Google’s latest Chrome update boosts speed on Mac, Android

TB Team
-
0
Google’s latest Chrome update boosts speed on Mac, Android

Google has announced that its Chrome web browser is getting a speed boost in the latest release due to several under-the-hood performance improvements, resulting in a significant new performance milestone across Mac and Android.

“The faster the browser, the more enjoyable your browsing experience will be. With the latest release of Chrome, we went deep under the hood of Chrome’s engine to look for every opportunity to increase the speed and efficiency, from improved caching to better memory management,” Google said in a blog post.

Over the course of three months, a series of tweaks gave Chrome a 10 percent boost on Apple’s Speedometer 2.1 browser benchmark, according to Google.

The changes include everything from improved caching to better memory management.

Moreover, the company said that Chrome on Android has always been optimised for a small footprint, but the Android ecosystem is diverse and contains devices with varying levels of capabilities.

To improve Chrome’s performance on high-end devices, Google is now targeting them with a version of Chrome that uses compiler flags optimized for speed rather than binary size.

For capable devices, these versions of Chrome run the Speedometer 2.1 benchmark 30 percent faster.

WhatsApp’s new security feature to double check if it’s really you

TB Team
-
0
WhatsApp’s new security feature to double check if it’s really you

Meta-owned WhatsApp has announced new security features to the platform, including — Account Protect, Device Verification, and Automatic Security Codes, which the company will be adding in the coming months.

Now, the company will double-check that it’s really you when you switch your WhatsApp account to a new device — using the ‘Account Protect’ feature.

“From now on, we may ask you on your old device to verify that you want to take this step as an extra security check. This feature can help alert you to an unauthorized attempt to move your account to another device,” WhatsApp said in a blog post.

To counter the growing menace of mobile device malware and its implications for personal privacy and security, the company has introduced a new feature called ‘Device Verification’.

This feature will add checks to help authenticate your account — with no action needed from you — and better protect you if your device is compromised, which will let you continue using WhatsApp uninterrupted.

Under ‘Automatic Security Codes’, the company is rolling out a security feature based on a process called “Key Transparency” that allows you to automatically verify that you have a secure connection, meaning you are chatting with the intended recipient.

When you click on the Encryption tab under a contact’s info, you’ll be able to verify right away that your personal conversation is secured.

Twitter introduces 10K character long tweets amid fight with Substack

TB Team
-
0
Twitter introduces 10K character long tweets amid fight with Substack

Before deleting all legacy Blue tick marks on April 20, Twitter on Friday introduced a feature that allows posts with 10,000 characters for paid Blue subscribers.

Twitter now supports tweets up to 10,000 characters in length, “with bold and italic text formatting,” the company informed.

In February, the micro-blogging platform introduced 4,000-character-long tweets for Blue subscribers.

“Sign up for Twitter Blue to access these new features, and apply to enable Subscriptions on your account to earn income directly on Twitter. Tap on ‘Monetization’ in settings,” said the Elon Musk-run company.

Musk on Thursday announced that ‘Subscriptions’ are now enabled on the platform — a way for people’s most engaged followers to help them earn money from Twitter for their contributions on the platform.

“We’re firing up creator subscriptions big time! Works for long-form text, pics or video,” Musk posted.

The decision to introduce 10,000-character-long tweets comes as Twitter is embroiled in a fight with popular subscription newsletter platform Substack.

Substack hit back at Twitter for blocking the ability to like or retweet any posts containing the word ‘Substack’, saying the whole situation is “very frustrating.”

The company CEO Chris Best responded to Musk with a post on Substack Notes, saying Substack links have been obviously severely throttled on Twitter.

The Twitter move has become a huge problem for Substack writers, who use the Musk-run platform to promote their newsletters.

S.Korea top court orders Google to disclose shared personal data

TB Team
-
0
S.Korea top court orders Google to disclose shared personal data

The Supreme Court here ruled on Thursday that Google must disclose the list of personal information it has shared with third parties, including United States intelligence.

In 2014, four South Korean activists filed a lawsuit against the global tech giant and its local affiliate, Google Korea, demanding to know whether their personal information had been shared with a third party.

Under South Korean law, online service providers must respond to a customer’s request to disclose any record of their personal data being shared with a third party, reports Yonhap news agency.

An appeals court had earlier partially sided with the plaintiffs but ruled that Google has the right to reject the demand on issues that can be kept private in accordance with the relevant US laws.

The Supreme Court, however, partially overturned the previous rulings and sent the case back to the Seoul High Court for a retrial.

The highest court said that even if personal information was provided to foreign intelligence agencies for probable cause, the service provider must notify the users of such acts when that cause terminates.

The plaintiff alleged Google passed on the private information of its users, including those that live outside the US, to an American government intelligence program known as PRISM.

PRISM trawls the Internet for email and chat records of anyone who has contacts in the US.

The program made global headlines after former US intelligence contractor Edward Snowden divulged its existence.

Meanwhile, South Korea’s antitrust regulator this week slapped a fine of 42.1 billion won (more than $31.8 million) on Google and its regional arms for unfair business practices aimed at solidifying its dominance in the Korean mobile gaming app market.

Over 150 AI chatbot apps launched in Q1, user spending up 4,000%

TB Team
-
0
Over 150 AI chatbot apps launched in Q1, user spending up 4,000%

After the ChatGPT success, apps with the term ‘AI Chatbot’ or ‘AI Chat’ in either their app name, subtitle, or description on both Google and Apple app stores have increased a whopping 1,480 percent (year-over-year) in the first quarter of this year.

According to analytics firm Apptopia, just this year (through March), 158 such apps have arrived in the app stores.

Downloads of AI chatbot apps increased by 1,506 per cent, and in-app purchase (IAP) revenue surged by 4,184 per cent, year-over-year, in the first quarter.

“The public launch of OpenAI’s ChatGPT product has created a consumer-facing artificial intelligence gold rush, including in the realm of mobile apps,” said Adam Blacker, VP, of Insights at Apptopia.

The top 10 AI chatbot apps were responsible for 52 percent of all AI chatbot app downloads and 72 per cent of their IAP revenue in Q1 2023.

“Like most of these apps, Genie generates revenue by charging users to uncap the app’s usage. Genie is the second most downloaded and second highest revenue-generating AI chatbot app so far in 2023,” Blacker informed.

Most of these apps are made by independent developers and are eventually likely to be surpassed by bigger brands like Microsoft and Google due to their marketing power and brand familiarity.

Microsoft’s search app has already been rebranded as Bing — Your AI copilot.

Since the announcement of its integration with Open AI’s ChatGPT, Bing’s average daily downloads have increased by 1,000 percent, the report mentioned.

Owning Twitter has been quite painful: Musk

TB Team
-
0
Owning Twitter has been quite painful: Musk

Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Wednesday told the BBC that running Twitter has been “quite painful” and a “rollercoaster” for him.

In a Twitter Spaces interview with the BBC, the tech billionaire mentioned that he would sell the company if the right person came along.

When asked whether he had any regrets about buying Twitter, Musk replied that the “pain level has been extremely high, this hasn’t been some kind of party”.

He bought Twitter for $44 billion in October last year.

Moreover, when asked about his tenure thus far during the interview, Musk said: “It’s not been boring. It’s been quite a rollercoaster”.

“It has been really quite a stressful situation over the last several months,” he added but mentioned that he still felt that buying the company was the right thing to do.

He further stated that things are going “reasonably well”, adding that site usage is up and “the site works”.

Because of the workload, “I sometimes sleep in the office,” he admitted, adding that he has a spot on a couch in a library “that nobody goes to”.

In addition, the billionaire addressed his occasionally controversial tweets, saying, “Have I shot myself in the foot with tweets multiple times?” Yes”.

“I believe I should refrain from tweeting after 3 a.m.,” he added.

YouTube begins presales of NFL Sunday Ticket, costs $249 for season

TB Team
-
0
YouTube begins presales of NFL Sunday Ticket, costs $249 for season

Google-owned YouTube has started the presales of the National Football League (NFL) Sunday Ticket.

“Starting today, fans can lock in inaugural pricing for next season’s NFL Sunday Ticket on YouTube TV and YouTube Primetime Channels,” YouTube said in a blog post.

For YouTube TV members with a Base Plan, the NFL Sunday Ticket add-on is available during the presale at $249 for the season, a special launch offer savings of $100 off the retail price of $349 for the season, according to the company.

The company is also offering a bundle option with NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL RedZone for a total of $289 for the season during the presale.

Moreover, for viewers who just want NFL Sunday Ticket without the full YouTube TV offering, the company mentioned that Sunday Ticket is broadly available without a satellite subscription through YouTube Primetime Channels.

“On Primetime Channels, NFL Sunday Ticket is available during the presale at $349 for the season, a special launch offer savings of $100 off the retail price of $449 for the season. And the bundled NFL Sunday Ticket and NFL Redzone option is available during the presale at $389 for the season,” the company said.

NFL Sunday Ticket will be available across web, TV, mobile, and tablet devices that support YouTube and YouTube TV, with no hidden fees or satellite dish needed.

Last year, YouTube inked a $2 billion annual deal with the National Football League to acquire exclusive rights for the Sunday Ticket. The deal will run for seven years, reports CNBC.

Insta introduces new features to its creator marketplace

TB Team
-
0
Insta introduces new features to its creator marketplace

Meta-owned Instagram has announced that it is extending access to elements of the creator marketplace via API (Application Programming Interface), making it easier for brands to discover and continue working with creators on the third-party creator marketing platform they already use.

The company is also expanding creator marketplace access to brand agencies.

“Today, we’re announcing new ways to discover and reach Instagram creators by expanding access to brand agencies and testing integrations with top creator marketing platforms,” Instagram said in a blog post.

Instagram launched its creator marketplace last year as a new destination for brands and creators to connect and form branded content partnerships.

The first API features ‘Prioritised DMs’, which will allow brands to easily reach creators in a priority inbox on the creator marketplace — without ever leaving their preferred creator marketing platform.

The second API features ‘Project Briefs’, which will allow brands to publish structured project briefs to the creator marketplace straight from a third party.

The company is testing these APIs with a small cohort of leading creator marketing partners, including Aspire, Captiv8, and CreatorIQ.

Moreover, Instagram is also testing dedicated access to the creator marketplace for brand agencies to let them manage creator discovery and collaborations on behalf of their brand clients.

The company is testing this access with a small cohort of partners, including Influential, WPromote, Rickhouse Media, Power Digital, Dentsu, OMG, and Brkfst.

With this expansion, brand agencies will be able to find the best talent for their brand clients, track creator conversations with a dedicated folder, and work with creators effectively and see progress.

Musk gives April 20 as fresh deadline to remove all legacy Blue badges

TB Team
-
0
Musk gives April 20 as fresh deadline to remove all legacy Blue badges

Elon Musk on Thursday gave another deadline of April 20 to remove all legacy Blue check marks, after faltering on the first deadline of April 1 due to a lack of the backend technology to achieve this.

According to reports, there were technical challenges to removing so-called blue ticks quickly at scale, and the only way to do it currently was a manual approach.

Musk said in a tweet that the “Final date for removing legacy Blue checks is 4/20”.

Details earlier emerged that the Musk-run company does not have the backend technology to remove around 4.2 lakh legacy accounts with Blue ticks all at once.

“Removal of verification badges is a largely manual process powered by a system prone to breaking, which draws on a large internal database — similar to an Excel spreadsheet — in which verification data is stored, according to the former employees,” according to The Washington Post.

“In the past, there was no way to reliably remove badges at a bulk scale — prompting workers tackling spam, for example, to have to remove check marks one-by-one. It was all held together with duct tape,” it added, quoting a former employee.

Musk had earlier given a deadline of April 1 to remove all legacy accounts with Blue verification. The company has so far only removed the Blue tick for The New York Times.

Twitter launched its verification system in 2009 to protect celebrities from impersonation but now, Musk wants everyone to pay $8 a month for the Blue badge.

The White House and The New York Times refused to pay for verified Blue with subscription service.

LeBron James, the highest-paid NBA player of all time and earning over $40 million per year, also refused to pay Twitter.

Google rolls out app auto-archive tool to free 60% space on Android devices

TB Team
-
0
Google rolls out app auto-archive tool to free 60% space on Android devices

Google has rolled out its much-awaited auto-archive feature on Android devices which will reduce storage taken by apps that are not frequently in use by nearly 60 percent.

The auto-archive tool will help users automatically free up to nearly 60 percent of an app’s storage space, without removing the app presence or users’ data from the device.

This will reduce unnecessary uninstalls and help users successfully install new apps, said Chang Liu and Lidia Gaymond, Product Managers, at Google Play.

Auto-archive allows users to free up space on their devices without the need to completely uninstall an app.

Once the user opts in, infrequently used apps will be partly removed from the device to save space, whilst the app icon and the user’s personal app data will be preserved.

When the user wants to start using the app again, they can simply tap to re-download it and pick up where they left off (as long as the app is still available on Google Play).

“Auto-archive is only available for developers using the App Bundle to publish their apps. If your app supports archiving, users will be less likely to see it surface amongst uninstall suggestions,” said the company.

This is how the new feature works.

The user tries to install a new app when the device is out of storage. A pop-up window appears asking if the user wants to enable auto-archive.

If the user opts in, unused apps on the user’s device will be auto-archived to free up enough space for a new app request.

“Auto-archive is an easy way for users to manage their device storage, and a great way for developers to lower the likelihood of their apps being uninstalled,” Google said.

1...262728...565Page 27 of 565