‘Force LiteVideos decision.’ After enabling both flags, you will need to restart the browser for the new changes to take effect. When the flags will be enabled, the browser will automatically instruct media players to run clips at the lowest possible resolution quality.

Users who are currently stuck working from home in a metered connection may be delighted to know that the new test is also available on the desktop version of the browser. If a user wants to try the new feature on their Android smartphone, they will have to download the Canary release of Google Chrome from the Google Play Store or APK Mirror. You may also note that the Canary is the most unstable release of the browser.

The company is still working on the new feature, and it is also possible that the company scraps the project altogether even before the new feature is rolled out.

Back in May of this year, Google rolled out Chrome 83 on Android, Linux, Windows, and Mac. Now, the company is rolling out the next release of its browser. The Chrome 84 release comes with a handful of user-facing changes as well as new capabilities for web developers. On July 14, the Chrome team announced the promotion of Chrome 84 to the stable channel for Linux, Mac, and Windows. The new version will be rolled out over the upcoming few weeks.

As the company delayed the rollout of SameSite cookie labeling due to the coronavirus pandemic. Google did not want to negatively impact groceries, banking, and other essential service websites, however, the feature will be gradually re-implemented in Chrome 84. This secure-by-default-handling of third-party cookies limits tracking as well as enhance privacy.

Most users complain about abusive notification prompts, and the new version will tackle this issue by blocking intrusive notifications as well as other permission requests from websites that repeatedly bug consumers about enabling. The feature is built on Chrome 80’s quieter notifications user interface, and the goal is to discourage people from granting websites the ability to display alerts.

The company has also been working to reduce CPU and power consumption over the last few release of Chrome. Now, Chrome 84 detects when a browser window is covered by another window to suspend working painting pixels. This ultimately preserve resources when a webpage is not being viewed. The feature will be available from some users in Chrome 84 release, however, a wider release is expected with version 85. The feature builds on Chrome freezing tabs except for playing audio or video that has been running in the background for more than 5 minutes.

If an extension changes the default search engine or New tab page, the browser will confirm the decision with users, and Chrome 84 also adds support for Web One-Time Password (OTP) Application Programming Interface (API). Chrome 84 will automatically enter the 2-factor authentication code sent over SMS to your default messages application. The browser will ask users to ‘Allow’ the code to be automatically filled. However, it is up to individual sites to support the capability.

Additionally, the company has enhanced Chrome’s implementation of the Web Animations API. Now, the browser can clean up and remove old animations which will save memory and enhance performance. Chrome 84 also features a Wake Lock API so that websites can request users’ screen stay active and the device does not lock. The new version also warns users about downloading an APK, EXE, or other executable over HTTP on the HTTPS webpage. PWAs can now create app shortcuts on desktop and smartphone, and users can access them with a right-click on Windows and macOS. The long-press menu on Android also displays common actions.

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While the current Covid-19 epidemic is affecting different parts of the world quite differently, the fact of the matter is that there is one thing that the whole world is experiencing in unison and that is a shift away from office culture towards a work from home dynamic. A big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that being in enclosed spaces with people really increases the risk of infection, but with all of that having been said and out of the way it is important to note that a lot of startups that recently responded to a survey seem to be inclined to continuing working from home due to the numerous benefits that it can provide.

About 80% of the people who responded to the survey were either Gen Z or Millennials so the data is skewed towards younger people, but the truth of the situation is that these are the people that are going to defining how things are done in the years to come and at the end of the day what they say matters. About 90% of the people who responded to the survey said that they were able to get all of their work done without any serious issues and this seems to show that there are a lot of benefits associated with working from home that might not have been apparent before.

It is crucial to see how things like this are going to impact the way we do things. Most of the respondents to the survey were either startup founders themselves or high level managers, which means that these are opinions of people in high positions. These people are the decision makers so if they like working from home and think that it is a good way to do things then this is something that could very likely become a reality.

Infographics via: Founders Forum.

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According to a report provided by BestSEOCompanies, professionals prefer Google Ads over search engine optimization. The report says that according to professionals using Google Ads as well as SEO (search engine optimization), both approaches prove to be effective. However, if they are forced to pick only one approach, they would prefer Google Ads over search engine optimization (SEO).

The report provided by BestSEOCompanies was based on information gathered from a survey conducted on professionals who use Google Ads and search engine optimization. The survey was conducted on 496 marketing professionals as well as business owners. They use organic SEO (search engine optimization) and paid search tactics. The professionals were asked about both the techniques for attracting consumers. The feedback provided by them was positive and a lot of marketing professionals stated that both approaches are complementary.

According to the survey, around 90% of the respondents stated that Google Ads is effective. However, according to 87% of respondents, search engine optimization is effective. 87% of respondents think that search engine optimization is worthwhile, however, 78% of them stated that Google Ads is worthwhile. According to the report, 87% of respondents consider search engine optimization to be beneficial, while 85% stated that Google Ads is beneficial. This shows that more respondents think that search engine optimization is important, beneficial, and worthwhile.

86% of respondents say that SEO is important and 80% think that Google Ads is important. The survey also found that 41% of respondents think that search engine optimization is costly while 52% stated that Google Ads is costly. A greater percentage of respondents referred to Google Ads as simple and fair.

The report also states that over three-quarters of marketing professionals and business owners who responded to the survey think that both approaches are beneficial, effective, and influential.

The respondents were asked if they had to choose only one tactic, which approach would they prefer. Around 64% of them stated that they would prefer Google Ads over search engine optimization. However, 36% of respondents stated that they would pick search engine optimization (SEO). This shows that more people prefer Google Ads over SEO.

According to most respondents of the survey, Google Ads delivers the required results more quickly and efficiently as compared to search engine optimization. Moreover, most respondents think that this tactic is easier to implement as compared to search engine optimization. When the respondents were asked which is better in terms of return on investment, 53% stated that Google Ads is better while 43% think that search engine optimization is better in this aspect.

45% of respondents consider Google Ads affordable while 49% stated that SEO is more affordable. According to the report provided by BestSEOCompanies, respondents of the survey were more likely to state that visitors referred by Google Ads converted at larger rates as compared to those visitors referred by search engine optimization. They also stated that visitors referred by Google completed larger transactions as compared to those referred by SEO.

Recently, YouTube's Creator Insider channel talked about a feature of YouTube Studio. A new video was posted to the Creator Insider Channel in which YouTube revealed that the company is adding data on other clips your audience has watched. The new addition will provide content creators with a listing of other videos that their viewers have watched on the video platform. Creators will see the listing of other videos which are not created by them. The new feature adds a new level of context to creators’ audience research efforts.

The Analytics section of the YouTube Studio provides the listing of other videos watched by your audience on the platform. YouTube stated that the new feature provides an opportunity to know your audience better. Creators can dig into what other video topics and format is watched by their audience and which format and topics might suit their YouTube channel.

The new insights may also help creators to identify key trends, and sharpen their strategy. This week, the company also provided an update on the launch of the new informational panel. YouTube revealed that the company plans for a 20% launch of the new informational panel by July 15 of this year.

The new additions will be very beneficial for YouTube content creators, and likely, the update will be completely rolled out within the upcoming few weeks. Moreover, the platform has also released a new test of an updated audience retention chart. The new update will display you the retention performance across your YouTube channel.

The updated audience retention chart will help content creators to focus on where they are getting more engagement, and where their audience is dropping off. The insights will ultimately help you to improve your content approach. Both the new updates will provide more information on your YouTube performance, which will help content creators to improve their posting approach as well as process with more understanding of what their audience is interested in.

Additionally, the company also announced that it is adding some new mental health assistance resources within relevant YouTube search queries. Moreover, a new listing of recently published videos to the YouTube Studio dashboard will also be added. The company is rolling out the new updates to YouTube Studio from today. However, the updated audience retention chart is still under testing phase, and it is not yet ready to be rolled out to YouTube Studio.

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When we talk about global communication systems, we always look for more speed, more uninterrupted connectivity, and a more versatile system.

If you think about it like one day you are writing on a paper, the next day you are using a typewriter, and then comes the computer on which you can type; this is exactly how we have seen the evolution of wireless connectivity in around 40, 50 years.

And now, the world is about to envision and experience the best wireless connectivity system in the form of 5G. So far, it was a promise, but now, the promise is on the verge of becoming reality.

5G is going to make total connectivity possible. There will be a lot of opportunities that will stem from 5G’s implications for the Internet of Things and Smart Tech.

Before divulging into the future, let us take a look back to better compare our past, present, and future.

From 1982-1990s, Analog 1G was the ‘in’ technology. With data bandwidth of 1.9 kbps, 1G only supported voice calls and nothing else much.

The 1990s-2000s saw the era of Digital 2G which supported texts, pictures, and multimedia messaging. The data bandwidth was 14.4- 384 kbps.

From the 2000s onwards, the era of 3G smartphones came and with the data bandwidth of 2 Mbps, high-quality audio and video along with international roaming could be supported.

2010 till 2019 marks the Streaming era, where 4G and LTE supported HD streaming was developed with a supporting data bandwidth of 2Mbps-1Gbps.

2019 till Present-day marks 4G and a promise of Full Speed ahead with the help of 5G. South Korea is the first country to launch 5G, and it is followed by 50 cities in China. Germany, UK, and the US will also roll out 5G on a limited basis.

Now let us look into the differences between 4G and 5G connectivity.

5G is 20 times speedier than 4G, with 2500 Mbs downloading speed. 4G has 125 megabytes/second of downloading speed. A movie that takes 6 minutes to download on 4G will take less than 20 seconds in 5G.

5G supports 10 times more devices per square kilometer, so it can handle many devices as compared to 4G. This is an important factor in the Internet of Things (IoT).

Latency or the time that is taken to send data from one point to another is less than 2 milliseconds for 5G, and it is 50 milliseconds for 4G. This means that due to lower latency, the data transfer is almost instantaneous with 5G.

5G and IoT partnership will be a great achievement as it will provide numerous other benefits in many industries.

For example, in the Transport industry, 5G enabled self-driving cars will be able to make quick decisions within a split second. When these cars will be connected to buildings, street lights, other cars, and even pedestrians, they will rapidly respond to any changes or issues and will also improve the traffic flow.

5G can be useful in the high-tech industry, using AR/VR to boost productivity and precision that can lead to efficiency gains and savings.

5G can have wonderful uses in the healthcare industry too. Through this technology, robotic surgeries can be performed remotely.

Other smart medical devices and wearables that provide real-time updates on patients to make accurate diagnoses will also see a lot of help from 5G.

All of these uses in multiple industries can lead to a profit of billions of dollars in GDP by the year 2030.

5G is not a simple upgrade of technology. It is a complete revolution in which a lot of economical and industrial aspects are also going to be involved. It requires a completely fresh infrastructure to take full advantage of it.

While the complete uptake of this technology will take several more years, the investors and developers can start taking advantage of the probable opportunities that it will bring.

Via: Visualcapitalist.

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Twitter has recently faced an extreme backlash when the users updated the company about Bitcoin Scam Alert.

The high-profiled accounts marked a complaint regarding their hacked accounts for the same tweet related to Bitcoin Wallet. The tweet marked the words, send cryptocurrency to the wallet, and get your amount doubled in return.

A recent report claims that up to $118,000 worthy Bitcoins have been transferred to the scammers wallet. Out of which most amount has already been moved to somewhere else.

Twitter has declared a proper investigation over this caused problem in their recent tweet but stated no substantial knowledge about the actual scammers and the problem itself. They remarked that they don’t know much about this scam, which is considered as an organized trick, so far. Alongside this, they have published a series of tweets from their tech support profile to notify the users about the detection of cyber attack on Twitter's employees. They claimed that this attack has exerted to attain trouble-free access to their private system and accounts.

We detected what we believe to be a coordinated social engineering attack by people who successfully targeted some of our employees with access to internal systems and tools.
— Twitter Support (@TwitterSupport) July 16, 2020

It is still under consideration whether the scammers have been involved in any other spiteful activity or shared any confidential information through the hacked accounts along with Bitcoin scam or not. Likewise, the company has sent a high alert to all the other notable profiles by restricting their twitter accounts to seize the activity of the scammers. It claims that with the restrictions of the attacked accounts, they have also removed the scam tweets from the feeds to ensure security as soon as they recognized the problem. Most of all, other certified accounts the company has deactivated their activities this Wednesday, implying that they would not be able to use their accounts for some time. But it has reactivated the functions of various accounts so far intending to deactivate again if marked any risk.

Twitter has assured its consumers regarding their measures concerning this unfortunate incident. They have also notified that all these initiatives are being taken to reduce the risk.

Moreover acknowledging this recent alert, Twitter has only permitted the real owners of the victimized accounts to function their profiles until they become sure of their security systems. The company has also restricted many of its employees from accessing the relative internal system for precautionary measures.

As this hack has terrified many users of the popular micro-blogging platform, people are also accusing Twitter of not taking the required steps and providing considerable knowledge related to this scam.

According to Motherboard an insider (employee) maybe involved in this incident partly. Twitter hasn't responded on this so far.

However, it is still unclear who is the real fraudulent entity, either an individual or a team, but it has caused a devastating problem to almost all of the high-profile users like Bill Gates, Elon Musk, Apple Inc., to name some. Considering this, the CEO of Twitter Jack Dorsey has assured its users of resolving this issue as soon as possible.

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During the last few months, you may have noticed that LinkedIn is adding more quick creation options in the post composer. These added options help guide what users post about on LinkedIn’s platform. Now, most LinkedIn users see six different custom post creation options at the bottom of LinkedIn’s post composer. In comparison, earlier this year, LinkedIn used to display four options.

The recent additions are polls, and the Offer help and Share a profile options. Back in May of this year, the company officially rolled out the native polls option, another way to gather feedback, and boost engagement on LinkedIn’s platform. While the company rolled out the Offer help option last month in light of the ongoing impacts of the coronavirus pandemic.

The ‘Share a profile’ option allows users to showcase a connection through a post, and the feature was added last month. A social media guru, Matt Navarra highlighted this feature on Twitter. These options follow Facebook’s lead in guiding people as to what to share on the platform. LinkedIn is always looking for new ways to keep users posting more often on the platform, while also introducing new tools and features to assist those people who are looking for professional assistance during the coronavirus pandemic.

Earlier this year, Microsoft, LinkedIn’s parent company, reported that LinkedIn is experiencing record levels of engagement, and it is increased during the coronavirus pandemic. In the start of this year, Microsoft reported that LinkedIn has reached 675 million members. During June of the year 2019, LinkedIn also updated its algorithm to ensure better distribution of content from users. The platform has also sought to introduce new features such as Stories to maximize interaction as well as keep more updates flowing through the feeds of users.

It is interesting to note how the company is looking to emphasize particular types of engagement and facilitate simpler posting. LinkedIn also continues to promote the use of hashtags, and topic following options. The new quick creation options in the post composer also add new considerations for your LinkedIn Strategy. For Instance, the ‘Share a profile’ option helps you to highlight specific profiles which could be a good way to boost awareness.

You may also note that the Stories feature is still only available in some regions. It has also been reported that LinkedIn is working to create new visual presentation tools and other options that could eventually see their quick links.

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Billions of spam emails are delivered each day and you might also be receiving some spam messages in your Gmail inbox. Here, we will discuss some of the ways to stop receiving spam emails in the Gmail inbox. You can use the Block & Report Spam features of Gmail for this purpose.

Gmail has some built-in tools to report spam emails. You can also block annoying users from sending these spam emails by using the Block or Report spam features of Gmail. These tools are the easiest ways to stop receiving spam emails. If you want to report a message as spam, you need to first open this email as normal. Now, tap on the three-dot menu. You can find the three-dot Menu at the top-right corner of the message. You will see a ‘Report spam’ button on the three-dot menu. Click on this button and the message will be reported to Google. It will also be sent to the spam folder of your Gmail.

There is also a ‘Block Name’ option available on the three-dot menu. Clicking on this button will block that user. Users can block and unblock other users in Gmail as needed. Users do not necessarily have to allow every incoming email into their inbox. Gmail also provides filters which allow users to intelligently sort emails into different folders. You can deal with messages in different folders according to your needs. These folders/filters also make a great way to block spam emails in Gmail.

Firstly, open the email/sender you are irritated with. Then click on the three-dot Menu icon and then choose "Filter messages like this" option. Now you'll be redirected to advance search popup. You will have to fill the required fields to set up the filter. Users can simply include all emails from a specific sender, or you can include the subject, size, or attachment status of emails. After you are done, tap on the ‘Create filter’ button. Now, you will have to decide what will happen to emails matching the earlier criteria. There are a lot of options available in this aspect. If you are sure that every email in a specific filter is junk, check the ‘Delete it’ option.

A more safe approach is using the ‘Skip the Inbox’ box. Using this option will prevent messages from landing in the main list of messages. You can combine it with ‘Apply the label’ and a label you will create, such as Potential Spam. This will allow you to review junk emails without them clogging your main list of messages.

You can check the ‘Also apply the filter to matching conversation’ box to let the filter also run on the existing emails. Now, tap on the ‘Create filter’ button.

Users can also create an unlimited number of alias addresses by including periods (.) or plus (+) signs in your email address. If you want to sign up for a particular website, but you fear this website may spam you, enter your email address as ‘your name+ website’s name@gmail.com.’ For instance, if your Gmail address is diw@gmail.com and the name of the website is Free Stuff Inc., enter your email address as di+w@gmail.com or di.w@gmail.com. Now all messages from that website will be filtered out.

In a lot of cases, an overflowing inbox is due to a lot of newsletters and various other automated messages a user has signed up for. You can unsubscribe to unwanted newsletters and automated messages. Most legitimate newsletters provide a link to unsubscribe at the bottom. However, if an Unsubscribe link does not appear at the bottom of an email newsletter, tap the dropdown arrow located underneath the name of the sender and you will find a link stating, ‘Unsubscribe from this sender.’

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Microsoft has managed to attain a consistent level of success over the years but a lot of that success has been contingent on Windows being the most popular operating system out there. In order to diversify Microsoft has offered a lot of other services and many of them have succeeded such as, cloud services and social networking platform known as LinkedIn, however the tech giant that was once at the pinnacle of the tech industry has now been superseded by the likes of Google, Amazon and Apple.

Hence, as a result of the fact that this is the case Microsoft has tried expanding its services even further, often by introducing features that other big tech companies have already been offering but in a package that its own loyalists would appreciate. One of the newest features that it is adding to the mix is to Office 365, and it is calling it “plus addressing”. This is basically a way to create disposable email addresses that would link to your main email, and make it easier to sort through emails because you would have different “plus addresses” that you would add by putting in a plus sign and a suffix to your regular one, and you can assign different addresses for different tasks.

This is not the first time a feature like this has been offered. Google was the first to offer this in the form of subaddressing. However, this is a feature that was not really a part of Office 365 up until this point in time, which is important to note. While it is true that Microsoft is still playing catch up in a lot of ways, it still has a lot of dedicated users as well as people that might want to switch over from Google because of the various controversies the tech giant is involved in. Having features like this available means that people would get a comparable experience.

Photo Credit: SOPA Images/LightRocket via Getty

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You may have seen social media posts from your climate-change-denying friends or ultra-liberal friends, and have wondered how they came to some particular conclusions. Mozilla’s new project offers a glance at theoretical YouTube homepages for people in six categories.

The new project called TheirTube was created by an Amsterdam-based creative developer Tomo Kihara. Mozilla created suggestion bubbles for six personas based on interviews with real YouTube users. The new project presents the YouTube landing page from the viewpoint of six personas including prepper, liberal, climate denier, conservative, conspiracist, and fruitarian.

Mozilla hopes to demonstrate how the recommendation algorithm of YouTube could confirm some particular biases. According to Mozilla, each persona was informed by interviews with real YouTube users who experienced similar suggestion bubbles. Mozilla created six different YouTube accounts to simulate the subscriptions and viewing habits of those users.

The six example homepages display what the recommendation algorithm of YouTube recommends to any given persona each day. YouTube recommends videos such as ‘What is really inside your vitamins and supplements’ to the fruitarian account, while the platform recommends videos such as ‘COVID-911-INSURGENCY- WAKEUP CALL’ to the conspiracist account.

Videos recommended to the prepper account will explore apocalyptic scenarios and how people can ‘prepare’ for such apocalyptic scenarios. YouTube recommends videos that tend to support notions such as multiculturalism and feminism to the liberal account, while the conservative account sees clips that criticize these ideologies. The conspiracist account is suggested those videos that suggest that global events are actually conspiracies. Lastly, the climate denier account will see clips that ‘debunk’ scientific evidence about global warming.

Although recommended clips are not always necessarily fake or misleading, Mozilla notes that YouTube has designed its algorithm to amplify content that will keep users clicking, even if the content is ‘radical.’ The TheirTube project also raises questions such as what if platforms were more transparent about the suggestion bubbles they created. Tomo Kihara stated that is it possible to gain a better perspective of your suggestion environment if you look at the recommendation bubbles of other users.

Mozilla wrote in a blog post that the recommendation algorithm of YouTube pays close attention to what users watch on the platform, and then suggest other clips that users might enjoy. YouTube’s recommendation algorithm is extremely powerful and it accounts for 70% of videos watched on the Google-owned platform. This algorithm has also been criticized for suggesting conspiracy clips rife with misleading information, and clips featuring minors.

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The social media giant, Facebook, has recently published a new report on the impacts of the coronavirus pandemic on small and medium-sized businesses. The report incorporates responses from over 30,000 small business owners across fifty different countries. "Global State of Small Business Report" highlights the key concerns and challenges faced by business owners as they seek to maintain operations during the lockdowns.

The insight given is important for virtually every business as the flow-on impacts will relate to spending in nearly all aspects, and will have far-reaching economic impacts. Here, we will discuss some of the keynotes and charts. Firstly, the social media giant notes that the job crisis is ongoing around the world, and likely to carry on for some time even after the coronavirus pandemic ends.

According to Facebook, one-third of small businesses surveyed reported a reduction in the workforce due to the coronavirus lockdowns. The report reveals that 26% of businesses across the globe had to completely shut down their operation between January and May of this year. Moreover, 50% of businesses had to shut down in some countries.

According to the data, 54% of tourism agencies and 47% of hospitality and event-related small businesses reported approximately total shutdowns during the pandemic. This reveals that tourism and event-related businesses have been the hardest hit during the lockdowns.

However, all sectors have reported significant sales impact due to the coronavirus pandemic, and those impacts are universal as all regions reported similar levels of impact across their SMB sector. Most businesses reported that they have been able to keep the same number of workers on their books, largely because of government subsidies. However, some regions have also been forced into significant workforce reductions.

Most business owners remain optimistic as 74% of businesses that were closed during the survey expect to open again as lockdown measures continue to lift in some countries. However, the risk of a second wave will also impact businesses as some regions are seeing with various cities being forced back into lockdowns as cases spike after initial easing.

Many businesses have also turned to online options to maintain their operations during the pandemic. Over 50% of businesses were making at least 25% of their sales online in 15 of the surveyed countries. As more individuals come to realize the benefits of online shopping, it will lead to new habitual behaviors. Overall, the report presents a fairly downbeat view of the current situation, though hope remains that we will get back to normal. It is important to support your local businesses as SMBs make up a significant amount of business activity.

During the last two months, social media activity related to Black Lives Matter protests and other political and social issues have skyrocketed. More and more US citizens are using social media platforms to express their opinion on important political and social issues. The US has one of the highest social network penetration rates across the globe as more than 70% of Americans hold a social media account. The number of social media users in the United States is forecast to increase to nearly 257 million by the year 2023.

However, a new survey reveals that those who use social platforms for political issues vary by demographic. The Pew Research Center conducted a survey of US adults between June 16 and June 22 of this year. According to the survey, Black and Hispanic United States adults use social media platforms more for social and political issues as compared to white US adults. The respondents were asked which aspect of social media is important to them.

60% of Black Americans and 57% of Hispanic Americans stated that using social media to find other individuals that share their views about political issues is important to them. In comparison, only 39% of white US adults think that this feature is important. Similar racial gaps were found when respondents were asked about the importance of social media platforms for getting involved with political and social issues they care about or giving them a venue to express their opinions on political issues.

The survey also discovered that young Americans have drastically increased their use of social media platforms on political issues during the past two years. 54% of social media users aged between 18 and 29 years stated that have used social media platforms to look for information related to protests or rallies happening in their area.

Moreover, 59% of respondents to the survey aged between 18 and 29 years said that using social media platforms to get involved in social and political issues is important. In comparison, back in the year 2018, 47% of Americans aged between 18 and 29 years said that using social media to get involved in political issues is important.

Those Americans who are 50 years or older are using social media platforms less for political and social issues. 37% of them said that they interact with posts related to political issues on social media platforms, while 41% of them stated the same back in the year 2018.

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Payment giant PayPal has confirmed that the company is developing cryptocurrency capabilities. In a letter to the European Commission in March of this year, the company stated that PayPal is monitoring the evolution of the crypto-asset space. PayPal also revealed that it has taken unilateral and tangible steps to further develop its cryptocurrency capabilities, specifically since the Libra stablecoin project was announced back in June of the year 2019.

PayPal remained a member of this project for about four months before the payments company withdrew back in October of the year 2019, along with other payment companies like Visa and Mastercard.

PayPal’s letter detailed that the company initiated its development of crypto capabilities since 2019 when the company joined the Libra Association as a member. Several major cryptocurrency exchanges including Coinbase was already offering people to purchase cryptocurrencies using PayPal, however, the platform did not offer any exchange services natively.

Last month, Coindesk reported that the company was considering to add Bitcoin purchasing and selling options directly to its consumers. The payments company has a huge presence in Europe as it is licensed in Luxembourg and has operations in 31 different European jurisdictions. PayPal is currently serving nearly 95 million merchants as well as customers.

PayPal’s confirmation is significant as it has been reported that the company offers crypto buying and selling to its more than 300 million users. The company’s response to the European Commission is part of the public consultation that opened in December of last year- the European Commission wanted feedback in building a European Union framework for cryptocurrency-assets.

PayPal stated that the company is supportive of such a framework and the company also stated that blockchain and crypto-assets could help achieve greater financial inclusion and help to reduce some of the pain points that currently exist in financial services. The letter added that the company is continuously monitoring and evaluating worldwide developments in the cryptocurrency and blockchain ledger space.

Also read: Are CryptoCurrencies The Future Of Finance?

The payments company also suggested that the European Union should bring clear definitions for crypto assets, and thus properly licensing as well as regulating companies in this industry. The California-headquartered company asked the regulators to bring the cryptocurrency activity under the Anti-Money Laundering/Combating the Financing of Terrorism requirements.

PayPal stated that the regulatory framework should also allow for bringing innovative products as well as services to the market without undue regulatory burden while also providing guidance and safeguards. PayPal has been active in the cryptocurrency space since 2014 when the company partnered with three different bitcoin payment processors including Coinbase.

The World Bank and IMF recently came up with new data that predicts Asian countries to have a solid presence in the list of top 5 countries in the world by size of GDP by 2024. This will obviously mean that several European countries that are economically sound currently will be pushed down the said list in the next 4 years.

When it comes to economic growth, China has been on an upward trajectory for more than 20 years now. Moreover, India and Indonesia made the list of the top 10 countries with the biggest economies, not too long ago, and are also expected to enter the top five in the next couple of years. Also, Japan’s economy is growing at a rate that is sufficient to ensure that the Land of the Rising Sun will secure the 4th rank by 2024.

The flourishing middle class of Asia is among the main reasons behind the GDP’s continental shift. It is believed that China will have to deal with an aging population in the years to come, prompting the consumption to be curbed.

Apart from that, Indonesia, Malaysia, and the Philippines are all set to boost their labor forces considerably in the near future, due to which a rise in their average surplus income is highly expected, as noted by the World Economic Forum.

It goes without saying that Tata (India) and Huawei (China) have already established themselves as some of the top multinational companies in the world and more Asian MNCs are on the horizon for a global breakthrough.

FAO states that Asia’s sudden growth also brings forward new problems such as an increasing difference between the urban and rural incomes, damage to the environment, and various other obstacles that governments and institutions would need to resolve.

Chart: Statista.

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The pressure has never been greater on businesses to make it safer for people to pay for goods and services online. First, there’s a pending end-of-year deadline for merchants who do business in the European Economic Area (EEA) to implement “strong customer authentication” (SCA). Second, the COVID-19 pandemic has increased e-commerce to record levels, and along with it, an unprecedented spike in fraud, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

On top of those pressures, businesses are struggling to re-open or deal with peak volumes of business from the pandemic. In April, the Financial Conduct Authority delayed the implementation of SCA until September 2021 for UK businesses to help “minimize potential disruption to consumers and merchants.” But the clock is still counting down for EU merchants. Even though payment service providers Visa and Mastercard requested more time to implement SCA, the European Banking Authority (EBA) is holding fast to its December 31, 2020 deadline. So, despite it all, EU merchants must focus on fraud prevention.

The EU Payments Services Director (PSD2) was issued in 2018 to fight global e-commerce fraud. The global cost of cybercrime is expected to hit $6 trillion in 2021, up from $3 trillion in 2015, according to the Erjavec Group’s Annual Cybercrime Report.

The strong customer authentication is expected to boost security by requiring two-step authentication such as a password, pin number or fingerprint.

The EBA expects the SCA will benefit merchants in the long run as they see higher approval rates and less fraud. In the past, most declined online card payments have been for insufficient funds, invalid card details and expired cards.

Many shoppers, forced online during the pandemic, are now accustomed to the higher security, and studies show they expect it in the future as they continue online shopping even after life returns to normal.

The rules of credit card processing affect any merchant doing business in the European Economic Area (EEA). The EEA consists of all 28 member companies of the European Union as well as the three EEA EFTA Countries: Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway.

HOW THE SCA WORKS

Specifically, the regulations require strong customer authentication when someone:

Accesses payment accounts online
Initiates any electronic payment transaction
Carries out an action through a remote channel which may imply a risk of fraud

The rules call for merchants to use at least two of the following three elements when authenticating a purchase:

Something only the customer knows such as passwords and pins

Something the customer owns like a mobile phone, wearable device, smart card, token or device

Something the customer has such as a fingerprint, facial feature, voice pattern, iris format, DNA.

Red Maple™ is helping merchants meet the new SCA requirements with StagedPay™. StagedPay is Red Maple’s revolutionary, cloud-based solution for merchants processing Card Not Present (CNP) transactions. StagedPay provides merchants with a system that complies with Strong Customer Authentication by using an email or phone number as a means of verifying identity for credit card transactions and enhancing credit card security.

Two-Factor Card Entry. StagedPay provides a patent-pending method of tokenizing card holder information via two-factor entry. Merchants collect part of the card number while allowing the card holder to enter the remaining credit card numbers in a secured portal in the cloud. Customers enter the first part of the credit card number on the website or via telephone when ordering from a live representative. They can then enter the rest of the numbers via text, email, or phone call.

Secured Cloud-Based Portal. StagedPay also provides merchants with a white label, secured portal for their customers to manage their methods of payment (cards, wallets and bank accounts) while also providing merchants the ability to upload invoices for payment.

The software also provides merchants with a drastic reduction in PCI scope.

Here are more features and benefits:

eCommerce Applications
Customer Engagement Applications
Back Office Systems
Mobile Applications
Retail Applications
Robust API for Integration

Visit Stagedpay to learn more.

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HOW THE SCA WORKS