Virginia shooting shows the power of social media, and the danger of autoplay videos
Social media is an incredibly powerful tool. It's not without good reason that ad campaigns start on Twitter and Facebook in the hope of going viral. As with any medium, social media is full of positive and negative content. Content you're interested in seeing, and stuff you really aren't.
But the difference with the likes of Facebook and Twitter is that you're not always in control of what you see. The horrific shooting live on TV in Virginia highlights this perfectly. As with any tragedy or big news story, many were quick to take to social networks to share information and thoughts. They also shared video footage of the killings which automatically played in people's timelines.
Facebook is now working on its own digital assistant called M
Sounding like a character from a James Bond movie, M is Facebook's personal digital assistant. Ready to compete with the likes of Cortana, M will live inside Facebook Messenger and take artificial intelligence a step further. Rather than just helping you to find information or create calendar entries, M will actually perform tasks on your behalf.
Once up and running, M will be able to book restaurants for you, purchase shopping, and more. It will also be possible to use the service to ask for advice -- such as looking for somewhere to visit nearby, or gift suggestions -- and Facebook says the AI behind M is "trained and supervised by people".
Don't blame Samsung; it's your own stupid fault if you break your Galaxy Note 5
Samsung is undoubtedly pleased that its new Galaxy Note 5 is in the headline, but the company would almost certainly prefer that it was for different reasons than it breaking. Not that there is a problem with the Note 5 -- despite countless websites and blogs claiming that Samsung has released a handset with a design flaw -- but if you insert the S Pen the wrong way round, you could well break it.
Of course, when one makes a mistake -- like shoving a stylus backwards into its housing -- it's easy to try to blame someone else. Samsung's response to the situation has been advising people to "follow the instructions in the user guide", which is entirely reasonable. How much hand-holding is really required? Do knife manufacturers need to tell you not to hold onto the pointy end?
Some people are fine with using a phone in church, but not walking down the street
The thing with a mobile phone is, thanks to the fact it is mobile, it can be used -- just about - anywhere. But just because something is possible, it doesn’t mean that it should be done. PewResearch conducted a survey into phone etiquette, and the findings show that people are somewhat divided about where and when it is OK to use a phone.
Some of the results are not exactly surprising. A huge majority of those questioned were not cool with the idea of using a phone in a movie theater or during a meeting (95 and 94 percent respectively). But there are also some interesting quirks in attitudes to mobiles -- 4 percent of people, for instance, see no problem with using a cellphone in the middle of a church service.
AT&T accused of injecting ads through its free Wi-Fi hotspots
What price is free? In the case of Windows 10, many argue that it means giving up a little of your privacy, and it seems that AT&T's free Wi-Fi hotspots also come with a hidden payload. Whilst visiting Dulles Airport, computer scientist Jonathan Mayer noticed that "the web had sprouted ads. Lots of them, in places they didn’t belong".
With time to kill waiting for a flight, Mayer set about investigating where these extra ads were coming from. It didn’t take long for him to discover that the AT&T hotspot he was connected to was the problem. He found that the hotspot was injecting a stylesheet which in turn pulled in advertising. But it didn’t end there...
YouTube Gaming is ready to give Twitch some competition
Anything computer-related can be made social and shareable, and gaming is no different. Amazon's game live streaming service Twitch has proved immensely popular and now Google is ready to put up some competition with YouTube Gaming.
Starting tomorrow (26 August), head over to YouTube Gaming and you can start a stream of your own or watch other gamers play. Of course there will also be an app, and Google is aiming to create "the biggest community of gamers on the web".
Samsung Galaxy Note 5 vulnerable to massive S Pen snafu
If you've managed to get your hands on a new Samsung Galaxy Note 5 -- and this might sound like a case of stating the bleeding obvious -- make sure you put the S Pen into its slot the right way round. Inserting the pen the wrong way round could result in you breaking not just the stylus itself, but also kill some functionality of the Note 5.
While, ordinarily, slipping the S Pen home point first should not be too taxing, if attempted by someone who is a little tired, drunk, young, or stupid, it could go horribly wrong. You could end up with a Note 5 with an S Pen that just can’t be removed, or -- if you exert sufficient force -- you may remove the S Pen and break either the pen or the innards of the phone.
Ad-blocker Crystal massively reduces bandwidth usage and page load times in iOS 9
There's a lot to look forward to in iOS 9. We already know that the new version of Safari will include the option to block ads, but the browser is not going to be alone in clearing out unwanted ads. Crystal is an ad blocker for iOS 9 created "with the goal of making web browsing with the iPhone and iPad a great experience again".
It started life as a tool for testing iOS 9's own content blocker, but grew into a stand-alone project. Crystal is currently in closed public beta but its developer, Dean Murphy, has released some figures that show how effective it is. The results show that Crystal can speed up page load times by nearly four times and reduce bandwidth consumption by 53 percent. Impressive stuff, and the stats make for extremely interesting reading -- particularly for those waiting for the launch of a new iPhone.
It's about to get easier to donate money to non-profits via Facebook
Facebook is known as The Social Network, but it's about more than just being social. It's also used by businesses, charities, and other organizations to promote products, services and causes. To make it easier for non-profits to raise money Facebook is introducing a Donate Now button.
This is something that makes life easier for the donor and the recipient. Many non-profits are small operations which may not want to go to the trouble of setting up a fully-fledged website with a donation page. For people who discover a worthy cause through Facebook, it makes sense to be able to hand over some money through the same medium.
Microsoft will launch Office 2016 on 22 September
Just as with Windows 10, Microsoft has been running a preview program for Office 2016. After launching the Mac version of the office suite, we’ve been waiting for news about the PC edition will be released. Now, thanks to a leaked document, we now know it is due to launch on 22 September.
Internal documents obtained by WinFuture.de show that Office 2016 is set to launch in less than a month for home and professional users. Microsoft is preparing staff for the event, asking them to install the preview version for now and keep an eye on the Office 2016 Launch Hub for training documentation and other materials.
Russia bans Wikipedia because Russia (and drugs)
Russia has placed a complete ban on Wikipedia because of an article about cannabis. The country's Federal Service for the Supervision of Communications, Information Technology and Mass Media (Roskomnadzor) took exception to an article about charas -- a cannabis product popular in India.
The Russian Federal Drug Control Service deemed the article illegal because it included information about how the drug is made. Wikipedia's policy of not removing individual articles could mean that Russia's censors have no alternative but to block the site in its entirety.
As stock markets tumble, Kim Dotcom recommends Bitcoin -- again
Kim Dotcom -- he of Megaupload/Mega infamy -- has been out of the headlines for a while, but he's creeping back into the public eye once again with the launch of a new music streaming service, Baboom.
However, Dotcom is not just interested in promoting his latest venture, he also has a lot to say about many aspects of the tech world.
Back when he launched file sharing site Mega, rebuilt from the rubble of Megaupload, Dotcom was a proponent of the cryptocurrency Bitcoin. Now he's at it again, advising people to invest in Bitcoin in the wake of the Chinese -- and then global -- stock market tumble.
Screen flicker and Explorer crashes in Windows 10? Blame Norton Antivirus, iCloud, or IDT Audio
We've looked at many of the problems that you might experience after upgrading to Windows 10 -- from issues with audio to bothersome browsers. Some users are having problems with the explorer.exe process crashing and an annoying screen flicker. Three particular applications -- Norton Antivirus, iCloud, or IDT Audio -- have been cited as culprits, and Microsoft and Symantec have solutions.
There's no need to go as far as uninstalling Windows 10, but Microsoft does suggest that you restart your computer in Safe Mode and uninstall any of the aforementioned programs. Of course, Symantec would much rather than you continued to use Norton Antivirus, so the company has its own fix for the problem.
Censoring transparency: Twitter denies Politwoops access to API
Twitter has blocked Politwoops from using its API, effectively killing the service that archived and published tweets deleted by politicians. Politwoops has a number of international sites, each concerned with the politicians of different countries and it monitored the account of prominent politicians for deleted tweets before publishing them for all to see.
The US version of the service was denied API access earlier in the year, but over the weekend Twitter extended the ban to a further 30 Politwoops accounts. The tweets deleted by those in politics are often far more telling and revealing than those that remain in place, and this was the reason for Politwoops existence. Not for the first time, Twitter has entered the political arena, indicating that it views the deletion decisions of elected politicians as more important than the right of the electorate to see tweets that have been self-censored.
Who should we believe about Apple Music usage numbers?
It makes sense that any company would like you to believe that it has a large number of customers; if you launch a service, you want everyone to know just how popular it is. As well as boasting, it is a form of advertising in itself -- one that is free... the best kind.
But what happens when the figures you tout are at odds with what other people think? This is what is happening with Apple Music. Research company MusicWatch says that Apple's streaming music service retains just over half of users who sign up for the free trial. Apple disagrees, saying that it actually manages to hang on to 79 percent of users. Why is there such a big difference, and who is right?
Sofia Elizabella's Bio
Sofia Wyciślik-Wilson is a queer, transgender journalist based in Poland. She has been writing about technology for more than two decades, and after years working for magazines, her writing moved online. She is fueled by literature, music, nature, and vegetables. You can find her on Bluesky and Mastodon. If you like what you read, you can Buy her a Coffee!
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