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Instagram is Trialing a Shopping Checkout Feature to be Available for its US Users

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Instagram on Tuesday, announced that it is testing a new checkout feature for its US users and will be rolling out the same in the next couple of weeks. According to a statement from Instagram, its US-based users will be able to shop items with tags for sale, directly from Instagram.

instagram-shopping
Image Source: esquire.com

Currently, Instagram is one of the most engaging platforms operated by Facebook Inc., and many retailers are using the same to selling their products online. But the News Feed of this platform is not enough to engage people for a longer time. Also, shopping through the app is not convenient as there is no payment feature embedded to the app and people are forced to contact the retailers even to know the price of the goods. This is one of the steps that Facebook has taken to monetise its one of the most popular platforms, in order to enter into the eCommerce business.

The users now will be able to see and order products directly through the app. For the payment, the users will be offered with options like Visa, Mastercard, American Express, Discover, PayPal, etc.

Though the feature will only be available for the US users, and for now, only a few famous brands including Adidas, H&M, Kylie Cosmetics and Michael Kors will be able to use it to sell their goods on Instagram. Noticeably, the company has already partnered with twenty different brands.

Though the company has not commented on the worth of the partnership with different brands, it has confirmed that it will be charging a fixed fee from the various brands interested to sell on Instagram. The fee will also be covering the purchase protection policy for those brands, and it will be Instagram which would pay for any damage to the items or lost items.

According to an Instagram spokesperson, the users will only be able to buy one thing at a time, and the feature is only available for the mobile app users. However, the company is still working on improving the shopping experience for its users.

While it is a piece of exciting news for the Instagram users, and also, this step will help many brands with their business, many people are also worried about the Facebook’s track record on privacy, which may also affect the launch of this new in-app purchase feature of Instagram.

Snapchat to Uncover its New Gaming Platform in the Upcoming Snapchat Summit in April

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Image Source: tubefilter.com

According to a report from Cheddar, the parent company of Snapchat, Snap Inc., is planning to launch its own new gaming platform in the coming month. The rumours about the new gaming platform from Sanp Inc. has been making rounds since June last year, and now if we believe the reports the company is all set to launch one in April.

Snap Inc. has already tried its hands in gaming field with its set of AR lens games named Snappables, and also, in January, the company acquired the Australian game studio Prettygreat for an $8.6 million. Furthermore, the Chinese gaming conglomerate Tencent bought a 12 per cent share in Snap, in 2017, which is a clear indication of Snap Inc. paving its ways towards the gaming industry at a bigger level.

According to the reports, the new gaming platform will allow its users to play third party games over it. The new platform will also accept games from outside developers, and those games will play on the Snapchat application itself.

The company is hosting a Snap Partner Summit in Los Angeles on April 4th, for developers and creators from different regions, where the company is expected to unveil its new gaming platform, which is also referred as the “Project Cognac”. Cheddar has even reported of an invitation for the event having a slogan imprinted over it saying, “Less talk. More play”. The slogan, too, is hinting towards the same new gaming platform, that the company may launch at the event.

Snapchat currently is facing tough competition as many other Snapchat-look-alike apps have come in the market and to move ahead in the competition, entering the gaming business can be a fruitful decision for Snap Inc. Moreover, the new gaming platform will be a source of increased user engagement and higher revenue.

For now, the company has not commented on the matter. But, if the sources are to be believed, the new gaming platform will be a great place for the outside developers and creators to place their games, and for the advertisers too, it will be a popular platform to play their ads.

YouTube Launches its Music Streaming Services for its Indian Users

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It has been less three weeks since Spotify has entered the Indian music streaming market. And now, Google has also just entered the same market after it launched its new music streaming service, the YouTube Music, along with YouTube Premium and YouTube Music Premium.

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Image Source: techaeris.com

The YouTube Music will be a free but ad-supported music service for the Indian users, whereas the YouTube Music Premium will be a paid service like YouTube Premium. YouTube Music Premium will cost Rs 99, and the YouTube Premium will cost Rs.129, a month per user, offering an ad-free experience to its users. Through the premium service, the users will have access to features like background play, and millions of tracks and videos, which also will be available for offline downloads. The YouTube Premium subscribers will also get access to YouTube Originals, and YouTube Music Premium.

YouTube is already hosting over 245 million monthly active users, and the number is constantly increasing every day. It has been an effective platform for different types of content creators, especially for the musicians.

“India is where the multi-lingual music scene thrives. It’s interesting to note how Indian artists have consistently claimed top spots over the last few months in the Global YouTube Top Artists chart. With YouTube Music, we are hoping to bring the best in global and Indian music to millions of fans across India, and give them an immersive music experience, with the magic of music on YouTube.” said Lyor Cohen, Global Head of Music, YouTube.

Google is already active in the music streaming service with Google Play Music. For now, the subscribers registered with the Google Play Music service will also be able to access their purchased music and uploads through their YouTube Music service.

The Indian music streaming market is already dominated by the streaming services like Amazon Music, Apple Music, JioSaavn, and Gaana, etc., and in this tough competition, to lure new customers, Google is offering a special introductory offer of 3 months free subscription for YouTube Music Premium to be redeemed by March 31, 2020. But the offer is valid only for the people who are not registered to the YouTube Premium or Google Play Music. Also for the Samsung Galaxy S10 users, Google is offering the same free subscription for a period of four months.

Nvidia Unveiled its New $99 AI Computer for Everyone

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Every person is aware of the fact that AI and machine learning is the next big thing. Slowly, the two technologies are making their way in the real world. On the same league, Nvidia has unveiled the $99 AI computer Jetson Nano along with a developer kit of the Nano, for the developers, makers, and researchers, in its GTC conference held on Monday.

nvidia-jetson-nano
Image Source: zdnet.com

The company has already introduced its Jetson embedded graphics platform and the Jetson Nano Developer kit is the extension of the same. The Nvidia’s Jetson line up works towards providing products to help makers, developers and the students, in the projects based on robotics, AI and autonomous machine applications.

In 2015, the company came with the Jetson TX1 “Supercomputer-on-Module” which provided brains to the robots, drones, and self-driving vehicles. It was the first step for the company in the field of AI and machine learning. After TX1, the company had launched TX2 embedded with a 256-core Pascal GPU and a Jetson AGX Xavier embedded with a 512-core Nvidia Volta GPU. All the three Nvidia’s AI products were high-end products.

But the Jetson Nano is an affordable and tiny $99 computer optimized for AI and machine learning, embedded with 128 CUDA core GPU. The Jetson Nano is based on the Maxwell architecture and offers 472 GFLOPs and is powered by a 64-bit quad-core Arm Cortex-A57-based CPU and a 4GB RAM. The computer also possesses a video processor, which is able to handle up to 4K 30fps encode or 4K 60fps decode. It also has got support for the Gigabit Ethernet, microSD storage, I/O for cameras, and other ports and interfaces, including USB-C.

The Nano kit is a plug and plays DIY kit, which also supports a few AI frameworks including TensorFlow, PyTorch, Caffe, Keras, and MXNet.

Although the Jetson Nano is not as powerful as Nvidia’s previous models, the new Jetson Nano, being cheaper, may help many hobbyists and students with their DIY projects. The company is also offering the production-ready kits for $129, for some specific companies and people who want to build their own AI devices.

The company has also introduced a $250 autonomous robotics kit named JetBot at the event. The JetBot is specially designed to build a self-driving robot.

Jeff Bezos Prepping Up for the Upcoming MARS Event to be Held in California

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Like other past few years, Jeff Bezos is all set for its Mars Conference to be held in the coming week. Every year, Jeff Bezos hosts an invite-only robotic conference in the third week of March, where billionaires, astronauts, and roboticists participate in discussions and debates on the future of AI, robotics, machine learning and other space technologies.

jeffbezos
Image Source: geekwire.com

MARS stands for Machine learning, home Automation, Robotics, and Space exploration, and according to an announcement made by the company in January 2019, a similar conference, with the same name will be launched in June, which will be open to the public. The event will be held in Las Vegas between June 4th and 7th.

Bezos is all prepping up for the upcoming event, and like every other year, the event will take place at the Parker Resort in Palm Springs. Reportedly, the place has been decorated with the Blue Origin logos (Bezos’ rocket company) all around. Also, a solar-powered sailing drone, the Saildrone, has also been spotted at the location.

Since the event is an invite-only, not everyone is aware of which type of technologies were launched in past events. Last year, Bezos showcased a SpotMini robot, for which, he had also tweeted, “Taking my new dog for a walk.” And, in 2017, Bezos released a picture where he dressed up in a giant robot suit.

The event hosts famous contributors from various fields of technologies, and last year, the invitees included Mike Massimino (former astronaut), Adam Savage, and Michael J. Fox, etc. This year too we can expect some great personalities from the tech world participating in the event. According to the reports, MARS conference will feature Andrew Ng, Colin Angle, Aicha Evans, Naveen Rao, Robert Downey Jr, etc.

The conference this year may be discussing Amazon’s various AI initiatives and the practical application of machine learning. The hashtag #MARS2019 on Twitter may help you have the glimpse of this year’s MARS event highlights.

Apple Giving 10% Cash Bonus to its Users to Make Purchases for Apple Services

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According to a report from MacRumors, Apple is sending emails to its App Store and iTunes users about the bonus Apple is offering to its users when they add money to their Apple ID account. According to the news, these offers have been made available from 10th March and will be over as soon as 14th March.

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Image Source: slashgear.com

The offers will be applied to the direct transactions of money through a credit or debit card while making purchases on iTunes, App Store and iCloud. For now, the users will get a 10 per cent discount on the transactions, and the offer will be valid for only a single purchase per user.

The money can be easily added from the settings of the Apple Account. The users need to go to the Settings, tap on their Account Name, then select the iTunes and App Store option. After that, they can choose the “Add Funds to Apple ID” option from the selected Apple ID. In this option, the various options of amounts to be added will appear on the screen. Here the users need to add the money.

The money can also be added to the Apple Account directly from “Add Funds” options on the iTunes Store or by clicking on the Apple ID on App Store. The offer is also available for Desktop users.

The new bonus offer from Apple is applicable to any purchase amount between the US $1 to the US $200. So the greater the amount, the greater will be the discount.

The offer currently, is not valid for the users in the UK, Australia or Canada. And, for countries like Germany, the discount rate is set to 15 per cent. The money added to the Apple Account is used to purchase paid apps, music on iTunes, and to purchase storage space on iCloud. So when the users will add money to their Apple Accounts in the given dates, they will get 10 per cent extra money to pay for Apple services.