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Instagram Working on a Feature to Allow Setting Privacy Differently On Each Story

Instagram and its parent company Facebook have been adding a lot of handy options in their respective apps to bring the user experience to a new level, and this time again news regarding the feature that will let users hide certain stories from certain people is making rounds.

Jane Manchun Wong, an app researcher, spotted the feature and shared the screenshots on her Twitter feed. She discovered the new feature on the backend of Instagram. The screenshot shared shows that under the Stories there is a search bar that will let users select the people from whom they want to hide the story.

Currently, Instagram allows users to block people from seeing stories but that applies to all stories and none of the stories will appear to people who are not permitted. However, the new feature will let users block specific stories from people you block but can show another story simultaneously.

It is not yet confirmed whether Instagram will roll out this feature later or not.

Instagram is also testing to allow blocking or restricting all the annoying accounts from the comment section directly at once. The purpose behind it is to help in battling against cyber-bullying on the comment section of the platform.

Also, last month Wong shared about feature allowing to remove followers directly from their profile. The feature was discovered at the backend of the Android app. The feature is right now available for iOS users but the company is planning to introduce it to Android users as well.

Another feature was recently spotted by Wong in February that will let users discover the posts that they might have missed while they were away from Instagram.

Google Launches New Camera Go App For Android Go Units

Android Go - an altered version of Android designed for low-end smartphones.
Arpit Midha, a lead product manager for Android explained how Camera Go app works.
The first device with the new app to be shipped soon.

Google is bringing a new experience for its Android Go users by introducing the brand new Camera Go app. Basically Android Go is an altered stock version of Android designed specifically for low-end smartphones having 2GB RAM or less. Android Go has introduced two years ago and is running on 100 million active devices around the globe till now. The Go versions of many key services like Gmail and YouTube were created by Google but still a better cam app was missing up till now.

The new app comes with a simple and uncluttered interface making it easier to be used for people using Android for the first time. Google is staying loyal to its unique vision of Android Go by permitting the users not to fear about the storage issue with the new Camera Go app. The app will show you how many pictures or videos can be stored on the device and will also give suggestions to clear more space on the device. The app comes with a portrait mode. The app has been optimized in a way to be used for devices with 1 GB of RAM, and this app does not support HDR+ or night view mode. Google likely wants to keep the Night Sight feature exclusive to Pixel, so this feature to land in Camera Go app is least expected.

Arpit Midha, a lead product manager for Android at Google says that the new app is deeply built-in into the device’s working system and is not just filtering photos on prime. He also said that Portrait mode is added into the app to create a depth-of-field impact in photos so even 50 dollar units will also get this feature. Arpit Midha believes that it’s a primary one in this class of smartphones. He also states that this will standardize photography for the beginner-level.

HMD’s new Nokia 1.3 will be the first Android Go unit to be shipped which will have the new Camera Go app installed. The device will be available in April and will cost 95 euros ($102).

Read next: Google Pixel and One Plus Remains On Top In Android 10 Report Card, Samsung Makes Surprising Improvements!

Twitter To Verify More Health Officials To Fight Misleading Information Regarding Coronavirus

Twitter is taking steps to promote accounts that are providing the correct information about the Coronavirus situation.
The micro-blogging platform is also trying its best to curb the COVID-19 misinformation.
Twitter to open up a public-facing form that will help the health officials to directly request the company for account verification.

Twitter wants to make it easier for health officials to get their accounts verified. For this purpose, the company is taking steps to open up its widely known verification program to help boost accounts that are providing correct updates about the coronavirus.

Twitter is working with public health authorities around the globe to verify health officials and was successful in verifying hundreds of accounts, the company quoted in one of its tweets.

The social media platform has been taking more aggressive steps against the spread of coronavirus misinformation. They announced to ban tweets spreading coronavirus misinformation such as false cures and other incorrect pseudo-scientific information. This effort extends to now opening of verification program which is a difficult task for the company as it tends to avoid publicly discussing verification. A lot of Twitter employees have mocking referred to their inability to verify users in their bios.

Twitter along with Facebook has verified more than 800 National Health Service accounts only in the UK. The company also explained the steps that can be taken by academic institutions and other officials who are working for public health organizations to get their accounts verified.

Twitter is verifying accounts having email addresses associated with a trusted organization or institution on prior bases. The company also instructed the health officials to refer in their bio the organization they are associated with and also make sure to include a link back to their Twitter account on the page they link to.

The company is soon going to open up a public-facing form that will help the health experts to directly request Twitter for account verification. According to Kayvon Beykpour, a product lead at Twitter, the company will share a link to an intake form for health officials to fill out for verification purposes.

It would be the first time for the company to make a publicly-accessible verification request form available after it was officially suspended in 2017 (though the company continues to verify thousands of accounts quietly).

These latest changes will only be applied to health officials distributing information regarding the coronavirus. This shows that Twitter is ready to take public input of the check-in specific conditions.

Coronavirus is Impacting the Social Media Ads We See

Coronavirus is impacting everything these days, and it turns out that even the ads we are seeing on social media are being impacted by the virus in ways that we had not really been able to predict all in all. The reason behind this is that brands are starting to become a lot more responsible in terms of the ads that they are posting, and the fact of the matter is that this is resulting in the visual landscape of social media being altered so that it is pretty much entirely centered around the outbreak of Covid-19 that the world is currently going through.

A study of the ads that are currently being posted has resulted in a lot of imagery that shows people washing their hands and the like. This is probably being done in order to encourage people to start practicing things like proper personal hygiene which at this current point in time may just be the only thing that could potentially end up preventing the virus from having too much of an impact on the world around us.

Also, an interesting thing to note is that ads focusing on human connection as well as proximity are starting to become a lot less prominent as well, and this is because of the fact that social distancing is necessary in order to prevent the spread of the virus to a large extent. Brands are probably focusing on this to make it less likely that people would think about socializing in general.

"Our computer vision AI identified that social distancing is already showing itself in imagery and video, with a 30% drop in the use of “human connection” imagery just on March 12th. Further, we identified a 12% drop in the use of “human connection” imagery between February and March (e.g. shaking hands, holding hands, hugging, kissing, etc.", explained Bridget Johnston in a blog post. Adding further, "There was an 8% drop in the use of “travel” imagery (e.g. world, flights, control towers, airports, airplanes)".

This does tell us a lot about how we often tend to live our lives and feel things based on the visual input that we are getting. Ads influence us a lot more than we realize, so it’s good that brands are taking this pandemic seriously as far as their ads are concerned.

Related: Coronavirus Pandemic – Implications on the World Economy

Google Will Let Users Resize Picture-In-Picture Window With Android 11 Update

The picture-in-picture mode (PiP) came in as a flagship feature of the Oreo version of Android operating system and with it, users got the chance to enjoy playing floating videos on top of any application running on android devices.

As the feature turned out to be a great step towards making the possibility of multi-tasking on your smartphone happen with great ease, there was only one issue with it; users were still unable to resize the window as per their choices.

But now with recent developments in place, this isn’t impossible anymore. Google has set a default value in AOSP but with OEMs one can change the value which goes in relation to the size of PiP window appearing on the display. For now, users cannot change these settings on their own but it looks like that the option might come in Android 11.

The news was first confirmed by XDA Developers who have found out a new “PipResizeGestureHandler” class based in the SystemUI of Android 11 Developer Preview 2. The “PipResizeGestureHandler” class is also attached to the “com.android.systemui” instead of “com.google.android.systemui”. This means that the feature, when introduced with Android 11, will come to Google Pixel phones and all other Android devices that support Android 11 as well.

Google has plans to release the new update for Android somewhere in the later part of this year. The company even teased its users by showing some really exciting features back in February including the all new music player in the Quick Settings panel.

Google wants to make Android 11 as big as possible and therefore one can expect some necessary and some revolutionary changes to take place on your android phones soon.

Related: Google updates Advanced Protection Program: Makes Play Protect default

Buying Fake TikTok Followers Can Be At Cost of Risking Privacy, Says Report

Every other day TikTok turns an ordinary individual into an online celebrity, while many already popular personalities also have moved to the platform to enhance their digital presence.

With the growing popularity of TikTok, many shady players have come forward to help those who are looking for instant virality. The number of vendors can be found online who are selling likes, shares, and followers at a reasonable price to boost your account engagement.

On average, 100 likes are available for US $2 only, and with a minimal amount, you can become from nobody to celebrity. However, it is not yet from where these followers come.

Recently, Digital Forensic Research Lab (DFRLab) disclosed the unauthentic profiles and their activity on TikTok. It has not been yet confirmed whether the followers are actual people or bots. There are no display pictures or stolen photos, but only alphanumerical handles with no proper content available on accounts.

Kanishk Karan, research at DFRLab said, the pay-for-engagement industry is growing, not only for TikTok but the fake engagement is an issue faced by all leading social platforms including Facebook and Instagram.

For a long time, online social platforms have been dealing with fake engagements. The companies provide followers for TikTok as well as engagements for Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, YouTube, Spotify, Twitch, Soundcloud and even for messaging app, Telegram.

Many social media platforms have taken action and deleted the accounts with fake followers or engagements. Like in 2019, Facebook and Instagram took a bold step by suing four Asian companies that have been selling fake accounts, followers and likes.

TikTok’s community guidelines clearly points out the inauthentic activities are against the rules of the platform. However, on this specific report, ByteDance, TikTok parent company responded neither released any statement so far.

In case, anyone is planning to get the instant TikTok followers should be aware of the fact that they are putting their privacy at risk, says the report by DFRLab. There are around 50 apps on Google Play Store that provide inauthentic engagement services including likes, followers and shares but also ask for access to several features or data on phone.

After installing such apps, they demand many permissions on an Android device. They often ask for access to the contact list of Phone and the permission to modify the content. The privacy policies of many apps are missing and even if they have, they are usually copied from other apps.

Google’s rule demands that Play Store apps and their developers should tell how they collect data and how it is used and shared. So far Google also has not commented on this particular issue.

Also read: To What Extent do Top Tech Companies Track your Online Activities?

There are many scam apps on Play Store and not all deliver as they promise. Many apps claim to offer followers in between one to seven days and during that time, they flood phones with ads. One of the apps asks to share 10 videos on TikTok before it further shares the content. Another app asked to use a certain hashtag to get the likes or another asking to watch a video to show that you are human.

Most apps that tout to increase fake engagement offer little to no results, but one thing that they do amazingly well is snoop on your data with full force and probably sell it to highest bidder.

Facebook decides to interfere with your time zone too!

The experts at Facebook have releases a time-keeping service titled the time.facebook.com. According to reports, the timekeeping software will work in a similar manner as time.google.com and time.apple.com.

Of course, there will be some modifications!

According to Facebook, inaccuracy in timekeeping can lead to a number of missed appointments and delays. However, their new public time-keeping service relies on a combination of satellite data and their own service to minimize any imprecision in time.

Facebook also highlights that in everyday circumstances like setting the oven timer – a minute difference won’t matter much. But it is an important consideration for other services that are dependent on making transactions in different data centers at the same time.

Facebook further explained that internet services are synced via a Network Time Protocol (NTP). Even our computers and mobile phones are coordinated with the NTP that syncs our clocks to UCT or Universal Coordinated Time.

But after a thorough investigation, Facebook concludes that there is some inaccuracy with the NTP. It is popular but not precise.

In order to rectify the time difference between their data servers, Facebook went ahead to make their own. According to the company, the same method is offered by Google and Apple as well. However, in the comparison - time.facebook.com is more precise by microseconds, instead of milliseconds.

The team acknowledges that it is not something life-changing but it certainly is helpful for processes that are time-stamped and any discrepancy in time could lead to potential problems.

You can also try out the new service by Facebook and coordinate your system’s time with the social media network by visiting time.facebook.com.

WHO to the Rescue: WhatsApp Goes Extra Miles to Help People Overcome Fears of Coronavirus

World Health Organization (WHO) is coming up with all possible ways to provide information regarding coronavirus.

Social media platforms including Facebook and WhatsApp are try their best to spread the facts and curb the misinformation.

The struggle of distributing “authentic” content in timely manner is a real struggle, in the past WhatsApp has faced a lot of criticism for facilitating fake news.

The coronavirus that initially originated from Wuhan, China is now stated as a Global pandemic by WHO. With its horrendous outbreak, it has affected millions of people and has claimed many lives already...and it’s still spreading! Almost every country is taking quarantine and social distancing measures to combat the disease.

In these times of global social distress, people are staying at home all the time, with restaurants, bars, malls, and other recreational activities at a halt. This has prompted the extensive use of smartphones and mobile applications, social media sites taking the lead amongst them all. Facebook, Instagram, and WhatsApp have become the major sources of communication. Recently, Facebook, YouTube, and other applications took measures to stop spreading false news, and now WhatsApp is taking responsible measures in collaboration with the World Health Organization.

On Friday, WHO launched a chat bot for WhatsApp messenger app where it provides details, precautionary measures and other authentic information regarding coronavirus. All user around the world who have Whatsapp installed on their devices can simply start conversation with bot by simply adding this number in contacts +41798931892 and sending a simple hi. This is an effective, easy and safe way to gain information and clear all the misconceptions and myths regarding this pandemic, and the virus itself!

Also read: Facebook suggests everybody to take social distancing seriously

This feature will also provide answers to frequently asked questions about this virus. The Facebook-owned messaging app has launched a Coronavirus Information Center to help you stay up to date with the latest official health information.

It is one of the best steps taken by these social media infotainment sites to help share reliable information and bust the myths and all falsified claims regarding the vicious COVID-19, the disease caused by the coronavirus. People need to become more responsible in sharing news too because it is very easy to spread misinformation and propaganda nowadays through these media. This global pandemic is not a joke, as it has now infected more than 265,000 people and killed more than 11,000 globally.

Be vigilant and stay safe everyone! That is the need of the hour.

Here's how to get the right facts from WHO right in your Whatsapp messenger app

Google and YouTube Introduces New Resource Pages to Help Teachers and Families to Educate Students At Home

As the Coronavirus has taken over almost all over the world, the countries are shutting down. Some people are going into self-isolation while others are put into quarantine by the government and health officials. Schools, offices, universities, market places, cinemas, and other public gathering venues are being shut down to fight the highly contagious virus of Corona. Amidst this time of fear and panic; YouTube and Google have launched new resource pages which will help families in isolation and quarantine to teach their kids at home while their schools and other educational institutes remain closed.

The pages are going to effectively help teachers and students in the process of learning and educating during the crisis. The page of Google is called ‘Teach from Home’ and it offers many recommendations on how teachers can teach while staying at home with the help of Google products. The pages are simple and clean, currently, there are suggestions including how teachers can do a group video call with Google Hangouts or how online quizzes can be made by using Google Forms.

Apart from this, the ‘Teach from Home’ also has a ‘Teach from Home Toolkit’ which can help the users to personalize their experience on these pages as well as to help the users to organize their stuff into slides. The pages of ‘Teach from Home’ are currently available only in the English language. However, its toolkit is available in other ten languages including Arabic, German, Danish, French, Spanish, Polish and Italian. Google announced that more languages will be a part of this toolkit soon. Apart from all this, Google is also launching a Distance Learning Fund (DLF) which is formed in response to COVID-19. The money generated from this fund will be given to the education partners of Google so that they provide good learning opportunities to the kids during this Corona Virus pandemic.

Also read: New Study Reveals How Long Coronavirus Can Survive on Cardboard, Plastic and Steel

Like Google, YouTube also has a resource which is called ‘Learn@Home’. It highlights the educational channels on YouTube which students can watch at home on the recommendation of their teachers. This page has categories for all age groups of children and adults. YouTube will be partnering with a lot of educational institutes including the Khan Academy for their resource page.

The service of ‘Learn@Home’ is also available currently in English but will soon be available in Korean, French, Japanese, French, Chinese, etc. the channels that are currently mentioned on the resource pages are Discovery Education, Crash Courses, PBS Kids, Cool School, and Sesame Street. But soon more channels will be highlighted too.

Read next: Google launches website and tools dedicated to COVID-19

Google launches website and tools dedicated to COVID-19

The outbreak of coronavirus has created a panic situation all over the globe. While citizens are strictly advised to stay home by government officials, health authorities are crumbling under the weight of growing diagnoses.

In these crucial times, various organizations are lending a helping hand in their community by rationing groceries, providing educational and entertainment materials, donating blood and simply reaching out with emotional support.

Tech companies including Facebook, Google, Microsoft, and Twitter are also doing their part during the pandemic and preventing misinformation from spreading on their platforms through different protocols. They are also highlighting relevant information regarding the illness to keep the visitors updated.

And now Google has introduced a dedicated website that would include comprehensive information about the coronavirus.

Coronavirus is a type of respiratory illness that was first ‘identified’ in the Wuhan district of China, in December 2019. Since then, the contagious disease has spread like wildfire with over 284,000 diagnoses and 11,000 + deaths globally.

To help the users, reach medical safety in a timely manner, Google has launched its ‘Information and Resource Website.’ Apart from general information such as symptoms, prevention, and statistics regarding the disease, the website will include directions to the health departments and access to test results.

The page also includes a ‘resources’ page with the help of YouTube which will consist of videos on various topics such as stay at home tips, family activities, meditation guide, recipes, and indoor exercises.

Also read: YouTube Will Start Displaying Trustworthy Coronavirus Related Videos On Its Homepage

Google also plans to add more information as they become available. In their statement, the search giant said that coronavirus is the most searched topic globally and the company wants to ensure that the worldwide population stays updated with the correct information.

Alongside the website, Google has added a COVID-19 warning message to all medical-related queries on Maps. The message is brief but directs the individuals to call their doctor before visiting the specific COVID-19 office if they suspect of being infected with the coronavirus.

Has anybody else seen this Google Maps COVID-19 alert? pic.twitter.com/5DKtLOjP2T
— Roei Eisenberg (@roeiwrites) March 20, 2020

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