Dec 19
Dec 19
The reality TV genre has pretty much got all bases covered — there’s even a TV show featuring people… watching TV — but now live-gaming is making its way into the fold with Stream On, by Twitch Studios. The brand’s first-ever game show features c…
Dec 19
As part of its ongoing efforts to build a safe community, Facebook today announced that it’s now offering new tools to prevent harassment on Facebook and Messenger. The features have been developed based on feedback from users as well as organizations and groups that represent groups who disproportionately experience harassment like women and journalists.
The new features that Facebook has introduced today will help proactively recognize and prevent unwanted contact like friend requests and messages when someone a user has blocked sets up a new account or tries to contact them by another account they use.
It’s common for Facebook users to encounter the same harasser they’ve blocked from a different account. To prevent such encounters, Facebook is building on existing features that prevent fake and inauthentic accounts.
These automated features will help Facebook identify fake accounts more quickly and block millions of them at registration. It relies on various signals like IP address to proactively recognize such accounts and prevent their owners from sending a message or friend request.
Users will now have the option to ignore a Messenger conversation and automatically move it out of their inbox without having to block the sender. This will also disable notifications for that conversation and users will be able to read the messages without the sender finding out that they’ve been read. This feature will eventually support group messages as well.
Facebook Introduces New Tools To Prevent Harassment , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Dec 19
Ads are the primary source of revenue for online publishers. The vast majority of publishers stick to accepted practices that balance their crucial revenue streams against user experience. A handful of publishers rely on annoying and disruptive ads which is why people tend to use ad blockers. The problem with ad blockers is that they block all ads indiscriminately and this hurts legitimate publishers. Google has built an ad blocker into Chrome but it’s going to function a bit differently. The company has revealed that the ad blocker will start doing its thing from February 15th next year.
The Coalition for Better Ads has a Better Ads Standard to help companies like Google improve users’ experience with online ads. Google announced in June this year that it would support the Better Ads Standards in early 2018.
If a website violates the standards it will be reported to them via the Ad Experience Report. They will be able to submit their site for re-review once the violations have been fixed.
Google today confirmed that Chrome will automatically block all ads from sites that have a “failing” status in the Ad Experience Report for more than 30 days. Ads that don’t conform to these standards will be blocked while ads that do won’t be touched.
It’s different from third-party ad blockers that block all ads indiscriminately. Legitimate publishers have nothing to worry about.
Chrome’s Ad Blocker Will Start Functioning From February 15th, 2018 , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Dec 19
The White House has shut down its public petition website but don’t worry, it’s just a temporary measure. It has confirmed that an updated version of the petition website will go live in the near future. The site was taken offline late last night after 11 months of silence on it. The White House has promised to respond to public concerns raised through petitions in 2018.
The AP reports that the administration said that the platform was extensively used by its critics and less frequently by its allies. The White House plans to launch a new petition site in January.
A White House official told the scribe that all existing petitions and responses will be restored in January 2018. Petitions that reach the required 100,000 signatures will also start receiving responses then.
The official has also said that the new petition site is going to save taxpayers $1.3 million annually without really going into the details of actually how it’s going to do that.
The administration hasn’t responded to any of the 17 petitions that reached the required number of signatures since President Trump came into office on January 20th, 2017.
Some of the petitions call on the president to release his tax returns and to place his assets in a blind trust. Others call on the president to either preserve or stop funding for the National Endowment for the Arts and the National Endowment for the Humanities.
White House Petition Site Shut Down Temporarily , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Dec 19
Facebook launched its social virtual reality experience dubbed Spaces earlier this year. Given that it owns Oculus, it wasn’t surprising to see that Spaces was launched as an Oculus Rift-exclusive. The company today confirmed that it has added cross-platform functionality to Spaces. What this means is that HTC Vive owners can finally access Spaces and hang out with their friends who own a Rift in a virtual reality environment.
Facebook says all Spaces features that were present on the Rift will be available to Vive users as well. They can create their own avatars, view Facebook photos and 360 degree videos, draw with markers, play games, make Messenger video calls, go Live, and more.
Since Spaces is now cross-platform, Oculus Rift users can now hang out with their friends who own a HTC Vive in a virtual reality environment and vice versa.
The company also says that while this is the first time that it has expanded Spaces to a new platform, this is only the start. It’s working to bring Facebook Spaces to more virtual reality platforms and devices in the future. This means that Spaces will eventually land on headsets from companies like Google and Microsoft in due time.
HTC Vive owners can visit this link to download Spaces on their headset right away.
Facebook Spaces VR Experience Released For HTC Vive , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Dec 19
The congressionally-mandated National Security Report was released by the White House yesterday. The document details the current administration’s take on national security. The detailed report includes a mention of 5G wireless technology. The administration has declared the rollout of a nationwide 5G wireless service as a national security priority. This priority was mentioned in the section about improving the country’s infrastructure.
“We will improve America’s digital infrastructure by deploying a secure 5G Internet capability nationwide.” the National Security Strategy report says. Natural gas was the only other national security priority that was called out in the infrastructure section.
A nationwide 5G network will be made possible by a set of standards and technologies that interoperate to provide ultra-fast data connectivity. The end user will see latency and bandwidth improvements.
A lot of work is already being done in this area for the commercial advancement of 5G networks. Verizon, the country’s largest mobile carrier, has already announced that it’s going to launch its 5G network in five cities across the country next year.
Just how soon companies working on the advancement of commercial 5G are able to deploy their networks remains to be seen. A recommendation from the White House can only do so much to clear the technological obstacles that have to be cleared before a nationwide 5G network can be rolled out.
The full National Security Strategy report can be downloaded from the White House’s website.
5G Wireless Service Is Now A National Security Priority , original content from Ubergizmo. Read our Copyrights and terms of use.
Dec 19
Allegations against lawmakers have forced congressional leaders to pull back the curtain on taxpayer-funded settlements.
Dec 19
So very accurate. 😂
Dec 19
The singer’s first full-length in 15 years is out in February.
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