Suhani Jain, Author at Your Tech Story

Elon Musk puts Twitter’s Blue Verified relaunch on hold

If you didn’t take advantage of the opportunity to give Elon Musk 7.99 USD for a blue check for your Twitter account while you could, you may even have to wait a little longer. Originally scheduled to reintroduce on November 29, Elon Musk wrote on Twitter on Monday evening that the twitter’s blue verified feature will be postponed, indefinitely, until there is a greater probability of stopping identity theft.

The initial release of Twitter Blue Verified or known as the “I-paid-Elon-$7.99” Blue Tick was a complete disaster. Obviously, the feature instantly became favourable to assist bad actors in trying to impersonate celebrities, corporate entities, and political figures.

one user account tried to imitate the drug manufacturer Eli Lilly and was announcing that insulin is free in the name of the company. Before it was removed, the tweet had been viewed a million times. The stock of the company fell 4.37 per cent.

Elon Musk went on to say that Twitter will most likely use a check of a different colour for organisations than individuals. Twitter has already experimented with using a grey official classification underneath high-profile accounts, although the feature has been turned on and off numerous times since it was first introduced.

According to The Verge, Musk also discussed working to develop features such as encoded personal messages and videoconferencing in an intrinsic presentation termed Twitter 2.0. This isn’t the first time he has mentioned implementing end-to-end encrypted DMs.

Musk insinuated that Twitter is progressing on this feature in a tweet in response to app researcher Jane Manchun Wong’s tweet, which outlined code related to that. The Twitter CEO stated earlier this month that the “goal of Twitter DM is to superset Signal.”

As some Twitter users experiment with alternative platforms such as Mastodon and Hive, Elon Musk claims that Twitter added 1.6 million monetizable daily active customers in the recent week, bringing the company’s total to 259.4 million. Notably, Musk engaged in a months-long legal battle after deeming these same metrics inaccurate in an attempt to backtrack on his Twitter purchase.

Suhani Jain

I am a student pursuing my bachelor’s in information technology. I have a interest in writing so, I am working a freelance content writer because I enjoy writing. I also write poetries. I believe in the quote by anne frank “paper has more patience than person

Jeff Bezos Warns of Economic Recession, Advises People To Avoid Expensive Purchases

Amazon founder and Billionaire Chief Executive officer, Jeff Bezos, has advised customers and owners of small businesses to postpone major purchases in advance of the holiday period.

He said that he can tell that the economy doesn’t really look good in recent times right in a CNN sit-down interview released on Monday after reporter Chloe Melas asked if the economy was going through a recession.

Jeff Bezos claimed that if we aren’t in a recession right now, we are very probably to enter one very soon.

“Take some risk off the table, keep some dry powder on hand…. Just a little bit of risk reduction could make the difference for that small business, if we do get into even more serious economic problems. You’ve got to play the probabilities a little bit,” Bezos was quoted as saying.

“If you’re an individual considering to purchase a big-screen TV, you might want to wait, hold onto your money, and see what transpires. The same is true with a new automobile, refrigerator, or whatever else. Just remove some risk from the equation,” he added.
Source: tribuneindia.com

It is undoubtedly not the suggestion you hoped to hear out from a person who owns and manages the e-commerce website which pervades Black Friday sales year after year, as well as it is equally hugely profitable Cyber Monday sale a few days later.

Jeff Bezos’ suggestion came not long after The New York Times disclosed that Amazon intends to lay off about 10,000 employees, many from its Alexa, sales, and human resources sections, in one of the company’s largest layoffs in history.

So, it appears that Bezos will be pinching pennies at the cost of thousands of employees, but likely not his wallet. In another section of the interview, Bezos bragged about how he intended to give away his massive wealth, planning to announce a 100 million USD donation to songster and philanthropist Dolly Parton.

Suhani Jain

Roku lays off 200 employees after weak Q4 Results

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

In the perfect example of what appears to be daily job cuts in Big Tech, Roku declared its plans presently to lay off about 200 employees, which represents nearly 7 per cent of its workforce. In an SEC filing, the streaming company stated that it intends to cut jobs in the United States due to economic conditions.

The company estimates that the reductions will cost between 28 and 31 million USD in severance pay, notice pay where relevant, employee benefits contributions, as well as other costs.

“Due to the current economic conditions in our industry, we have made the difficult decision to reduce Roku’s headcount expenses by a projected 5%, to slow down our [Operating Expenses] growth rate. This will affect approximately 200 employee positions in the U.S. Taking these actions now will allow us to focus our investments on key strategic priorities to drive future growth and enhance our leadership position,” Roku said in an official statement.
Source: techcrunch.com

As per Roku, a large percentage of the layoffs will occur in Q4, with the remainder predicted to be “substantially complete” by the end of Q1 2023.

In a statement, Roku said, “Taking these actions now will allow us to focus our investments on key strategic priorities to drive future growth and enhance our leadership position.”
Source: engadget.com

These layoffs arrive after Roku warned during its most recent quarterly results that it expects a year-over-year profits decline in Q4. In pre-market trading today, the company’s stock fell nearly three per cent.

Job cuts in Big Tech have emerged as an unfortunate trend in recent days. Roku’s layoffs arise on the heels of downsizing at Meta, which laid off 11,000 of its employees last week; Twitter, which laid off nearly 3,800 staff members earlier this month; and Amazon and Microsoft.

Even though Apple has thus far been an exception, it has decided to impose a hiring freeze that is expected to last until late 2023. Similarly, Disney is reportedly freezing hiring and planning layoffs, while Netflix laid off about 300 workers in June. Streaming companies, including Roku, have encountered the dual difficulties of an uncertain economy and revenue downturn following a surge during the coronavirus pandemic.

Suhani Jain

WhatsApp Rolls Out New Feature for Group Chats

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

WhatsApp has been striving to improve the user- experience of group users. The Facebook-owned messaging application a while back increased the maximum number of members in a group. It also unveiled a brand-new Communities feature, which enables WhatsApp users to manage numerous groups under a single roof.

The corporation has officially started to introduce new group functionalities for desktop users. According to WABetaInfo, WhatsApp is launching a new feature that will enable some beta testers on Desktop beta to view profile photos inside of group chats.

For quite some time, the new WhatsApp feature, which permits PC users to view profile photos within group chats, has been in the works, and statements about the feature have indeed been sighted in previous beta versions.

According to the report’s screenshot, the feature will also allow you to view an image of the member in the group chat screen just beside their name. As of now, the app only displays the names of the members.

To determine whether you have gotten the latest feature, you just have to open a group chat. As previously stated, the feature is currently only available to beta users. However, the company is expected to roll out the feature in a public upcoming update.

WhatsApp officially unveiled a companion mode for smartphone users having Android in the form of a beta update. According to a report by WABetaInfo, a few fortunate beta testers on the Android system are now able to use the WhatsApp companion mode which was highly awaited.

The feature was previously available to just a few Android-based tablet users last month, and it is now accessible to mobile phone users as well. You could use a single WhatsApp account on some other smartphone with the help of the new companion mode.

However, my updates and bugs are still going on. Users will experience a series a changes.

WhatsApp is yet to fix two bugs disclosed by WABetaInfo. A tweet quoted, “Some users are experiencing crashes when downloading videos after installing the latest version of WhatsApp beta for Android. In addition, WhatsApp may continuously play a conversation tone when sending a message.”
Source: thehindubusinessline.com

Suhani Jain

YouTube expands shopping features to combat digital ad slowdown

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

According to the Financial Times on November 15, Tuesday, YouTube is adding shopping features to its short-form video service which is like TikTok, as it seeks to broaden its revenue stream, which has been decreased by falling ad spending.

“Viewers in the U.S., India, Brazil, Canada, and Australia can see the tags and interact with them and we’ll continue to bring tagging to more creators and geographies,” a Google spokesperson said.
Source: usnews.com

Ad sales on Alphabet-owned YouTube fell to US$7.07 billion in the third quarter, down from US$7.2 billion the previous year, as advertisers cut back on ad spending in the name of an economic downturn.

According to the newspaper, the streaming platform is also trying out new commission strategies for influencers who sell stuff via links in videos.

Reuters’ request for comment was not immediately responded to by YouTube.

The report information came only months after YouTube introduced a brand-new way for creators to make a living on short-form videos, launching advertising on its video feature Shorts and offering video makers 45 per cent of the profits.

The internet’s most popular video site has had difficulty keeping up with TikTok, the app that began by organising lip-sync and dance video content and has since grown to 1 billion monthly users.

YouTube sincerely hope that the new shopping features will boost its earnings from digital advertising. The site is introducing new features that will allow users to purchase products directly from videos and learn more about the products they are watching.

This is in addition to the existing features, which allow users to add items to their shopping carts and keep them for later use. In addition, when users are watching videos on YouTube, a new “shopping shelf” will show up on the right side of their screen. This shelf will display similar products that users can purchase as well as product information.

Suhani Jain

Google to pay $391M to settle Android location tracking lawsuit

Leave a Comment / News, Tech News / By Suhani Jain

Google has consented to pay 391.5 million USD to settle an android location tracking lawsuit filed by an alliance of 40 U.S. attorneys general.

“For years Google has prioritized profit over their users’ privacy,” said Attorney General Rosenblum. “They have been crafty and deceptive. Consumers thought they had turned off their location tracking features on Google, but the company continued to secretly record their movements and use that information for advertisers,” he said in a statement late on Monday.
Source: bleepingcomputer.com

According to the android location tracking lawsuit settlement, the United States Attorneys General found while investigating a 2018 Associated Press article that Google swindled Android users and monitored their locations ever since least 2014, even when they assumed location tracking was not active.

While Android users were deceived into believing that disabling “Location History” in the smartphone’s settings would deactivate location tracking, this other account setting, “Web & App Activity,” which has been enabled by default, allowed the company to collect, store, and utilize the customers’ personal information i.e. location data.

The agreement reached today also requires Google to implement extra user-friendly account control mechanisms and restricts the firm’s use and storage of certain types of location data.

Google will also be required to be transparent with its users about its location data tracking and collection practises, such as displaying extra details when location-related account settings are toggled and displaying detailed information about what data it harvests and how it is used.

“The company’s online reach enables it to target consumers without the consumer’s knowledge or permission,” Michigan Attorney General Dana Nessel said on Monday.

“However, the transparency requirements of this settlement will ensure that Google not only makes users aware of how their location data is being used, but also how to change their account settings if they wish to disable location-related account settings, delete the data collected and set data retention limits.”
Source: bleepingcomputer.com

The Australian Competition and Consumer Commission fined Google 60 million USD in August for deceiving and obtaining location data from Australian Android users for approximately two years which was between January 2017 to December 2018, using the same strategy.

According to the ACCC, Google has taken corrective measures to address the problems that resulted in these financial penalties by 20 December 2018, with customers no longer being shown inaccurate information implying that resetting location history stops gathering data regarding their location.

In January 2022, France’s National Commission on Informatics and Liberty charged Google $170 million for infringing on internet users’ freedom of consent by making it difficult to reject website tracking the cookies by hiding that option under multiple clicks.

The firm was also charged 11.3 million USD in November 2021 for aggressive data collection, €220 million in June 2021 for choosing its services over competitors, 1.7 billion USD in March 2019 for anti-competitive practices in online advertising and $2.72 billion in June 2017 for misusing its high position in the market to manipulate search results.

Suhani Jain

Suhani Jain

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