Digital Information World

Facebook’s NPE Team has recently developed a new app which is one of its kind and is unlike anything we have on the web today.

This new app goes by the name ‘E.gg’ and it is going to provide an experimental platform to people who want to reminisce the clumsy, dangerous, and completely raw old days of the Internet.

Many of us belonging to the Baby boomers or Millennials generation remember the funny experiences we had while exploring the internet. It was raw, not highly defined, and most of us learned things slowly by ourselves. These days, the technology has advanced, and everything is so clear, crisp, and brand new that it has taken the ‘awe-factor’ away which most of experienced in our early days of the Internet.

Facebook’s teams realized this nostalgic pang and decided to develop an app that will bring back those memories and those experiences, with a completely fresh point of view.

As explained by the Director of Product Management at Facebook, Jason Toff, this new app E.gg will let the users experiment with all their weird and wonderful expressions of who they are and what they love the most.

People will be able to unleash their creative sides, as this app’s banner says- ‘Free your Creativity.’ It is a small experiment by the NPE Team of Facebook, and at the moment, it is going through a testing phase. Interested people can help Facebook test this app by joining the waitlist.

Now coming to what this app will be about. Is it another TikTok like app? No

Is it a video app? No

Then what is it about?

E.gg will let you create free-form canvasses. They might contain media collages, or quotes collage from the pages you love, or anything else that you care about and that can help you eloquently express yourself, just like how it used to be in the old days of scrapbooks and testimonial collections, etc. You may add your favorite films, music albums, novels to your canvas, or a collection of texts and images or GIFs. Anything and everything can be put in your canvasses. There will be no worry about positioning the images too. It is all going to be free of all those worries that we have to face these days while making or editing our collages in picture editing apps.

You can share your canvasses with others through a personalized E.gg URL within the app only, without going through the hassle of logins or required number of downloads. No one is going to judge you based on your content because there are not going to be any ‘Likes’ or ‘Comments’ options available.

It’s simple, pure, devoid of any limitations to your creativity.

Read next: Facebook Has Built A New Army of Bots To Strengthen Anti-Spam Methods

Quickcharge 5 is out and the makers of it Qualcomm has presented the technology inside it to be based on providing the fastest charging solution for the Android devices ever. It holds the capacity to provide more than 100W charging power to a smartphone and that in calculations also means you can now charge your Android phone from 0 to 50% in only 5 minutes.

Furthermore, the new technology is also based on Qualcomm’s Battery Saver and Smart Identification of Adapter Capabilities which will assist in delivering better efficiency and battery life cycle as well.

However, while the highlights mentioned above are just for the “intermediate” level Android fans, there is a lot more that the new technology has made possible. We are listing them down in the form of bullets below.

Quick Charge 5 stands as 70% more efficient than its predecessor Quick Charge 4 and delivers power 10 times more than that of Quick Charge 1.
The solution comes power-packed with 2S batteries and 20 volts of power delivery.
The device incorporates 12 separate voltage, along with protections against current and temperature changes, and has USB-input overvoltage protection at 25V and external power controls beyond 30V as well.
It is also optimized to take advantage of both USB-PD and Type-C technologies while addressing future android requirements as well.
It runs cooler than Quick Charge 4 - almost 10 degrees Celcius cooler.
Quick Charge 5 sill bring surprises in the form of Dual/Triple Charge technology, adaptive input voltage, INOV4, Qualcomm Battery Saver and the new Qualcomm Smart Identification of Adapter Capabilities technology that together will help in maximizing power transfer efficiency, increasing safety and extending the battery life cycle of the devices which will have the technology.
The 100W charging capabilities in Quick charge 5 will work within the same footprints of a 45W solution.

Quick Charge 5 is currently being tested by Andoird OEMs and expectedly the supporting devices will roll out in the Q3 of 2020. Quick Charge 5 will remain compatible with Snapdragon 865, 865 Plus, and future premium- and high-tier Snapdragon mobile processors.

Read next: 5G Mobile Connections across the World Will Increase to More Than 1.7 Billion by the Year 2023

There is hardly a ‘good day’ on Facebook’s personal timeline. One issue after another keeps arising and things keep getting tough for Facebook. Of course, Facebook’s lack of appropriate response and its lax content policies are due to blame, but the recent movement against Facebook has gained a lot of momentum, and it is larger than any other trouble that Facebook has come across so far - except for the Cambridge Analytica Scandal.

Due to various issues, Facebook’s income for the second quarter was already in discussions. But the latest #StopHateForProfit movement has made the third-quarter earning of Facebook talk of the town too. Digiday carried out a survey and found out that 56% of media advertisers are involved in carrying on the boycott on Facebook for July 2020.

Facebook has always been criticized for its relaxed stance and almost no action against hate speech, violence, and racism. Now, Facebook’s biggest customers have had enough, and they decided to send a powerful message and warning to Facebook. A group of civil rights organizations which include the Anti-Defamation League, the NAACP, and Color of Change began this movement to ‘hit pause on hate.’ These organizations urged various large businesses to stop using Facebook as a platform for advertising their products for July 2020. It is a well-known fact that Facebook’s major earnings come from ads that result in a revenue generation of more than $70 billion for the company! Now, with this boycott, the organizations and businesses want to tell Facebook that its profits are nothing if it does not stop promoting and hate, racism, bigotry, anti-Semitism, and violence on the platform.

Initially, there were a few major companies that got involved in the boycott. But now, the Stop for Hate website shows an updated list of all the companies that are a part of the ad boycott movement. It cannot be said with certainty if these companies will review their decision to boycott even after the movement ends and get back on normal business terms with Facebook again!

Facebook has already faced a major financial setback this year due to the coronavirus pandemic, and now that it was finally on the way to recover from the shock, this new movement brought another major blow to the company. Sadly, Facebook’s attitude has not changed, and it is not taking these issues very seriously, or so it seems. As per Digiday’s survey, a little less than half of the surveyed clients said that they would be more comfortable in spending on Facebook if Facebook’s reputation and values come in direct alignment with theirs! This means that these clients are waiting for serious action from Facebook in response to the allegations it keeps facing.

Also read: A Former Facebook Software Engineer Claims That the Social Media Giant Is Failing and Hurting People at Scale

Around 56% of the buyers have claimed that clients have paused spending on Facebook because of the Facebook ad boycott movement, and 41% of them believe that the boycott will end by July and clients will resume spending on Facebook after it. But 26% of the buyers said that it will not end and will continue until the end of the third quarter of 2020. 17% of buyers said that this movement will not end until Facebook makes some meaningful and much-required changes in its policies, or at least remove are speech and have more controlled content policies is something that can help Facebook redeem itself in the eyes of the clients!

As per Digiday’s survey, at the same time, almost 55% of buyers believe that there is not much hope and Facebook will not bring any meaningful changes. Some 46% of buyers think that Facebook will pay heed to this movement and will do something to stop it.

The earnings in the second and third quarter of 2020 will clarify Facebook’s earning status and the decline will probably urge Facebook to work in the right direction somehow.

Read next: Does the Rise of Facebook Gaming Threaten Twitch?

Twitter has always been quick to take action against hate speech, bigotry, violence, and even racism. While its policies are already quite strict concerning all these issues, however, recently, Twitter has announced that it is updating its policies and extending them to linked content too.

Previously, Twitter’s policies mostly encompassed the content in the written tweets and did not have any control over the linked content. This was a loophole that paved the way for the people who love to spread hate and violence over the platform. All they had to do was to link some hate speech or violence instigating content to their original tweet, and it would go without being noticed by Twitter.

But it looks like Twitter was not so blind towards this linked-content issue, and now, with this new update, the micro-blogging platform has announced that they are revising their link policy, and their goal is to block the links that contain content which is against the platform’s already established rules. The links that violate those rules will be blocked right away, and the accounts that will continue to spread hateful content will get suspended too.

This new policy will come in effect from 20th July 2020. Twitter may also block some specific URLs from getting shared across the platform too, aside from blocking the harmful accounts.

This is actually quite great news for peace-loving people who join social media platforms for information and entertainment. People love to interact with other people across the world, and when platforms have lax content policies, or they turn a blind eye towards hate spreading people, that is when the rest of the people get affected. Even if they do not indulge in hate spreading or word wars with others, still their peace of mind gets affected and the environment on the platform becomes toxic.

Several months ago, Twitter tried to control people from spreading venom on the platform by announcing that whenever a person starts typing a tweet that will contain hate content or harmful speech, Twitter will immediately send a message for that person to pause and review what they have written, before posting.

Also read: Twitter Tests Much Needed Feature to DM Requests

This was an excellent way to make people realize that while in the heat of the moment, they might get carried away and end up using foul language or harmful speech, but if they just pause, take a deep breath and read their content again before tweeting it away, they may find their mistake and change their words.

Just like before, Twitter is again coming up with a new updated policy for the linked content. This shows how serious the forum is to curb all the hate, negativity, and harmful content, and that is commendable.

Photo: GettyImages

Read next: Twitter Contractors Reportedly Used Internal Tools to Spy on and Track Celebrities

Have you ever wondered what people surf on the internet or let’s be precise - what exactly are the websites that people around the world visit the most? While many of you might have thought that’s a difficult question to answer with daily internet users already in billion, SimilarWeb has made it possible by listing down the most visited websites based on the total global website traffic each site owns.

The statistics provided by SimilarWeb are till July 2020 and you can also see a section of “Times Per Visit” which basically represents the average time a user has spent on the site. It is measured in minutes and seconds.

The list begins with Google on top, along with its child company YouTube on second. Although YouTube enjoys the highest “Times Per Visit” numbers with an average person spending around 22 minutes on the site but the credit for this mostly goes to the engaging videos that different creators post every day around the world.

Before seeing the results, some of you may even have the opinion that Facebook would be the most visited site in the world, especially considering how everyone is now on Facebook almost but the truth of the matter is that a lot of those people now use the world’s biggest social media site on their phones with the help of the Facebook app.

While other popular social media sites like Twitter and Instagram fall below Facebook in the list, there has been a very surprising entry in the form of sites that offer adult content. Although we have heard how porn is on the rise among the millennial generation but we bet not a lot of us would have imagined such immense domination. Such websites are even more favorite of people than Amazon - which supposedly breaks revenue records every year.

Here is the list of world’s most visited websites below:

Source: Datareportal.

Read next: Counterpoint Estimates That 5G Mobile Connections across the World Will Increase to More Than 1.7 Billion by the Year 2023

As spotted by Valentin Pletzer on Twitter, Google is working on a new section that appears when a user searches for a story, and that story appears in the ‘Top Stories’ of the Google Search. This new section is titled ‘For Context.’

As the name of the new section suggests, it basically shows related stories or links to relevant articles.

‘Top Stories’ already provides several news articles from authentic and famous online publications. But previously, when a person wanted to read more articles on a particular topic, they had to delve into the search again, or check out the ‘Relate Articles’ which appeared at the bottom of most of the articles.

Now, however, a related article will appear there and then underneath the top story in the ‘For Context’ section.

Sadly though, this feature is not rolling out for the masses yet. Only a few users can see it as of yet, and this secondary story in the ‘For Context’ section is not available for every primary article in the ‘Top Stories.’

This means that this ‘For Context’ section will not appear underneath every story. Rather, it will be there under some stories only. Now how does Google decide which stories need a secondary link, this question remains unanswered as yet.

One theory that is making rounds is that Google may be providing this ‘For Context’ section to link a secondary article or story from the same publication that published the primary story. So, if a user wants to read an article published by Forbes, the ‘For Context’ section will link them to another related story from the same publication only. This behavior has been noticed by Pletzer too on a primary story from CNET.

Also read: Google is testing a new search refinement option for mobile users and it is pretty handy

To some extent, this does make sense. However, some questions arise in the mind. So far, this feature is quite ambiguous, when it should have been clear and simple. There is no need for any kind of ambiguity in such a straight-forward thing. Besides, so far, it is showing secondary links for only some stories and specific topics. So, this kind of selective behavior from Google also does not make much sense at the moment.

Secondly, it is understandable that this feature will bring more efficacy and refinement to the search results, but we already had the feature of ‘Related Articles’ that was just doing fine for us all for a pretty long time. So, what else is ‘For Context’ going to bring for us, which might make it different and far more beneficial than ‘Related Articles?’

It can only be hoped that soon, Google will answer all these questions. Till then, we can only wait and see.

Read next: Google is working on a shortcut for ‘Google Lens’ in the Google app’s search bar

Digital Wellbeing is a great Android utility that helps users manage the usage and time spent on their smartphones. There is a recent update from Digital Wellbeing that it will now turn the apps grayscale before they reach the time limit that the user already set for them to log off.

For example, if a user sets a time limit to certain apps, like YouTube, Twitter, Facebook, etc., as soon as your time limit ends, your system would automatically log you out of those apps. Now, with Digital Wellbeing’s new update, the apps will start turning gray a while before they go off. This is going to be like a visual reminder for the user that ‘time-up’ is coming and they should hurry in completing whatever they were doing, or wrap up the chat that they were having before they suddenly go off and keep the other person dangling in thin air, waiting for their response!

Of course, that is an over-dramatic statement. Once a user is logged out of an app, he can log back in if he wants. Also, once the preset time limit is hit, the user will stop receiving notifications from the app, but they will be able to unlock the app again if they want. But then, it will completely kill the purpose of indulging a tool to manage and police the usage of mobile apps.

With Digital Wellbeing’s grayscale visual alarm, only the apps in question will turn gray. The rest of your Android user interface will remain bright and colorful though. This will be in sharp contrast with the now ‘graying’ apps and will give the user another quick reminder that it is time to put the phone at rest, and that they might have been over-using their phone and apps again.

Android’s built-in and recently introduced ‘Bedtime Mode’ is also a bit similar in such a way that it also switches the entire Android user interface into grayscale. But that is where the difference lies between the Bedtime Mode and Digital Wellbeing’s latest update. Bedtime Mode will grayscale the entire Android system, while this latest feature of DW will make the selected apps gray only. Also, unlike the Bedtime Mode, users will still be able to take screenshots in the grayscale of DW. So, it further clarifies that this is not a permanent or an entire system-level change.

Currently, this updated feature is available in the 1.32 beta version of Digital Wellbeing. Let us see when it rolls out for a wider audience and in stable channels?

Hat Tip: AP.

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Earlier this year, Google introduced several animals to its AR 3D search results, and the list includes eagles, sharks, lions, horses, and more. Around four months later, the company today has added a number of creepy insects to its growing list of 3D animals that includes cats, tigers, and even dinosaurs.

The 23 creepy crawlies included in the list today includes several beetles including rhinoceros beetle, atlas beetle, Hercules beetle, stag beetle, shining ball scarab beetle, giant stag, Miyama stag beetle, and jewel beetle. Furthermore, Google has also added brown cicada, periodical cicada, evening cicada, Walker’s cicada, robust cicada, atlas moth, mantis, dragonfly, grasshopper, hornet, ladybug, swallowtail butterfly, and more, reported The Verge.

These insects appear large in size as compared to their natural size when you view them on your smartphone in 3D. However, the company has included a feature that allows users to pinch in to reduce or increase the size of these 3D insects. If you want to use this feature, you will first have to open the Google Search app on your smartphone.

Now, type the name of the particular insect that you want to view in 3D on your device. Lastly, you only need to scroll down the page and tap on the button that says ‘View in 3D.’ You will then be able to view a giant insect in your room through your smartphone. Pinch in to adjust the size of the 3D creature to make to look more realistic.

You can also hear the noises of these insects on Android-powered smartphones which adds dose of realism. You may also note that the functionally is not supported by all smartphones because of the absence of Google AR Core’s support. If you want to use the functionality, you must have an AR Core-supported smartphone with up-to-dated operating systems, or an iOS 11 or up device on the Apple’s iPhone side.

All the latest iPhones support the functionality including iPhone X, iPhone 11 series, iPhone 8, 7, 6 series, and lastly, iPhone SE. Discussing Android smartphones that support this feature, the list includes Google Pixel phones, ROG smartphones of Asus, Galaxy A, S and Note series offered by Samsung, and more. In May, Google 3D Viewer also added the ability to slide up the bottom sheet to reveal a carousel of more animals or ‘related models.’

TikTok is a very famous social media app that allows the users to make short videos and share it with their fans and followers. It is owned by a Chinese conglomerate, ByteDance. Lately, TikTok has been facing a lot of criticism from many other tech giants, like Facebook, YouTube, Apple, and Amazon.

Now, the new CEO of TikTok, Kevin Mayer thinks that if they leave TikTok out of everything, that will lead the US advertisers with hardly any choices and the social media competition will simply dry up without TikTok.

While TikTok has not been invited to the hearing in front of the US lawmakers, there is a high chance that TikTok will face some US intervention because the President of the US and other administration officials are considering banning the app. This is further fueled by the ongoing disputes between the US and China, as the relations between the two countries are alarmingly deteriorating.

On the other hand, ByteDance is facing a lot of pressure from the investors as they have valued the app at $50 billion, and some proposals will make the investors of ByteDance the biggest stakeholders of TikTok. While ByteDance is considering all the options and offers, its US investors have brought in another problem for the company.

The Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States is a government panel that reviews the potential national risks that may occur in case of acquiring a company or making a deal with foreigners. In this case, this committee has raised some concerns about the safety of personal data that TikTok uses and which automatically comes under ByteDance.

To put their minds at peace, the CEO of TikTok recently said that they believe that it is necessary to show the users, creators, regulators, and advertisers that we are upright American citizens who follow the US laws and can never do something to harm the personal data of our users.

Also read: TikTok Introduces a New $200 Million Fund to Help Top Creators in the United States

Furthermore, Kevin Mayer thinks that not only TikTok but all the social media apps must go through extremely thorough scrutiny. TikTok has taken the first step and has launched a Transparency and Accountability Center for moderation and data practices. This way, experts can observe their moderation policies in real-time, and examine the codes that drive their algorithms.

While TikTok is handling criticisms and allegations very maturely and decently, Facebook is not staying back from slinging mud on its rival app. Mark Zuckerberg accused TikTok of censoring political protest, and TikTok denied this claim too, as Kevin Mayer said in his blog post that instead of putting others down, all of the social media tech apps must endeavor for fair and open competition to provide better services to the consumers.

Very well said, TikTok!

Read next: TikTok is About to Hire 10,000 Americans to Solidify its Foothold

With the aim to shut down all the on-going controversies regarding the Chinese entertainment apps, TikTok has announced to become transparent for the first time. That basically means users will now have the access to know how the app’s algorithms sorts outs and shares videos of users, along with experts getting the chance to observe the moderation policies existing in real-time on the platform.

Upon making the big decision public via a blog post on Wednesday, TikTok CEO Kevin Mayer stated that they have put one step ahead of the industry and are now also openly challenging rival companies to follow the new trend instead of waiting for the regulation to become the new norm.

If you look at the timing of this, then TikTok decided to spread the news right hours before Facebook, Google, Apple, and Amazon were about to face the House Judiciary’s anti-trust panel. Although TikTok wasn’t a part of the scrutiny imposed by the congress, the company had expectations that their name would be taken during the proceedings - just like Mark Zuckerberg brought TikTok’s name forward in previous sessions only to highlight the competition that now exists between social media apps and in order to demand more freedom for the American tech firms with the similar reason.

Facebook CEO has also expressed that the competition between the social media giant and TikTok now stands as an ideological battle where Facebook believes in values like democracy, competition, inclusion, and free expression — exactly the kind of things on which the American economy was built. But unfortunately, Zuckerberg thinks that as China is building its own version of the internet they are basically exporting their own vision to other countries with the help of apps like TikTok.

Mayer, on the other responded to the criticism by taking a more positive approach as he said that his company wants to focus on more fair and open competition rather than dealing with the blames that their competitor company Facebook continues to put on them.

Also read: TikTok’s CEO believes that the competition on social media would ‘dry up’ for the US without TikTok

Nevertheless, it is pretty much expected that the arguments Facebook is presenting in front of the congress will definitely work for the company as the US government as well has been vocal about their hate for Chinese TikTok in the recent past and how Trump’s team is already working on banning the app in the country.

This pressure might be one of the biggest reasons of why TikTok has decided to open up its algorithms and moderation policies because this move will first allow them to counter-attack the claims of censoring the content for Chinese Government (a favorite of US politicians) and then it will also put Facebook in hot waters again for selective moderation policies.

Mayer continues to play smart by stating that without TikTok advertisers again would have very limited options in the US. Hence, to ensure that America's creative energy keeps prospering, the Chinese company will try its best to assure the long-term success and availability of TikTok.

Read next: New Data Reveals Users Spend More Time on TikTok Than on Instagram

On July 26 of this year, Google marked the 30th anniversary for the American with Disabilities Act and highlighted several assistive tools built into Google’s products. The ADA was passed to guarantee that individuals would be protected against discrimination based on disabilities in all areas of life like education, jobs, and more. People have gained a better understanding of what disability actually is, and according to Google, ableism was among the top searches in 2020.

Now, the company is introducing a new feature in Chrome which generates tagged PDFs that are more accessible to individuals with disabilities such as blind people who use a screen reader to access PDFs. On Wednesday, the company wrote in a blog post that starting in Chrome version 85, which is scheduled to go stable by the end of August, the Chrome browser will now automatically generate tagged PDFs when users will print a webpage, and choose the option that says ‘Save as PDF.’

Today, most users use the Save as PDF option while printing a webpage, and Chrome will soon update the PDF file being saved on your device to include information related to the structure of the document file such as headings, paragraphs, picture descriptions, and tables. According to Chrome’s blog post, tagged PDF contains extra metadata related to the structure of a document.

While they are more accessible to users with disabilities, they can also make it convenient for software that needs to automatically process as well as extra information from a PDF file.

Technical lead for Chrome accessibility, Dominic Mazzoni wrote in the blog post that the addition of this metadata to PDFs will be a perfect fit for the Chrome browser since this information is already available in well-structured pages. By adding the new feature into the Chrome browser, Google imagines that companies will be able to rely on the web rather than a dedicated 3rd-party software.

By building the feature into the Chrome browser, Google hopes some organizations that use HTML as part of document workflow would be able to benefit from the new feature and generate PDF documents more conveniently. Google partnered with CommonLook to enhance the accessibility of PDFs in the Chrome browser, and Google used the PDF Validator tool of CommonLook.

Currently, the feature is being rolled out to users as an experiment, and the feature will be available in Chrome 85 which will be launched in late August. You can use the feature by enabling the ‘chrome: //flags/#export-tagged-pdf’ flag in Chrome 84.

According to Microsoft, working with the cybersecurity researchers’ community is of the most important part of the company’s holistic approach to combat security threats. Bug bounty programs are a part of Microsoft’s such partnerships, and they are designed to encourage as well as reward researchers for spotting vulnerabilities. Recently, the tech giant announced that updates to the Windows Insider Preview Bounty Program, a key bounty program for the company and research community.

One of the most significant changes being introduced to the program is that the company has increased the highest potential reward amount to up to $100,000. In addition to that, Microsoft also said that it has revamped the program portal to make it convenient for researchers to submit the discovered vulnerabilities.

The WIP bounty program was first launched back in the year 2017, and initially, the company offered rewards ranging between $500 and $ 15,000, however, the maximum reward offered has now been increased to a whopping $100,000. The Microsoft WIP Bug Bounty Program provides opportunities for bug hunters to report vulnerabilities in WIP (Windows Insider Preview) in different products such as Windows Defender, Hyper-V, Microsoft Edge, and more.

Now, the program includes five scenario-based rewards for bugs that could put the privacy and security of clients at risk of exploitation. While the company is refocusing the Windows Insider Preview Bug Bounty Program to defend as well as protect consumers from five high-risk exploitation scenarios, Microsoft will continue to offer bounties for other valid bug reports as well, that do not qualify for the five scenario-based rewards. With the bug reports, researchers can earn rewards ranging between $500 and $5,000, the company wrote in a blog post while announced the revamped program.

The company offers the maximum reward money for running unauthorized non-sandboxed code without customer interaction, while you can get $50,000 for demonstrating unauthenticated access to private data of users with little or no interaction of users. For enabling quicker triage and review of bounty submissions and ultimately receiving reward money faster, the company asks all bung reports to indicate if the issue reproduces on Windows Insider Preview Dev Channel. Researchers are also required to include the build as well as revision string in their Windows vulnerability reports.

The new move will help the Redmond-based company to keep its customers safe from hacking attacks by offering more rewards to researchers for discovering and reporting vulnerabilities to the company. If you are a security researcher and would like to participate in the WIP Bounty Program, Microsoft recommends reporting the vulnerability on the MSRC Researcher Portal which has been updated to streamline communication of the necessary information to triage, assess, and ultimately award bounty for submissions that qualify.

ByteDance is a Beijing based company that also owns the famous social media app, TikTok. Recently, investors of ByteDance have suggested a takeover of TikTok and they have valued the platform at a whopping $50 billion.

Owing to the massive popularity of the app, investors have been talking about taking the company over for a while now. ByteDance is also facing a lot of pressure to give up claims on TikTok by investors in the US. So, now, ByteDance is under a lot of pressure, and the value that has been paced on TikTok is not something that can be easily ignored. So, as per the report by Reuters, ByteDance is considering different options for TikTok which has proved to be a ‘gold-egg laying hen’ for its parent company. It is not a hidden fact that TikTok’s huge success and massive popularity turned ByteDance into a true conglomerate and in such a short time.

ByteDance executives have been quite busy with hearing proposals from various investors, and the current offer of $50 billion is still not what they will probably agree at. As per the report, ByteDance has been suggesting higher values than $50 billion too. If a deal is not reached anytime soon and ByteDnce does not make a decision, it will have to give up on its US operations in order to regain some of their trust.

Now, this trust has come between ByteDance and its US investors on the basis of several concerns raised by the Committee of Foreign Investment in the United States (CFIUS). This committee is basically a government panel that reviews and studies the national risks in acquiring companies or making deals with foreign countries. So, this committee has raised some concerns about the personal data of users that is used by TikTok, and that eventually comes in the notice of, and under its parent company, ByteDance. Now, this is where the lack of trust comes in between the two parties, and if ByteDance does not sell TikTok to other investors than it will probably have a hard time doing business with the US.

The other investors have reportedly made different types of offers to ByteDance. Some investors have proposed to transfer majority ownership of TikTok. It seems that the investment firms and other companies that ByteDance has been communicating with have placed a very high stake on TikTok. According to this report, and if it can be trusted completely, the revenue that TikTok generates is $1 billion approximately, and the investors have valued it at $50 billion, which is 50 times its original projected revenue! This is far too much in comparison with its rival apps like Snap Inc, which is valued at $33 billion.

Let us see what decision ByteDance takes about TikTok.

Photo: Thomas Trutschel | Photothek | Getty Images

Read next: TikTok Has Just Made Its Algorithms and Moderation Policies Open For Everyone

Google, continuing to benefits its users have now announced, a free service that allows users to back up users' devices and clean all the junk data counting photos, drive, and Gmail with a newly assigned iPhone app.

Two years ago, when Google Drive got replaced with Google One for restructuring storage plans, offering up to 15 GB of free storage, along with a subscription for $1.99 onward for extra storage with additional access to live support service.

With the following update, as per Google, a new storage manager tool will be soon available to help you manage your data. The tool will only work with Google properties and help you find files and emails with large attachments, it will also be handing all the photos and videos on your phone. This service will now be available for any anyone with Google One app, you don’t have to be a member to get access to this new tool, regardless of its iOS or Android.

It’s definitely clear that Google is trying to reassure more users in getting associated with their program as 15 GB is worth nothing while trying to back up years of photos and videos, once you start the backup process you will hit 15 GB soon and will consider updating to Google One membership.

It might just be a good strategy to attract users but the app will be benefiting users by cutting their work of handling data and backup storage to half, saving users plenty of time by detecting files with junk, emails with unnecessary attachments and not to mention automatic backup.

As of now Google One will soon be available for iOS Beforehand, every iPhone was limited to upgrade via Google photos app or Google Drive, soon the will be getting access to their own Google One mobile app, granting them direct contact and allowing them to manage their membership and back up their data.

Also read: Google's Digital Wellbeing will make users preset apps Grayscale as they reach their time-off limit

Google spokesperson mentioned during an interview that, iPhone app won’t be granted automatic back up options like Android, they would have the press the backup button repeatedly.

It might be clear that Google mentioned that the app will do work better on android then iOS but He also suggested that Google will be soon working on advancing the iPhone app in possible future, indicating that Google will continue working on iOS benefiting iPhone users and users will keep experiences new updates time to time.

Google claimed, that new Google One app will be soon available in the app store.

Read next: Google Reportedly Adds Nearly 2 Dozen Insects Including Stag Beetle, Atlas Beetle, and More To Its AR-based 3D Animals Collection

Bill Gates has for many years been at the vanguard of the battle against poverty and disease. Five years ago he gave a TED Talk in which he ended up commenting on how devastating a truly global pandemic could end up being if steps were not taken to prepare for such an occurrence. After urging preparedness for pandemics for years, Bill Gates was vindicated by the spread of the novel coronavirus, something that has brought the world to a halt and has taken hundreds of thousands of lives in spite of the fact that steps were taken by most governments to prevent the virus from truly spreading.

In an attempt to help the world fight back against this pandemic that has brought the global economy to a halt and has racked up a tremendous human cost, Bill Gates has campaigned quite a bit to raise awareness. He has also recently donated a quarter of a billion dollars in order to fund research about the virus as well as to help in the development of a vaccine that would help people become immune to the virus entirely which in many ways is the only thing that can truly be done to stop the virus in its tracks before it ends up doing any more damage.

However, Bill Gates has also criticized social media companies for facilitating the spread of misinformation. In a recent interview, the billionaire tech tycoon commented on how damaging misinformation can be and how it can contribute to the spread of the virus. According to Bill Gates, social media platforms are serious culprits in this situation, so much so that they might even be directly responsible for it in some way, shape or form.

Essentially, social media platforms like Facebook and Twitter, both of which Bill Gates mentioned by name, have ended up creating public forums with widespread influence where people can say whatever they want. While misinformation can be dealt with by removing posts and the like and putting disclaimers up, at the end of the day this doesn’t deal with all of the misinformation present on these platforms.

With all of that having been said and out of the way, it is important to note that Bill Gates certainly does have a point since social media has resulted in far more misinformation being spread than might have been the case otherwise.

Credit: ABC via Getty Images

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Recently, The Markup published a study and its results are pretty shocking. The research service was looking at the amount of screen space that Google dedicates to its own services and affiliate links in the Google Search results.

While it was always known that Google’s services and links dominate the web page mostly, but when proper research was done, it was found out that exactly how much of the screen space does Google dedicates to its own content.

The research was based on samples from 15,269 typical searches on Google which were performed through an iPhone X. The results suggested the Google dominated area in the results web page was even more than advertisements. The Google-related services and links take up almost 62.6% of the first search results screen in the research samples.

In totality for a whole long page, Google’s dominance was around 41%. While 44.8% of the first results page was given to non-Google websites, around 8.5% was dedicated to AMP pages, and only 1% was given up for ads.

As far as the placement of search results was considered, the non-Google results were found to be pushed down towards the middle and lower-middle of the page. While Google’s own results were blessed with the best places amongst the top search results. As we all know, the position and placement of the search results are extremely vital as over 70 percent users tend to click on the first five search result links only.

Furthermore, the research results suggested that Google leaves only 19.2 percent for non-Google search content, and for more than 5% of the searches in their samples, it was found that Google usurps almost 75% of space in the first screen only.

Another shocking result suggested that in one out of five searches, Google did not even bother to give place to any non-Google content on the first screen!

More than 80% of people in the entire world use Google as their ‘go-to’ search engine. But seeing the unrequited politics and monopoly that Google is playing with its rivals and non-Google websites, it is quite alarming for the users. It means that our searches and our researches are all quite sickeningly controlled by Google in a strange, frightening manner!

This also means that Google’s continuous self-promotion while delivering search results to the users must be checked and scrutinized very closely.

Read next: Google is working on a shortcut for ‘Google Lens’ in the Google app’s search bar

We are only halfway through 2020 and there are several web design trends and practices that were popular just a few months ago that now appear outdated. This is due in part to the fact that every few months our mobile devices and mobile technology improves. Something that was considered a good interface just a few months ago now seems outdated. As technology keeps moving forward, website design needs to continue to improve.

Web designers are constantly looking at the websites they create from a UI and UX point of view. They are finding that a lot of the design aspects that were popular just a year ago or even a few months ago are outdated and useless. Here is what 2020 has taught us so far about web design practices and trends.

Important note: Make sure you choose a web hosting provider for your website that gives you at least a decent level of customization. Alex Williams from Hosting Data UK compared some of the most popular web hosting providers and created a detailed breakdown showing that not all of them give you the freedom you’ll need as a web designer. Most of them include website builders with some useful tools and different levels of customization, but some of them don’t include website builders at all. Depending on your knowledge and skill as a web designer you need to make sure you choose what’s best for you.

Huge Hero Images Are Now the Villain

Enormous hero images were all the rage when they first appeared on the scene. However, as a comic book character famously once said, “You will either live long enough to die a hero or live long enough to become the villain.”

This is what we are seeing with hero images. Every wannabe web designer who just learned what shared hosting is has used huge hero images like a fix-all to make their sites seem trendy. Many do not understand what it is that makes some hero images succeed and others fail.

Large hero images take over the entire screen. This might work if the site only has one purpose, such as to get customers to subscribe to a service. But if you are a contractor and you want to offer multiple services, your clients would have to scroll down past the hero image to see what it is you are trying to get them to do. Through 2019 and the start of 2020, hero images have been used incorrectly, diminishing the effectiveness of these websites.

Hamburger Menus Are a No-No

The idea of hamburger menus is great for mobile design. The problem is that over the past year more people are using hamburger menus in their traditional website design as well. Nothing can be as frustrating for a desktop or laptop user to click on a hamburger menu to find your menu. It’s frustrating.

Hamburger menus work on your mobile devices because they have a smaller screen, so the menu has a prominent place on the screen. However, a hamburger can easily be lost to the eye if a person is using their desktop or laptop.

Stock Photos That Are Obviously Stock Photos

There are a handful of stock photos that have circulated around the Internet. It’s not that they are just stock photos, but it is that they are obviously stock photos. For example, it is the group of cheery, young, and overly attractive executives strategically positioned standing around a desk and staring intently at a computer or a document in a pose that is so unreal it screams stock photography.

We are not saying that you should never use stock photos. But we are saying that you want to find photos that look realistic. If you need branded images, it might be worth it to hire a photographer. When they first came on the scene, stock photos were an inexpensive way to get photographs for your website without hiring a photographer. Now, they are so overused that when people see them, they feel like they are looking at something that is disingenuous, fake, or staged. People have an unconscious feeling of repulsion when they see stock photos because they feel like they are being sold something.

The year 2020 has been a year of soul-searching for many. People want something that feels real because it is real. That’s why you are seeing websites pulling away from stock photography and including real photos of actual employees on their websites.

Complex Navigation

Drop-down menus have lost their appeal. While visitors want more than a hamburger menu, they do not want to have to read through pages and pages of drop-down menus to find the information they need. A simple and minimal navigation menu that gives users the information they want and leads them toward the action you want them to engage in is best.

Complicated navigation distracts users and makes it difficult for them to find what they are looking for. Simplistic navigation leads to more conversions. This is especially important for users browsing on a desktop or laptop. Don’t make visitors hunt for navigation items because there is a lot of screen real estate to use.

An Overly Professional or Corporate Look

The year 2020 is shaping up to be a year marked by loss of trust in all things corporate. People don’t trust big brand names. They want to interact with real people as opposed to a faceless entity. Therefore, many big brand name companies are now hiring social media influencers to promote their products. It gives them a touch of legitimacy.

Jargon riddled copywriting is gone. Now, websites are designed with easy to understand language. The idea of putting your mission statement front and center or referring to your business in the third person won’t cut it anymore.

Instead, your website should have personal elements that put a human face on the products and services you offer. Perfection can no longer be the key. Slight imperfections can go a long way in humanizing your brand.

A Muted Color Scheme Is out

Muted colors are boring, corporate, and sterile. Switch out muted colors for vibrant colors. Futuristic color schemes, dual tones, and dark backgrounds catch the eye and appeal to modern audiences.

What Should We Expect from the Future of Web Design?

Honestly, it’s almost impossible to tell. An effective website will capture the viewer’s eyes, their mind, and their heart. And these things fluctuate based on what is going on in the world and what people are experiencing in their personal life.

What is true is that web designers need to keep up-to-date with the latest trends and practices. It shows that they care about their brand and the reputation and image of the people they are designing sites for. The only thing worse than having no website is for a business to have a website that looks outdated. However, by employing the latest in web design trends, you can give your site a vibrant, refreshed look.

Twitter is essentially a place where people can send out bite sized pieces of information that others can digest quickly and disseminate it to their own followers. However, there has always been a problem with Twitter’s engagement metrics and a big part of the reason why that is the case has to do with the fact that quote retweets don’t end up being counted in the same way as regular retweets, something that can make engagement metrics seem slightly lower than they actually are.

Recently Twitter ended up testing an update that would make it so that quote retweets would be included in the retweet count. This was received quite warmly by Twitter users since it meant that their retweet counts would now be more reflective of how much reach their tweet actually ended up having. The way this worked was that if you clicked on the total retweet count you would see how many of those retweets had quotes alongside them, giving some separation between these two admittedly different forms of retweeting.

With all of that having been said, it is important to note that Twitter is testing out a new way to account for quote retweets. This new method will incorporate an entire separate count for quote retweets. Hence, you will now have three engagement metrics to look for on your tweets, namely retweets, likes and quote retweets. This new engagement metric is currently being tested out, but since it is a step up from what was happening before it seems quite likely that most users would want it. Hence, a wider rollout seems like it would most likely end up happening sooner rather than later once all has been said and is now out of the way, and this would change how influencers use this platform as well.

Also read: Twitter Tests Much Needed Feature to DM Requests

Hat Tip: Jane Manchun Wong / Twitter.

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There’s nothing worse than pouring lots of time, effort, and money into a new project just to see it all wasted because tiny but important details were overlooked. For that reason, cybersecurity should be one of the first things on your mind when you’re launching a venture.

We get it, it’s easy to focus on the bigger picture and get wrapped up in the excitement of your new business. But forgetting to prioritize cybersecurity could mean the difference between make and break.

With that in mind, we’ve compiled our top tips for securing your start-up in 2020. Invest in cybersecurity now and rest safe in the knowledge it’s money and effort well spent.

The best news? Our security tips are all wallet-friendly and, in some cases, completely free of charge.

1. Make security part of everyone’s job description

Whether you’re running a team of 20, 200, or your business is a two-person show, make sure that “security” is written into everyone’s job description. Creating a security culture from the earliest days means your startup is better protected as all employees stay mindful of cyber safety and data security matters.

Security culture here means being mindful of standard best practices and implementing them always. Think all those things we know we should do (proper passwords, limited admin access, flagging suspicious emails, etc.) but that often fall by the wayside.

If this isn’t your strength, invest in some training so that you can pass your knowledge to your team. In particular, make sure your team knows about the threats posed by phishing attempts and malware.

Scams such as the “boss email” persist because they are so successful — don’t let your company be the next victim.

2. Get data encryption you can rely on

If you’re routinely sending sensitive emails, messages, or data to the cloud, it’s smart to stop your transmissions being intercepted by any prying eyes. Encrypting your data in transit is as simple as installing a VPN router for your office network.

Virtual Private Networks, provide a critical layer of cybersecurity by protecting every internet-connected device on the network. Therefore, many businesses consider using a VPN on their office routers so that all devices connected to the network can be secured.

3. Keep crucial systems only and get rid of the rest

Whether you operate primarily with cloud systems, local systems, or a combination of both, consider how many systems and services your business is using. It’s all too easy to get caught up in subscriptions and end up with countless third-party integrations.

The problem with this is that the more integrations, the more potential access points, and, conversely, a greater risk of data breaches.

Be discerning about which services you actually need and which are superfluous. As an added bonus, you might trim back on costs when you eliminate unnecessary add-ons.

4. Invest in cloud systems and storage

It might feel counterintuitive, but your company’s critical data, and any data you’re holding on behalf of your clients, might be safer saved to cloud storage than on local storage. Physically protecting your drives is not convenient and it also means the team can’t access information when not in the office.

Choosing a quality cloud storage provider is not only affordable (think around the US$10 mark per month for 1TB of storage) but these providers have digital security that easily rivals that of most companies. Not only that, but the provider is also heavily invested in physical drive security. After all, their whole business is secure storage.

That all said, cloud providers make mistakes too. So choose carefully to avoid becoming the next cybersecurity disaster story.

5. Cut BYOD culture as much as possible

BYOD here stands for Bring Your Own Device and it refers to the practice of employees working from a range of personal devices.

The issue with that is that you have no way of knowing whether BYOD devices are compromised and are allowing malware, viruses, or hackers into your company’s systems.

In an ideal world, you could provide each of your staff members with company devices, but as a new start-up, it’s possible your venture doesn’t have that kind of cash flow yet. Instead, try to limit BYOD culture by asking employees to nominate which of their devices they will work on and then stick to it.

6. Plan for the worst

It’s not pleasant to think about, but it’s smart to plan what you will do in case of a data breach. If you have customer data, you have a responsibility to keep it safe. You also have a responsibility to report any breaches in a timely manner and follow any and all regulations that apply to your company.

Failure to disclose data breaches can result in a fine that exceeds the one for allowing a breach in the first place. So with that in mind, make sure you have a post-breach plan in place that stipulates what you will do.

Planning for the worst-case scenario also prompts you to cover cybersecurity elements you haven’t previously considered and may result in better security all around.

These six cybersecurity steps can go a long way to securing your start-up in 2020 and help your get your new venture up and running in a way that’s safe and secure for you, your staff, and your clients.

Image from unsplash.com

COVID-19 made consumers and tech companies around the world seek for new ways of entertainment and one such feature that has helped people in staying connected together is Twitter’s Watch Party which has experienced an immense collaborative engagement rate in the recent past.

Twitter released the stats about the growth in viewing parties last week - and while some of you might argue that this stands true for the Canadian user habits only, that isn’t entirely true because if you analyze the numbers in-depth you will come to the realization that the data is also indicating towards the global usage trends throughout the pandemic.

Twitter began sharing the insights by telling how the digital device usage has seen a drastic incline this year whether it came to the matter of creating videos, listening to podcasts or even streaming movies.

As opportunities rose with the new engagement trends, the major production houses saw how people are liking the idea of Watch Parties more than ever and then tried to take advantage of it. Some companies who caught the idea first include Netflix that immediately came out with Michael Jordan Documentary 'The Last Dance' and then Disney+ also couldn’t help releasing ‘Hamilton’.

Twitter has always been considered as a home for most of the active live discussions on TV shows mostly because sometimes stars of such programs also participate in the conversations. And as the whole scenario of fans interacting with stars started to happen more often during the lockdown, companies saw it as an opportunity to go for dedicated promotions in order to make announcements or offerings as well.

The company also presented the example of the digital release of ‘Scoob’ as stars and fans interaction on the platform gave a massive boost to the discussion in trends and how the trick eventually helped in the film in reaching out to more people worldwide.

Also read: Twitter is extending its hate control policy towards linked tweets now

The key element of this discussion was always to make the users enjoy something outside Twitter as well once the chat disappears from trends and that is where Watch Parties have won.

If you want to run your own watch party, Twitter offers the following tips on that. However, the engagement factor will always remain to be an important part.

Twitter is working on more interesting trends and that means you can soon expect live-streaming of product launches on a widespread level or industry interviews more often than ever now too.

Physically distant. Socially connected.

Here’s how Twitter watch parties are bringing people together. pic.twitter.com/6kIuCwCixg
— Twitter Marketing (@TwitterMktg) July 29, 2020

Read next: Twitter Might Soon Roll Out a Separate Count for Quote Retweets

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