Social Items



The Facebook-owned messaging platform, WhatsApp has added a group video and voice call capability, with up to four people at a time and support for end-to-end encryption.

While the group video and voice call was announced at Facebook’s F8 developer conference and afterwards pushed out to its iOS beta testers, WhatsApp is now rolling out the feature to all users and should be available with the latest version of the app on iOS and Android.

Albeit, the group video and audio call features were previously spotted in the WhatsApp Android beta version 2.18.189 and v2.18.192 respectively. 



According to WhatsApp, group calls are always end-to-end encrypted, and its designed to work reliably around the world in different network conditions, on the iPhone and Android versions of the app.

In other words, the feature will be able to work even under not-so-good network conditions, and you can video chat with friends or family members from low network areas as long as you can get online.

And just from the one-on-one video call interface, you can find the “add participant” icon on the top right corner once the call gets connected. Simply click on the icon to directly pull users from your contact list which you can then add to the group call.

Finally, WhatsApp Group video/voice call is live on iOS and Android



LinkedIn, the popular business-focused social network has launched a new feature that makes it possible for users to send voice messages to their connections on the platform, with the ability to record and send voice messages of up to one minute.

While voice messaging isn't anything bad, but the application of the system to a business to business environment, and perhaps sending out an unprompted voice message to a connection you barely know is rather too awkward.

The company is positing that the new feature will be a more convenient way to communicate with your connections, as once a conversation has already started, to type out a long message would be easier communicated with the voice.

However, there are chances that the peeps you’re connected with on LinkedIn aren’t your close friends, but business associates whom leaving a voice message may not be the most desirable thing to do, communication wise.

Albeit, LinkedIn does not have the broad appeal that social platforms like Facebook and Twitter commands, but still the network remains hugely popular, especially amongst professionals.

According to LinkedIn, there are over 562 million members currently registered to the platform, of which job recruiters, HR members, and other businesses make up the majority; and it boasts of almost zero privacy issues.

LinkedIn has often been associated with several unsolicited messages (spam) that's mostly ignored or unchecked by the recipient; and coupled with the voice messages could further worsen the already abused messaging system.

But in case you haven't got anything against it, you are free to send a voice message by simply moving your finger away from the microphone icon while holding it down.

Why Voice messaging on LinkedIn won't translate to effective b2b communication



Google has released Go Cloud, an open source project featuring library and tools for development in the Cloud, with the aim of making Go language (Golang) the choice for developers in building portable cloud applications.

Golang will then serve as a staple of cloud application development that can be ported across different clouds, as it offers advantages, such as low latency and built-in concurrency.

As Golang is gaining more grounds, the company is looking to help organizations deploy robust applications in multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud environments with the aid of the language, and to enable these businesses migrate their workloads between cloud providers without significant changes to their codebase.

Go Cloud, will serve as open generic cloud APIs, that will help developers to write simpler and more portable cloud applications. And also sets the foundation for an ecosystem of portable cloud libraries to be built on top of generic APIs.

It will enable organizations to preserve their long-term flexibility for multi-cloud and hybrid-cloud architectures, as applications can be migrated to cloud providers that best meet their needs.

While the common services used by cloud applications form the generic APIs which will work across the cloud providers, Go Cloud also offer blob storage, MySQL database access, runtime configuration, and an HTTP server configured with request logging, tracing, and health checking.

The support for Google Cloud Platform (GCP) and Amazon Web Services (AWS), which are the most-used services across cloud providers makes deploying a Go application to another cloud simple and easy.

Google recommends following the tutorial for those who wish to get started with Go Cloud, and then trying to build an application. For those already using AWS or GCP, they can try migrating parts of theirr existing application to Go Cloud.

And those using a different cloud provider or an on-premise service, can extend Go Cloud to support it by implementing the driver interfaces. Albeit, the project requires contributors to sign the same License Agreement as that of the Go project itself.

Google looks to position Go language (Golang) for cloud application development



While the GDPR opened a new era in data portability, with the fundamental right of the subjects to move their information from platform to platform, now the major technology companies are faced with the task of making it possible and easy to move the data.

The data portability idea gives people greater control over their information, as well as pushes the controller of these information (technology vendors) to develop great products that can hold the users interest as they can decide to pack up and leave at any time.

In view of these challenges, Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter have entered a new initiative dubbed the Data Transfer Project, which is designed as a way to make the moving of data between platforms easier.

The Data Transfer project will allow users on the platforms to “transfer data directly from one service to another, without needing to download and re-upload it, as the case may be currently.

For now, the only system that supports the transfer of photos, mail, contacts, calendars, and tasks, is via the publicly available APIs from Google, Facebook, Microsoft, and Twitter; of which the parties hope the new project will grow into a more flexible alternative to conventional APIs.

Microsoft has called on more technology companies to join the project, stressing that “portability and interoperability are central to cloud innovation and competition” and that it allows people to switch from one product or service they think is better to another as easily as possible.

The parties to the project hope to develop tools that can convert any service's proprietary APIs to and from a small set of standardized data formats that can be used by anyone. And makes it possible to transfer data between any two providers using existing industry-standard infrastructure and authorization mechanisms, such as OAuth.

Thus, the consumers will be able to import their information into any participating service — even cloud-based infrastructure - instead of the consumers’ potentially limited bandwidth and capability to transfer files.

The project is perhaps a starting point in the efforts to improve the ways information are held and served to the customers, and to ensure people can benefit from the innovation and diversity of user choice that can be driven through greater portability.

How Open-source Collaboration holds the key to future data portability



Google at its Cloud Next conference, announced new investigation tool that gives administrators control over issues concerning cyber-security in the organization. The new G Suite tool makes it possible for admins to know any information that has been shared externally by a user which may have led to an attack, and to take action without sifting through security logs through revoking the access to drives.

Also, Google will be adding the ability for organizations to choose whether to store their data locally, or have them distributed around the globe, including United States and UK.

While other new features announced, includes AI tools that handles grammar suggestions in Google Docs, so that the software can automatically detect errors. For instance, when a user should use "an" instead of "a," or suggest a subordinate clause.

It will allow employees to use AI to write messages and replies, with the Smart Reply, the machine learning algorithm that automatically compose messages in Gmail, and Smart Compose, which helps to autofill longer emails that may require more than just a hasty reply.

Google Cloud platform, of which G Suite is a part, also unveiled new artificial intelligence technology called Contact Center AI, which is for call center services, as it is designed to talk to humans over the phone.

The Contact Center AI and the controversial AI tool announced in May by Google, called Duplex share some underlying components, albeit they have distinct technology stacks and aims, as Duplex is designed to book restaurant reservations, hair appointments and the like, as well as check business hours and such, using a rather human-like voice.

Google's target remains to move its "key business" offerings to the Cloud, of which about 4 million paying businesses are already using G Suite. The new feature is now available for G Suite's Early Adopter Program, which program is for users to test new updates.

Google beefs up security in G Suite with new tools and AI capabilities



Mozilla's firm stand against tracking, intrusive ads, and other dark patterns on the web, is coming to light as with its implementation of blockades for the worst content and more clearly communicating the privacy and other protections Firefox offers to its users.

Now, the company has added the option to block video and audio from playing automatically when once visits a website with such media contents, which feature is long over due, haven already debuted on Chrome browser and Safari.

The feature is perhaps meant to protect users who are often faced with crafty websites with dubious codes. While the users have now been provided an option to block autoplay for all websites, if they don't wish to update their preference on a site-by-site basis.

Albeit, the feature will be fully arriving in the main version of the browser coming in October.

The update will also include ad filter which would help flag certain categories of ads, just as Google Chrome target ads determined as obnoxious by the Coalition for Better Ads (CBA), and then expunge only those advertisements.

When the feature arrives, Firefox will require users by default to choose whether to allow a website to autoplay video/audio with sound on installation.

But, you can give the new feature a spin, by downloading the Firefox Nightly, which is the latest test version of Mozilla's browser, with the option to block autoplaying of videos in Firefox.

Firefox browser gets Autoplay blocking option for video and audio



Oracle is wooing developers to GraalVM virtual machine as a more capable engine compared to Nashorn, the erstwhile JavaScript engine for Java Virtual Machine which made debut in 2014 with Java Development Kit (JDK) 8. While GraalVM supports JavaScript on the JVM, it is independent of Java itself, and can be embedded as part of platforms such as OpenJDK or Node.js, as well as within a database.

GraalVM offer multiple advantages over Nashorn, including having more complete implementation of JavaScript standards, supporting the ECMAScript 2016 and ECMAScript 2017 editions, plus the current ECMAScript for 2018.

It also affords the capability to execute additional languages like Python, R, and Ruby, with support for Node.js server-side JavaScript platform, which is compatible with virtually all Node.js modules.

And the support for several languages, is via an API in GraalVM which provides interoperability with the supported languages, with values able to be passed from one language to another without the need for copying or marshalling.

GraalVM performs relatively better than existing JVM-based engines and coupled with the ability to use the compiler’s advanced optimizations.

Oracle Labs has laid out a migration path for developers from Nashorn to GraalVM, by adding a compatibility flag (—nashorn-compat) that removes the need for rewrites to migrate a Nashorn application to GraalVM.

Albeit, the removal of support for Nashorn may cause some applications to no longer run because of an expectation of JavaScript’s presence; as such Oracle plans to still support Nashorn for a few more years to provide time for successful migration.

For developers who wish to give it a spin, GraalVM can be downloaded from the free GitHub Community Edition or from the Oracle Technology Network for the paid Enterprise Edition.

Oracle pitches GraalVM virtual machine as a more capable engine



Google definitely has taken machine learning to greater heights, from the bizarre to the most unimaginable, even recently had went as far as pitching the machines against human at the board game, Go.

Now, the company has launched a new AI Experiment dubbed Move Mirror, that explore pictures in a fun way by matching peoples images as they move around. While the AI will match real-time movements to hundreds of images of people with similar poses around the world.

The experiment is meant to relay computer vision techniques like pose estimation to anyone with a computer and a webcam, as Google wants to make machine learning more accessible to coders by bringing pose estimation into the web agent, in a bid to inspire developers to experiment with the technology.



Move Mirror utilizes an open-souce "pose estimation model" called PoseNet, which can detect human figures in images and videos by identifying where key body joints are placed, and with the help of TensorFlow.js, the in-browser machine learning framework library.

It takes the input from your camera feed and maps it to a database of more than 80,000 images to find the best match.

Google, however maintains that images are not sent to its servers, as all the image recognition happens locally, in the browser. And the AI technology doesn't recognize who is in the image as there are "no personal identifiable information associated to pose estimation" at the least.

If you wish to try it out, you can visit: g.co/movemirror, and all that's required is a webcam, to take and upload your picture.

Google's "Move Mirror" AI Experiment match up images in same pose



4G wireless cell phone signal booster is particularly handy in improving the signal of cell phone inside the home, because of possible signal-blocking within the home, especially in location that are noted for poor reception.

While Poor cell phone signal can be as a result of two main contributing factors: 1. The distance from the closest cell tower and 2. An obstruction from objects may cause interference.

As a result, most cellular carriers have often offered cheap mobile booster to customers that can be plugged in at home to improve the cellular signal, which device can repeat and boost a cellular signal that’s already available in the house.

Now, let’s dissect the major causes of signal blocking to have a clear view of possible solutions to solve the resultant bad reception.

The distance from the closest Cell Tower

Most cellular carriers provide coverage through a network of strategically placed towers, which installations are meant to cover specific locations, and whenever customers are within the network, their device will automatically connect with the closest tower.

And more often than not, these customers can get past the edge of the carrier's coverage area, as they move, hopping to the next closest tower may not be feasible, and as a result their mobile device will experience poorer signal which will get worse the further it is from the nearest tower.

They will eventually get to a point where their mobile device will be too far from the tower to maintain a connection, and that’s the point where they’d enter emergency only calls.

Obstruction from objects causing the Interference

Aside the distance from towers, natural elements, like mountains and trees, or even unnatural factors like skyscrapers can cause major signal issues.

Albeit, neither of the factors can cause actual poor reception, but the combination of the two or more of these factors can be pretty fatal to signal quality, and certainly bring some problems.

How a cell phone signal booster is ideal for both of these factors

The Cell phone booster works by transferring signal from a location that currently has good signal to where signal is relatively poor. It is achieved by the mounting of an outside antenna in good signal location, typically on the rooftops, from where the signal is then passed to the other location.

However, selecting the correct cell phone signal booster for your location can be tricky, you’ll need to know exactly these facts: The carriers you need to support, what’s the existing outside signal strength of the carrier, and the actual area that needs to be covered with boosted signal.

Finally, you’ll have to determine the type of signal booster you need by factoring the combination of outside signal strength, the size of the area to be covered and the strength of an amplifier that will be required.

Above all, your understanding of the basics on cell phone signal booster - how it works and what you need to know about purchasing one - is a huge first step in determining the right system after all.

How 4G Wireless Cell Phone Signal Booster can solve bad reception problem



Facebook has launched a new feature for Messenger that makes it possible for users to fetch their contacts from Instagram, albeit they'd need to first connect the two accounts. While the feature can be found in the “People” tab, with the existing option to sync your phone’s contacts with Messenger.

Going forward, when a user connects Instagram account to Messenger, it will also pull contacts from the Instagram account automatically and the Instagram username will become visible to contacts on Messenger as well.

Facebook will be expanding the users social graph, and possibly be able to enhance their experience on the platform as it closes the gap between friends and family, and those other contacts from Instagram.

The company also implemented an option to launch Facebook right within the Instagram app, which is perhaps the first time Facebook has added integration between its apps.

Instagram’s own new Messaging service has become quite popular among its users, and the new possibility couldn't have come at a better time, even as the company had launched a feature that give businesses access to conversations from across its platforms, including Instagram, Facebook and Messenger.

Facebook is looking to capitalize on the huge popularity of the messaging platform, to grow its Messenger app, and perhaps monetize it from the growing userbase.

Facebook Messenger can now fetch contacts from Instagram accounts



Cloud Launcher is a ready-to-go development stacks, solutions, and services, which also serves as marketplace for cloud-based application from third-party vendors for deployment on Google’s Cloud services.

While Cloud Launcher included commercial applications of which Google handles the billing, and combined with users' regular GCP bills, the company has resorted to re-branding the service as the GCP Marketplace to better define its true purpose.

Google has added the open source container-based applications to the service that can easily be deployed to its Kubernetes Engine or other Kubernetes services.

The technical agility will be driving huge interest in public cloud from developers and businesses of all sizes, as the marketplace had previously only featured traditional virtual machines, but now, is getting container support.

As the support for Kubernetes Engine definitely removes the hassle of managing different containers, even with the deployment to Kubernetes cluster often a manual process, Google is promising a click to deployment of an application from the marketplace to its Kubernetes engine or any other Kubernetes service.

Google is currently offering solutions from developer tools like GitLab, graph database Neo4j, the Kasten data management service, as well as open source projects like WordPress, Spark, Elasticsearch, Nginx and Cassandra in the marketplace.

Google rebrands Cloud Launcher, GCP Marketplace with Kubernetes support



As every Apple fanboy is aware, there's a great wall separating those products from the rest of the pack - which is great for security reasons - but a real headache when syncing data between Mac and Android as there are no built-in solutions that can connect and transfer data between these devices.

SyncMate by Eltima Software is a nifty tool that tends to fill this gap and give you full access to data synchronization between Mac, iOS and Android, irrespective of phone model, as long as it runs Android 4.x up.



While most Mac users hate to depend on iTunes to sync their iPhone/iPod contents, as the huddle of syncing data between those device with Mac is really annoying, SyncMate comes to the rescue and there's no need to purchase several sync solutions in order to sync your Mac with each device - just download SyncMate and all supported devices will be synced within the one application.

How easy is Syncing data with SyncMate?

SyncMate offers a simple drag & drop, one-stop solution to synchronizing data on multiple devices, including iOS and Android with Mac, or even other Mac computers, and virtually mounted cloud storage services like Dropbox, Google Drive, etc., MTP devices and much more.



SyncMate can serve as an Android file transfer alternative for Mac, with Android devices mounted as Mac disks that facilitate browsing its contents as if it were any local disk. The UI is pretty intuitive and quite capable of syncing SMS messages, calendars, reminders, contacts, bookmarks from Safari, iTunes, & iPhoto.

Features available on SyncMate free edition

  • Support for multiple devices
  • Contact & Calendar Sync
  • Background Sync
  • Activity Log


Additional functionality is that it brings the ability to delete all contacts, calendar events, to-do’s that is on an iOS device or another Mac computer. Either via Bluetooth, Wi-Fi or USB, you can read, create, send, or delete Android messages via Mac.

SyncMate can get more done with the Expert edition (a premium version of SyncMate) which costs only $39.95 on the Mac app store. The premium version offers additional features like: ability to mount device as a disk and backup data & much more.

But best of all, SyncMate is an easy-to-use software for all user groups, including Amateurs as it offers a hassle-free, quick solution to syncing data across multiple devices with Mac computers.

SyncMate Review: Sync Data between multiple devices (Including iOS and Android) and Mac



Microsoft has released Skype 8.0 for desktop, with the renown video-and-voice messaging platform bringing some new features, like free HD video and group calls for up to 24 people. While the new Skype also include new message reactions; with @mentions for individual notifications in a group chat, chat media gallery and photo/video file sharing capabilities.

Asides the new Skype features, Microsoft announced the shutting down of support for the "classic" version (also known as Skype version 7.0) on Sept. 1, as it recommends that users should upgrade to the latest version of Skype for desktop.

The company promises to continue to roll out improvements over the summer, which will include Skype version 8.0 for iPad, with encrypted audio calls and text messages and call recording, among other features.

According to Microsoft, the underlying performance improvements and usability enhancements in the new version is designed to keep users connected to the people who matter most to them. As Skype version 8.0 is built based on feedback from its community — and adding exciting new features while ensuring it’s simple to use with the same familiar interface of Skype version 7.0.

The latest version of Skype can also be upgraded from the app, simply select Help from the top toolbar and then select Check for Updates or visit Download Skype.

If you need more information on which devices and operating systems Skype currently supports, you can check the support website here. Microsoft also requests your feedback which can be given through the “Send Feedback” option within the Skype app — just go to Settings and select Help & Feedback to send a message.

Skype for desktop update brings support for free HD video and group calls



While there are several download managers that can handle the task of downloading and sometimes uploading stand-alone files from the Internet, getting a nifty software with unique system of sorting and keeping the downloaded content doesn't come easy.

Folx 5 Downloader for Mac is a free download manager for Mac OS X featuring a true Mac-style interface, with convenient flexible settings for easy downloads managing, offering a unique system of sorting and keeping the downloaded contents.



Folx 5 UI deviated from the rather out-of-place brazenly flaunting background that followed after Apple’s obsession with skeuomorphism styled theme, bringing a completely redesigned, Retina-friendly, compelling UI for Mac.

What's under the hood of Folx 5?

Asides the aesthetics, Folx 5 offers a full-fledged torrent client with support for magnet links, with more straightforward settings that allow you to assign downloads with one or more tags, making it easier to find the item in the list by clicking on the entries.



For beginners, Folx's plugin that “catch” downloads from the major browsers like Safari, Chrome, Firefox, or Opera browsers, allow the application to take over your downloading routine. It also splits transfers across two threads to make files download faster; while the plugin works more reliably and if the download is interrupted, the software will automatically resume from the left off point.

Apart from ability to download files from torrent trackers, Folx allows you to download using magnet links as well, which means you do not have to save a separate file before starting the actual download, which is convenient, as it conceals the fact that you are using P2P technology.

Do you want to go Pro?

Albeit the free version is fully capable of the most basic downloading tasks, it is highly recommended to upgrade to Folx 5 Pro to experience some more awesomeness. The pro version brings additional feature like spliting downloads across up to 10 threads, with an on-the-fly granular control over the transfer speed for each task by simply clicking on the gauge icon.



The upgrade also elevates Folx into a YouTube downloader, which includes a handy audio-only option for music freaks. And the Pro upgrade is not only able to download torrents, but also search for torrents.

Additionally, it offers a password manager (though the free version allow you to save data for two websites only, with the Pro version there’s no limit), which is handy if you frequently download from websites that require authentication, Folx makes the process automatic; but you can opt to manually add host, username, and password credentials.

Our Verdict!

Folx download manager is a super solid software product out of the box! And If you're among the crowd involved in the good side of torrenting, Folx 5 Pro is highly recommended as it will not only make your experience easier, but safer too!

Folx 5 Downloader for Mac: Manage downloading tasks like a Pro!



Cloud computing is the norm nowadays, and storing files in the cloud can be a smart move, as It means your files are available anywhere and from any device. AnyTrans for Cloud by iMobie provides you a secure and smart cloud manager to easily and efficiently manage all your cloud accounts in one safe place and 100% FREE.

AnyTrans for Cloud currently support Dropbox, Google Drive, iCloud Drive, OneDrive, Box, and pCloud, with the promise of adding more cloud providers soon. It affords you the access to manage multiple clouds, as well as multiple accounts on the same service, right from one place.



And you don’t have to download and install numerous apps, and no need to sign in and out from different accounts, as it handles all your cloud content with just a single login.



AnyTrans is also available across all platforms and devices to fulfill your different demands in different cases, from desktop, to smartphone (both Android and iOS), or tablet, and whether you are at home, in office, or on the go, you are conveniently covered by the service.

Unique features of AnyTrans for Cloud

  • File Syncing: AnyTrans is capable of syncing your files automatically to any target cloud service. And it allows you to store your photos, videos and other large files in perfect sync between two cloud storage services, with a custom time scheduling.

    This nifty feature lets you keep your ongoing projects perfectly synchronized between your primary cloud storage and your backup cloud service, for instance. And it affords you a cloud-to-cloud transfers that can be initiated without the need for a constant Internet connection because AnyTrans engine in the cloud communicate to servers automatically.

    It offers 3 customized cloud-to-cloud sync channels: Online, Offline and Premium, while the Premium channel is faster than the Offline and Online channels when transferring files from one cloud drive to another. And you can set schedules to automatically transfer or sync photos, videos, files, folders, etc, from one cloud service to another, at the time of your choosing with the premium service.


  • Secure, Simple and Flexible Way to Share Files: AnyTrans takes several big steps forward to give you more power in cloud file sharing. You not only have 100% freedom to share any file or folder you want in a way much easier, and more flexibility; but most importantly, it is absolutely secure.

    It adopts Google’s Two-Factor Authentication systems, as well as SSL-256 encryption technologies to ensure robust security for all your uploaded files. Additionally, you can access AnyTrans from Windows PC or Mac, or even through a web browser from any computer, smartphone or tablet.


Conclusion

The ability to migrate files between cloud services without bandwidth limitations is perhaps the best part of the AnyTrans for Cloud offerings. As neither Apple’s Files app or any other major cloud solution supports this capability, and it’s especially handy if you’re on a metered Internet connection.

AnyTrans for Cloud: Transfer, Manage and Share Files across multi-clouds in one place



GPS tracking is simply the technique of monitoring the location or positioning of various objects by fitting it with a GPS tracking software. While GPS is the acronym for Global Positioning System using the GNSS, Global Navigation Satellite System network to track or monitor the different devices.

The GNSS network involves the use of a number of satellites that transmit signals to the various devices and provide information about their location or the direction one is headed. Some of the objects that can be monitored using this type of technology include vehicles, people, animals and other equipment. It works well in, and some of them have features that can tell the speed at which someone is going.

GPS tracking can be of great importance in fleet management or monitoring delivery trucks. You can check out https://www.eyerideonline.com/ for the best GPS tracking device to fit in your vehicle to monitor its location in real-time from anywhere in the world. Perhaps, you can also track wild animals or the aquatic lives using this device too. Different wildlife parks use it when they want to keep track of the movements of the specific animals within the park.

The GPS tracking system can also be fixed on smartphone. All you need is to download the GPS tracking app on your phone and monitor the object you wish. You will find these apps as a free download or trial option. Some of the things you can track using your mobile device include your friends or partner's location.

Below are ways you can track different devices with GPS technology on your Android device

GPS tracking in Android devices can be used to track someone's location. Here, you are required to know someone's current location with their area positioning or using their previous positioning. You can also track your children's location to confirm their safety or use GPS device to keep track of your workers in the field, all with the help of your smartphone without the need for extra devices.

One error you can encounter, however is the possibility of an inaccurate location information. As such a user's position can also affect the search results. Albeit, you can track someone without asking for their permission, as tracking a phone remotely is also much more possible.

Simply install a tracking app on the phone of your target. You will get a portal where you can view the information you need about your target. Make sure you have a stable internet connection for smooth tracking.

How to Track a Lost Android Phone

You can also easily track your lost phone, as almost all Android devices do have an inbuilt feature known as the Android device manager which will ping the location of your mobile device to Google servers.

Google can detect the location of your device, all that's required is to have a Google account to use this feature. You can also use the different device tracking applications if you are not comfortable with the Android device manager.

The various GPS tracking applications are usually branded as anti-theft security apps. But having a dedicated GPS device is much better because of its extended battery life, good signal quality and reduced risks and cost.

Using GPS Tracking Applications on Mobile device



Microsoft's launch of the free version of its collaboration application, Teams coupled with the key feature of unlimited chat messages, is perhaps a take-on on Slack, as the company also looks to hook up small businesses.

While Slack free version limits users to 10,000 chat messages; Teams on the other hand offers unlimited messages, albeit the key selling point remains the number of users allowed, which is up to 300, and will suffice for most small businesses.

The company, however maintains that you don't have to be an Office 365 subscriber to experience the power of the Teams, even though some key features are for the paid version of the software, which is bundled into Office 365.

Microsoft has also made its Whiteboard app, which offers related features with OneNote, such as the ability to create machine-generated flowcharts and charts from inked shapes available for Windows 10.

It's all part of its strategy to hook smaller businesses on the service, as it aims to establish Teams as a repository for documentations that any team needs to work on the platform. The addition of about 140 business apps within Teams, and the available 2GB/user file limit means ample storage for each user.

Teams pro version offers up to a terabyte of storage, and comes as part of Office 365, with video chats replacing the standalone Skype for Business application, which can be stored in the cloud, and provides automatic captioning.

Microsoft will be adding support for facial recognition, and to allow viewers a public preview of live events, and video broadcasts which can also be transcribed, archived, and timecoded, this summer.

Microsoft looks to entice SMBs with the launch of Teams free version



Google has implemented a new technology in its browser, Chrome to help keep users information secure from maliciously crafted websites, with the compartmentalization technology on Chrome dividing the multiple computing processes.

Chrome 67 brings the security feature called Site Isolation, which has been optionally available as an experimental enterprise policy since Chrome 63, and now making it practically enabled by default for all desktop Chrome users.

The security feature is meant to tackle speculative execution side-channel attacks like Spectre, which is a newly discovered security risk for web browsers, as a website could use such attacks to steal data or login information from users that are using the browser.

The attacks known as Spectre and Meltdown use the speculative execution features of most CPUs to access parts of memory that should be off-limits to a piece of code, and then use timing attacks to discover the values stored in that memory, thus allowing untrustworthy code to read any memory in its process's address space.



And since browsers run potentially malicious JavaScript code from multiple websites, often in the same process, these particular risks are the main concern of the web browser.

Chrome's Site Isolation affects the core part of the browser called the renderer, which turns website programming code into actual pixels, and its able to split the renderers into separate computing processes to wall off the data.

It comes as a large change to Chrome's architecture, so that the browser can better rely on the operating system to prevent attacks between processes, and subsequently, between sites.

The Site Isolation security feature is currently available by default on Chrome 67 for Windows, Mac, Linux, and Chrome OS.

How Google intends to keep users Data Secure from Spectre and Meltdown



YouTube is launching a new copyright matching tool that will automatically scan every uploaded video to make sure it’s not a re-upload of an existing or “very similar” video that’s already on the platform.

While the act of re-uploading copyright videos on the platform has been the favorite of spam channel owners who try to discredit the hard work of others, and to profit from the rather popular creators work.

The new tool, which is dubbed “copyright match,” would only cover full videos, and may not apply to clips, and will initially roll out to all creators with more than 100,000 subscribers starting next week, before the eventual availability to all users in the coming months.

YouTube will also offer options when the tool finds a match, as the creator can choose either to do nothing and perhaps care less about a mediocre copycat video, or get in touch with the impostor and reach an agreement over what follows or lastly, ask YouTube to delete the offending video.

Albeit, the company had implemented a system for copyright owners called Content ID to easily identify and manage their content on YouTube. Through which the videos uploaded to the platform are scanned against a database of files that have been submitted by content owners.

But the new tool, copyright match goes even further, utilizing technology underneath the system, to automatically sort out offending video uploads, which the company expressly said the tool is built to fish out unauthorized video re-uploads. More so, Content ID is only meant for the copyright owners of music videos, trailers and recordings of music performances.

The copyright owners also get to decide what happens when content in a video on YouTube matches a work they own, and the copycat video will get a Content ID claim.

YouTube tightens the leash on Re-uploading of Copyright videos



The USB Restricted Mode, a security enhancement purported to be coming with iOS 12, that blocks the loophole that law enforcement agencies have leveraged to crack into locked iPhone, by limiting the number of access via the USB port, has arrived with iOS 11.4.1 which started rolling out to users on Monday.

Apple confirmed the inclusion of the much talked-about security enhancement, USB Restricted Mode, in the newest stable version of the software iOS 11.4.1 which also comes with a number of bug fixes.

The new feature is aimed to thwart governments and bad actors from breaking into locked iPhone, albeit Apple maintains that it isn't looking to lock out the cops, as it limits access to data from the USB tool.

While the FBI had relied on solutions from GrayShift and Cellebrite, particularly GrayShift’s GrayKey, which is capable of unlocking even newer iPhone models, through the use of the USB port to access the iPhone in order to crack its password.

Apple is introducing the new security feature to prevent the use of such devices like the infamous GrayKey to unlock the iPhone.

The USB Restricted Mode tackles the brute force hacking method that's used by law enforcement agencies to decode a user’s password with repeated passcode entries. Apple had previously implemented the disabling of the Lightning port after one week, in iOS 11.4 so this has been cut off dramatically.

Additionally, the new software fixes an issue that prevented some users from viewing the last known location of their AirPods in Find My iPhone and also improves reliability of syncing mail, contacts, and notes with Exchange accounts.

Apple's iOS 11.4.1 brings the USB Restricted Mode enhancement



While Google Pay users could pay or request money from a friend through Google Pay Send, the feature was only available on the Web; but now, Google is rolling out support for peer-to-peer payment on the Google Pay app.

The company had recently-branded its payment services under one umbrella, Google Pay, and most of the different features are gradually been bundled into the payment tool, with several updates announced earlier in the year.

The extension of support for peer-to-peer payment on mobile app, makes it more easier for friends to split bills and especially handy as the smartphone is always in the pocket — while on the go, you can tap on the purchase and then request to split payment between up to five friends.

Google Pay's Passes Tab feature, however is restricted to Android, but Google promises eventual support on all platforms, with the aim to make it easier for users to manage all their payment information across the different platforms.

Also, the ability to save mobile tickets and boarding passes is coming to the mobile app, which feature is equally available in the new Passes tab, including support for loyalty cards and gift cards. Additionally, Ticketmaster and Southwest will be supported, with support for Eventbrite, Singapore Airlines and Vueling still in the works.

Google is working on extending support for more ticketing partners, and to expand the Google Pay app support to more countries.

Google Pay support for peer-to-peer payment comes to the mobile App



YouTube, the Google-owned streaming service is committing $25 million to fight fake news on its platform, which funding is part of the $300 million News Initiative launched by Google in March.

The company plans to enlist the help of some of the platform's most popular creators to educate users about fake news, which is especially targeted at youngsters, with Ingrid Nilsen and Mark Watson working with MediaWise to educate the teenagers about digital media literacy.

Beginning from Monday, YouTube videos will include text from outside sources for select streams to educate users and make it easier for them to reach own conclusions on the matter, which sources include: Wikipedia and Encyclopaedia Britannica.



It will also show previews and links to news articles and their sources in its search results, along with a reminder on facts and details in developing stories.

YouTube will facilitate easy news for people with "Top News" and "Breaking News" features that will highlight new videos from established media organizations. While the feature is already live in 17 countries including: UK, US, France, Nigeria and Italy, with promise of expanding the reach to more countries soon.

This is perhaps coming to address the recent backlash on YouTube for inappropriate videos as well as fake news on its site, which led to the deletion of about 150,000 videos that attracted sexually inappropriate comments targeted at teenagers.

YouTube renews commitment to curb the spread of Fake News on the platform



Microsoft's newest operating system (OS), Windows 10 has crossed 40% milestone, according to California-based analytics company Net Applications, which represents an estimated 606 million personal computers worldwide.

The new OS added up a point in June, resulting 35.7% of the user share of all personal computers and 40.4% of all PCs running Windows last month, which calculation is done using Microsoft's oft-cited number of 1.5 billion Windows PCs.

Albeit, the company had earlier claimed that about 700 million devices are already running Windows 10 in May, which claim is based on its count of PCs, phones, Xbox consoles, HoloLens as well as Windows Mixed Reality headsets.

While it posted an impressive gain for Windows 10 in June, which is perhaps the largest since January, but the 2009-released software dropped half a tenth of a percentage point last month, ending with user share of 41.7% of all PCs and 47.3% of those running Windows.

The crossover point for Windows 10, that is the point where the new OS will run a larger percentage of all Windows PCs than the older edition was predicted to be November. And the lines between Windows 10 and Windows 7 signal for January 2019, which translates to 12 months since Windows 7's retirement.

It will place Windows 10 at 47.7% of all Windows PCs, while Windows 7 will power just about 43.7% and given the fact that it took 159 days to push Windows 10 from 600 million to 700 million, or 44 fewer days than it took Windows 10 to go from 500 million to 600 million.

The company's push for Windows 10 dominance stems from the fact that Windows 7 is no longer efficient enough for its long-term business strategy which emphasizes subscriptions to monetize products and services. And unlike its forerunners (including Windows 7), Windows 10 was designed for frequent updating, a key part of the appeal for software-as-a-service model.

Microsoft, however has been cautious about a possible large-scale attacks against Windows 7 if it halts security updates for it altogether, and for all those who spent a huge chunk of money for extensions.

Microsoft records a milestone as Windows 10 crosses the 40% mark



The microblogging platform, Twitter has intensified its battle against fake and suspicious accounts with more than a million daily removal in recent months, which is the biggest move to curb the spread of disinformation.

Twitter was under pressure from the US lawmakers to fight the suspected spread of misinformation by Russian meddlers in the past elections, which is attributed to the infiltration of fake accounts, now it has sharply escalated its battle against fake and suspicious accounts on the platform.

The Washington Post on Friday reported that more than 70 million Twitter accounts were suspended in May and June, and that the company has continued to crack down on such accounts at the same rate into July.

While the removal of such massive number of accounts could potentially lead to a drop in the number of monthly active users on the platform, which Twitter had already acknowledged in its Q1 shareholder letter of a decline in its user base.

The company's decision to forcefully eject suspicious accounts followed the earlier implementation of new detection tools, including “Operation Megaphone” which involved the discreet buying off of fake accounts and seeking to detect the connected parties to it.

It uses virtual megaphones like fake accounts and automation that abusers of the platform use to suppress their voices, which operation is also known as white-hat technique, and serves as part of a broader plan to get the company to treat disinformation campaigns by governments differently to how it tackles more traditional problems such as spam.

The company, however maintains that there’s still a lot of work to be done to uproot spams and malicious automation which are disrupting everyone’s experience on the platform.

Twitter intensifying fight against Fake and Suspicious accounts on the platform



The Chinese multinational e-commerce, retail, Internet and AI technology conglomerate, Alibaba Group has unveiled an artificial intelligence-powered copywriting tool, dubbed AI Copywriter, which uses deep learning technologies to dissect millions of top-quality existing samples to generate copy for products.

While the tool is especially targeted at digital marketers, who provides consumer-to-consumer, business-to-consumer and business-to-business marketing services via the Web, as it allow the advertisers to insert a link to any product page, and click the “Produce Smart Copy” button to see multiple copy ideas.

The AI Copywriter passed the Turing test, which tests a machine's ability to exhibit intelligent behavior equivalent to, or indistinguishable from, that of a human and is capable of producing 20,000 lines of copy in a second, according to the company.



The tool can adjust the length and tone of its copy, based on professionals taste, such as fashion chain Esprit and Texas-born clothing brand Dickies, who can dictate whether they want the tone to be promotional, fun, poetic or heartwarming.

The AI Copywriter produces result based on the application of deep learning models, trained with large volumes of quality content created by humans. While human creativity is the cornerstone for the machine, it isn’t meant to replace the creativity of people.

It is currently used by merchants and marketers on Alibaba-owned sites such as Taobao, Tmall, Mei.com (a fashion flash sale website) and 1688.com (Alibaba’s Chinese-language wholesale buying site), averaging nearly a million times daily usage.

And it has significantly changed the way copywriters work, albeit they still need to choose the best out of many machine-generated options, largely improving efficiency.

It is perhaps the latest in a suite of technologies Alibaba's marketing arm, Alimama has developed to assist small to mid-sized businesses on the company's e-commerce platforms, which includes a “smart banner designer” released in April that can resize and reformat promotional banners with the slide of a mouse.

Digital marketing to get more exciting and easy with Alibaba's AI Copywriter



Google Cloud Platform for the first time is bringing managed network attached storage (NAS) service capabilities to its offerings, which cloud storage portfolio includes Persistent Disk, a network-attached block storage service and a distributed system for object storage.

While Cloud Filestore is to serve the need for file workloads, and is targeted at organizations with rich unstructured content and low latency and input/output operations per second (IOPS) applications, such as content management systems (CMSes), web hosting and virtual workstations.

It affords organizations an alternative to using on-premises machines and on-premises files for service rendering, such as media companies with lots of distributed workloads; the most common been render farms, who require big compute job to either render the animation or render the special effects on a movie.

And managed Network File System (NFS) offering like Cloud Filestore, provides a number of VMs working on the data to do the required updates.

Google has also launched Transfer Appliance to make it easier for companies to move data into its cloud storage, with the rackable storage server designed to move large amounts of data out of enterprise data centers to Google Cloud.

Cloud Filestore will enter beta this month, with the Premium tier available at $0.30 per GB per month, while the Standard tier is $0.20 per GB per month. The Cloud Filestore Premium will offer up to 700 MB/s throughput and 30,000 IOPS, regardless of instance capacity.

Cloud Filestore target Organizations with Rich Unstructured Data and low latency Applications



Earlier in the week, a report credited to The Wall Street Journal attributed a security gafe in Gmail whereby third-party app developers could scan hundreds of millions of emails of users who sign up for their email-based services.

According to the report, developers behind third-party app that work with Google's Gmail services for things like helping you find a good shopping deal or manage travel are able to read private emails and also have their employees read them too.

Google, however clarified their stance in a post on Tuesday, while acknowledging that they make it possible for applications from other developers to integrate with Gmail - like email clients, trip planners and customer relationship management (CRM) systems, so that users would have options around how they access and use their email.

But that they continuously vet developers and their apps before they open them for general access, and do give both enterprise admins and individual consumers transparency and control over how their data is accessed.

The company maintains that non-Google apps ecosystem avail users more choices and help them get the most out of their email experience.

And before a published, non-Google app can access users messages, it must go through a multi-step review process that includes automated and manual review of the developer, assessment of the app’s privacy policy and homepage to ensure it is a legitimate app, and in-app testing to ensure the app works as it says it does.

Google will also show a permissions screen that clearly shows the types of data that the app can access and how it can use that data to the concerned user.

G Suite admins can control the scope of data members of an organization are able to grant non-Google apps access to by whitelisting connected OAuth apps, which ensures that G Suite users can give access only to non-Google OAuth apps that have been vetted and are trusted by their organization.

The company assures users that no one at Google reads their Gmail, except in very specific cases where you ask them to and give consent, or where we need to for security purposes, such as investigating a bug or abuse.

If you're concerned about your messages privacy, you should visit the Security Checkup to review what permissions you have granted to non-Google apps, and revoke those that you find rather untrustworthy.

Google clears the air about the Gmail messages privacy controversy



Elmedia Player for Mac is a multimedia player designed for Mac OS X from the ground up, with the peculiarity of web browser integration, so that you will not need to open any video in Safari just to view them on the browser.

The multi-functional media player is perhaps the best media player for Mac with support for HD video playback and feature an Open URL option that allow you to watch online videos from the app window, while it can play virtually all media files available on Mac, including a wide range of the common and the not so common audio & video formats, like FLV, SWF, WMV, AVI, MOV, MP4, MP3, DAT, FLAC, M4V, MPG, MKV and more.

You can also choose to listen to audio music thanks to the support of several audio formats (AAC, MP3, etc.) and as well as videos, as both of these can be stored on your Mac and you can create and manage playlists easily within the iTunes style look and feel interface.

The integrated web browser in Elmedia Player for Mac works as if you were using Safari browser, so you can enter video portals and watch videos with the program's own player and it is compatible with YouTube, Vimeo and Dailymotion.



Other Unique Features of Elmedia Player Free for Mac

For video playback Elmedia Player for Mac offers the capability of playing video in full screen, as well as small screen or even disable the screen saver while you're watching a movie to avoid interruptiont and still not miss anything. You can equally adjust its reproduction so that you can isolate it, for instance if you want to mark specific parts of a video, you can select only that part in a loop and it offers the possibility to float on top of other apps.



Elmedia Player has an interesting tool that provides the utility of customizing subtitles as you may wish, and you can change the size, color and other things about the subtitles. Even you can adapt them to the image so that they show according to your taste or download them altogether.

It can also help you correct the delay that sometimes occurs between the sound a video emits and what you see. Elmedia player is capable of increasing the audio delay so that you can see and hear everything at the same time, and vice versa.

There's the possibility to load external soundtracks: all with video name, same name as video or all in directory, with vast playlists options: including to create, manage, search through, and edit. Also you can create and manage bookmarks that allow you to mark the favorite parts of a video or audio.

Conclusion

Elmedia Player offers a simple and easy to use UI that will allow you to play videos in the same place, with the in-built web browser, and full support for all media files available for Mac, both what you keep on your computer and online. And yes, even the free version of Elmedia Player has many interesting features that make both audio and video playback so much fun!

Elmedia Player Review: The Ultimate Free Media Player for Mac



Microsoft's obsession with Artificial Intelligence (AI) is evidence in almost all its product offerings, now the company is pitching its digital assistant, Cortana to perform basically all the Windows tasks for you on PC.

While the company had previously provided how-to articles on any given task to help users through the series of steps, including videos and other extra aids. Now, it offers a new help feature, Cortana Show Me, which will walk Windows 10 users on the necessary steps to get started.

The Cortana Show Me feature does not only show the steps, but can actually perform those steps, with an “escape hatch” to slow things down if you request it by simply wiggle the mouse.

It comes as part of the Windows 10 April 2018 Update, and serves as aid to users who need some help to understand basic Windows tips, albeit advanced users may not require guide from Cortana Show Me.

The implementation of the AI capabilities as a bundled Windows 10 app, which is also downloadable from the Microsoft Store, could perhaps have been better served as a built-in feature given the sort of basic task Cortana Show Me is capable of performing.

Microsoft claims that there’s about 50 tutorials available within the Cortana Show Me app, which is subdivided into a list of categories. However, the company promises to bring more voice controls to future versions of the Cortana Show Me app.

Albeit perhaps, what's most expedient should be the actual integration of the capabilities in Windows without requiring a standalone app, so that newbies can easily avail the voice commands to find their way around the operating system.

How Microsoft is pitching AI as the next Windows 10 tech support



YouTube's experimental trialing of auto-generated thumbnails for a small segment of creators without informing those affected has infuriated some users, which instead of their custom thumbnails, the company has replaced them with its own.

The experiment was announced in YouTube's Help Forum, where the company confirmed that it would 'not affect the content of the videos' and that 'no current plans to change or remove the ability to add custom thumbnails' altogether.

While creators design YouTube thumbnails for their videos, which help to maximize their ability to pull traffic by attracting the attention of visitors on the platform and also to serve as a branding around their channels. And though there are number of different tactics that creators use to draw attention to their channels, however one major strategy remains the custom thumbnail creation.

Albeit, YouTube allow creators to use an auto-generated thumbnail instead of own uploaded design, but the creators had to manually opt in for automated thumbnails.



The company, however was quick to acknowledge that the current trialing of auto-generated thumbnails over custom thumbnails for a small segment of creators is not removing the ability to create custom thumbnail, but to gain insights on auto-generated thumbnails for the future.

YouTube infuriate Creators by 'A Small Experiment' With Auto-Generated Thumbnails

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