Friday, March 29, 2024
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Google Hangouts Upgrades to HD video.

Google’s video and chat service called Hangout has slowly started showing HD videos at 720p which is a high quality. Much as the feature isn’t fully available to every user at the moment but some video chats have already started showing in HD. This has been tested on ‘Google Hangouts on Air’ which has received the feature.  Google Hangouts on Air is a feature which enables a hangout to be shown live on and shared to the public on your Google +.

That means video chats on Google hangouts will get clearer and come with crisp clear sound. This will help Hang outs evenly compete with Apple’s Facetime which despite being in HD is limited to apple devices.

The HD will be in a format known as VP8 which is an open video compression format owned by Google. Google has been using H.264; however VP8 will lower the bit rate and improve the quality. This was confirmed by Google’s Vice president Chee Chew to GigaOm in an interview.

The switch is happening without the notice of the users, you will just notice that your hangouts have got clearer.

HTC is reported Building a custom OS for its China users

The Taiwanese company is reportedly working with the government of China to build a mobile OS that has deep integration of Chinese services and social networks like weibo. This OS will be target the Chinese market and could launch before the end of next year as sources at Wall Street Journal state.

However it hasn’t clearly been stated where the OS will based upon an open source android fork or will be built from scratch.  However its most likely the OS might be custom because china has had issues with Google and most android phones made for china either don’t have Google play or have it blocked.  HTC already has some devices using the OS in active testing and prototypes are in the hands of the Chinese government officials.

You might say that HTC’s idea of building an OS for “a third” of the world’s population is a smart idea however they aren’t the only players, because some companies such as canonical have partnered with china to build a China specification version of its Ubuntu.

HTC’s new OS will favor china based apps and services because the government of China has been actively trying to reduce reliance on foreign made software and its technology ministry early on released a “white paper” that criticized China’s over reliance on Google-made Android OS.

This OS might not be the biggest threat to Google’s android or iOS but it will definitely eat up a share of their market. However this is a smart move by HTC because integrating a long term partnership with the government of China will see HTC’s profits probably grow.

Facebook publically releases Report on Government requests

Facebook released a report that shows the number of requests on its users the government was making and the number of user accounts on which inquiries are being made. The social network went ahead to  list the percentage of requests that were honored.

The largest number of request was on US accounts with the first half or 2013 having logged between 11,000 and 12,000 requests for facebook user data which involved between 20,000 to 21,000 accounts.

India came in second place with 3,245 requests, UK in 3rd with 1,975 requests and Germany in the fourth position with 1886 requests.

Such data isn’t surprising following previous leaks by Snowden about the US government operative known as “PRISM” which involves surveillance of users’ accounts.

Facebook’s transparency is a big step forward to clear its name, and 25,000 request from all governments might seem a small figure but remember Facebook isn’t the only way governments collect data.

Below is the Statement from Facebook:

Transparency and trust are core values at Facebook. We strive to embody them in all aspects of our services, including our approach to responding to government data requests. We want to make sure that the people who use our service understand the nature and extent of the requests we receive and the strict policies and processes we have in place to handle them.

We are pleased to release our first Global Government Requests Report, which details the following:

The report details the following:

  • Which countries requested information from Facebook about our users
  • The number of requests received from each of those countries
  • The number of users/user accounts specified in those requests
  • The percentage of these requests in which we were required by law to disclose at least some data

The report covers the first 6 months of 2013, ending June 30.

As we have made clear in recent weeks, we have stringent processes in place to handle all government data requests. We believe this process protects the data of the people who use our service, and requires governments to meet a very high legal bar with each individual request in order to receive any information about any of our users. We scrutinize each request for legal sufficiency under our terms and the strict letter of the law, and require a detailed description of the legal and factual bases for each request. We fight many of these requests, pushing back when we find legal deficiencies and narrowing the scope of overly broad or vague requests. When we are required to comply with a particular request, we frequently share only basic user information, such as name.

More details about our approach to responding to government requests can be found here: https://www.facebook.com/safety/groups/law/guidelines/.

We hope this report will be useful to our users in the ongoing debate about the proper standards for government requests for user information in official investigations. And while we view this compilation as an important first report – it will not be our last. In coming reports, we hope to be able to provide even more information about the requests we receive from law enforcement authorities.

As we have said many times, we believe that while governments have an important responsibility to keep people safe, it is possible to do so while also being transparent. Government transparency and public safety are not mutually exclusive ideals. Each can exist simultaneously in free and open societies, and they help make us stronger. We strongly encourage all governments to provide greater transparency about their efforts aimed at keeping the public safe, and we will continue to be aggressive advocates for greater disclosure.

– Colin Stretch, Facebook General Counsel

Source: Facebook

Facebook finally wins lawsuit on Sponsored stories!

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Facebook finally wins lawsuit on Sponsored stories!
Facebook has finally put an end to a legal battle in regards to lawsuit on “Sponsored Stories” in the US. This was after district judge Richard Seeborg approved the suit’s $20 million settlement on Monday.
Judge Seeborg was went ahead to say, “While not incorporating all features that some of the objectors might prefer, the settlement has significant value,” in his order on Monday.
This lawsuit was against Facebook’s advertising that the plaintiffs claim violates user’s privacy by publicizing likes of users in advertisement without asking them for permission or giving them a share of the revenue in form of compensation. The legal complaint was filed in 2011 when facebook used user’s names, profile picture and a statement saying the user likes a particular Advert.
This legal battle hasn’t been the shortest, in May 2012 Facebook made a settlement which Judge Seeborg refused then in October the same year Facebook brought a new settlement offer where they agreed to pay $20 million in compensation to the plaintiffs and agreed to start user controls and the offer was preliminary call it ‘partially’ approved.
However the plaintiffs and children’s advocacy groups opposed the offer because it wasn’t enough to protect Facebook’s underage users and wanted an +opt- in feature.
Finally, Facebook’s preliminary approval was fully passed on Monday by Judge Richard Seeborg.

Source: Reuters

Facebook adds shared photo albums! Prepare to collaborate photos

Remember how, you go to a party or place with your friends and they all take photos with their camera’s or smartphones and you want to share them on Facebook? Then each one had to upload the photos they had taken to individual albums. Now the feature that Google + users have been enjoying which is called party mode where users can contribute photos for an event or party to the same album, has somewhat been modified and adopted by the Facebook team.

You can now make a single album and have contributors, these may be your friends, colleagues name it, so that when you go for that hiking trip or beach party you can share your photos in one album. The number of contributors is limited to 50 and each contributor can share up to 200 photos within the album. You might wonder how they came up with the idea? It came out of a hackathon and Bob Baldwin and Fred Zhao are the creators/ developers.

With Facebook, privacy is catered for, in this case only the creator of the album has the rights to change the privacy setting from either friends of contributors, public or contributors only.

Baldwin told Mashable: “Right now, if you were at a party and there were three different albums created, you might not be able to see all of the photos, which is kind of confusing and frustrating.

I think one thing that’s really fun about creating products at Facebook is that you’re never quite sure how people will use the product in the end. We’re really excited for launch because we think people will use (shared photo albums) in ways that we’re not even thinking of.”

This feature is in it early stages of development and has been realized to only a few users and mobile support will be coming soon. By the way if you want to always be among the first testers of Facebook features always set your English to English (US) and join Facebook developer groups.

 

Microsoft tells parents “Google is corrupting your kids!”

Microsoft is back to its ways of trashing its competition while marketing a new service. After the launch of Bing for schools, this is an Ad free service for children under the age of 12 who live in the USA. Microsoft in a new campaign it calls ‘Scroogled’ has released an ad about how dangerous Google’s advertising is to kids and that parents shouldn’t take send their kids to school before they sign them up for Bing for schools because their children might become obsessed with diet supplements or want a mortgage because the Google ads they see on a school computer are just like the ads their see on any public computer. Hmm! we all know or at least most of us know that Google Adsense uses keywords and Microsoft could be playing dirty!

In this new ad, Microsoft is quoted to say, “This is a message to Parents, Please don’t let your children resume school. At least, not until those venal principals have stopped allowing your children’s minds to be warped like plastic in the Sahara.

Did you know that your children are being pushed to get a mortgage? Did you know they’re being encouraged to get a free credit report? Those sweet innocent minds are even being teased into buying supplements.”

In the Ad the adults are wondering what this child might become because the child is being forced to use Google search in school and therefore seeing ridiculous ads.

 Microsoft goes ahead to say, “The corruption is palpable, she’s studying the history of Mesopotamia, where civilization reigned, before it was corrupted by ignorant from the west. Now here is Google corrupting young minds with issues far beyond their scope.”

Then Microsoft goes ahead to talk about their product in just like they always do in their commercials,

“How can any corporation justify peddling these ads to the impressionable who will soon be the guinea pigs of the robot era? Help is at hand. There is Bing for Schools. Its ad free!. And it knows lots about Mesopotamia too.”  

Microsoft then does the math on one of its Scroogled websites to tell us that Parents need to address this issue before children become ‘obsessed mortgage rates, credit reports and ingesting vitamins.

Now the questions remains, Do you find Microsoft justifiable for such a type of ad, Well Yes and No, if you follow what you always see on TV especially commercials you are most likely to side with Microsoft however when you realize you don’t live in the USA you just can use Bing for schools, For those who enjoy the re-known Google knowledge, and have information about how they use keywords you might ignore the Microsoft Talk.

Feel free to leave you view in the comments, No need to sign up, Use your social networks.

Windows 8.1 quietly gets released to manufacturers!

Microsoft’s new Os Windows 8.1 which we had previously reviewed is said to have rolled out to manufacturers following a tweet from Paul Thurrott the windows supersite editor on 23 August saying that the final RTM build number is 9600.16384.130821-1623.

This defers from Microsoft’s original plan to roll out at least after August, and this also explains why new Lenovo computers rolled out with a start button on their windows 8 PCs. Could Microsoft have not announced that Windows 8.1 had RTM’d because of fear that the news could have been overshadowed by CEO Steve Ballmer’s retirement.

However it is not guaranteed whether the final bits of RTM would be rolled out to everyone yet, we have to wait Microsoft’s decision. However it’s most likely that everyone would be able to get the official released Windows 8.1 only after 18th October which is the official release date.

Source: CNET

How to stop/Reduce Spam SMS on Ugandan telecoms!

We all or at least most of us get messages from advertisers, spammers and telecoms themselves advertising lots of thing from promotions to love tips, deals and outrageously unreal offers. Some of you even get phone calls from such companies, telling you to go for a music concert or find love.  VoIP (Voice Over Companies) got cleverer they now use flash messages that we might call pop-ups on your phone screen every after 5 minutes asking you to press OK for 220Ugx, these flash messages make some curse because they are unavoidable.

Those who really hate adverts on their mobile phones will at least reduce their messages because some messages just can’t stop coming such as the 2 messages you get for every time you load airtime on some telecoms. However the other messages from other senders and spammers can be stopped through following the following steps.

Just in case you love filling up you inbox with messages you don’t need & cell phone vibrate all the time you  have no problem with such messages just do the opposite of what am about to say.

Thanks to Warid and MTN who had fully functional features to stop SMS spam by using a feature they call “Do Not Disturb” This feature lets you stop SMS for particular SMS short codes e.g. 406, 167 and MobiAds on warid (the pop up type of sms) on Warid you can actually add a short code to block in case you get so many messages asking you to subscribe for features you don’t like. Yeah this feature is free and here is how you activate it.

On warid dial *100#, then select Option 9, then select Option 6 (Do not disturb), then select option 1 (Stop Messages) or dial *100*9*6*1# for the whole process to end. To add another short code or number to block dial *100*9*6# Select option 1 then scroll down to option 8 to block a particular short code. Or quick dial *100*9*6*1# then enter the code to block. Just in case you want to block these messages with ease just dial *100*9*6*1#.

For those on MTN, *175# then enter/reply with option1about four times OR *175*1*1*1*1# MTN also has a “Report Abusive Sms” program on their website where you can report abusive messages and have them blocked.

The above methods are offered and controlled by telecoms, and definitely some messages will go through their filter, especially messages whose sender ID is a text e.g. LOVE or DFCU, and those other messages with slightly longer codes e.g. 080012341234 (just an example) or you might realize the SMS provider you signed up with 5  years ago to send you soccer updates might still have your in their address book and yet you do not want to receive these messages so the universal way to end such messages is by sending STOP to the sender’s short code number. Remember some providers tend to have a different keyword to stop their messages.

Lastly when all this fails, we have to call in the mighty authority of Apps that block spam sms, some phones have inbuilt call and sms blacklist options where you are not notified when such a message is received and your phone wont vibrate or show an sms notification, This comes in handy to ignore more than spam messages but also those nagging friends or stalkers. And Before I forget you can also use this feature to hide messages from telecoms notifying you that you have loaded airtime since you can’t block these messages. However the messages might remain on your phone but deleting them as a whole is easy. Make sure to put the tone and vibration off for such messages, on iPhone it’s a bit tricky because you have to add the SMS sender’s number to your contact list and remove vibration and tone.

Some apps however block your phone from receiving SMS with specific sender IDs and are deleted on spot in the background without your notice; such include SMS Spam blocker–Postman , SMS Blocker by Optinno, on Android. These tools will come in handy. However be careful using them otherwise you might miss that wedding meeting sms.

Lastly, always avoid registering for SMS notification services you do not need, for example replying a spam message with a keyword might add you to the sender’s database so you will receive these messages. Since not all notifications will be unnecessary, make sure to find out the sms opt out option before you register for any sms service because it might be relevant today and may not be a burden tomorrow.

Lastly  the UCC should enforce it regulations and standards to crack down on bulk sms misuse, and you can help by submitting numbers of companies and individuals that have misused sms especially by creating spam.

Otherwise enjoy a spam free inbox and share this to all your friends with spam, Share your views or queries in the comments.

Facebook embedded posts are now open to everyone!

After letting media outlets try the service for a couple of weeks, facebook has rolled out the update to me and you, and by you i mean everybody. You can now embedd a facebook post inside a website, however the post has to be public for you to be able to embedd it. This caters for privacy issuses.

This might come in handy for media organisations, bloggers, journalists to be able to embedd posts, images, links, hash tags onto their websites as they cover their story, No more need for taking screenshots. And people can actually like, or follow the owner of the postIn case your website is down, facebook might come in handy for you to share your story.

We have even attached an example of an embedded post right here.

Twitter Channel returns to IFTTT with Official support

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Its been nearly a year since internet service IFTTT (If This Then That) stopped support for twitter due to changes and complications in twitter’s API which limited the way to display tweets, Now the service has been revived and fully supports twitter.

IFTTT is an internet service that literates puts the internet in your pocket by letting you manage about 40 social networks including twitter, with IFTTT you can store your tweets to cloud services such as dropbox, Google drive spreadsheets, it even lets you save favourite links to you Pocket, evernote app and alot more recipes as it calls them. You can connect you social networks, i like a recipe that lets me change my twitter profile photo everytime I change my profile picture on twitter.

The IFTTT also has actions it refers to as Triggers and these can be controlled by tweets for example you can change your twitter profile picture by sending a tweet with an action hashtag.  The developers find this very useful and they claim people might be able to “turn off the lights with IFTTT” through triggers with Belkin’s WeMo devices.

IFTTT’s Head of Business Development Leor Stern says, “it took a while for the company to get the bandwidth to revisit the triggers. Stern, who joined IFTTT earlier this year, says that they’ve been busy building out the platform and soliciting companies for newer, more robust triggers.

IFTTT has relaunched the twitter channel with few triggers and promises to increase as the trigger actions as it continues to work with twitter and listen to feedback from users. IFTTT is trying its level best to revive its twitter channel.