Google has clapped back in tremendous fashion at Epic Games, which earlier this month decided to make the phenomenally popular Fortnite available for Android via its own website instead of Google’s Play Store. Unfortunately, the installer had a phenomenally dangerous security flaw in it that would allow a malicious actor to essentially install any software they wanted. Google wasted exactly zero time pointing out this egregious mistake. By way of a short explanation why this was even happening, Epic explained when it announced its plan that it would be good to have “competition among software sources on Android,” and that the best would “succeed based on merit.” Everyone of course understood that what he meant was that Epic didn’t want to share the revenue from its cash cow with Google, which takes 30 percent of in-app purchases. Many warned that this was a security risk for several reasons, for example that users would have to enable app installations from unknown sources — something most users have no reason to do. And the Play Store has other protections and features, visible and otherwise, that are useful for users. Google, understandably, was not amused with Epic’s play, which no doubt played a part in the decision to scrutinize the download and installation process — though I’m sure the safety of its users was also a motivating factor. And wouldn’t you know it, they found a whopper right off the bat. In a thread posted a week after the Fortnite downloader went live, a Google engineer by the name of Edward explained that the installer basically would allow an attacker to install anything they want using it. The Fortnite installer basically downloads an APK (the package for Android apps), stores it locally, then launches it. But because it was stored on shared external storage, a bad guy could swap in a new file for it to launch, in what’s called a “man in the disk” attack. And because the installer only checked that the name of the APK is right, as long as the attacker’s file is called “com.epicgames.fortnite,” it would be installed! Silently, and with lots of extra permissions too, if they want, because of how the unknown sources installation policies work. Not good! Edward pointed out this could be fixed easily and in a magnificently low-key bit of shade-throwing helpfully linked to a page on the Android developer site outlining the basic feature Epic should have used. To Epic’s credit, its engineers jumped on the problem immediately and had a fix in the works by that very afternoon and deployed by the next one. Epic InfoSec then requested Google to wait 90 days before publishing the information. As you can see, Google was not feeling generous. One week later (that’s today) and the flaw has been published on the Google Issue Tracker site in all its… well, not glory exactly. Really, the opposite of glory. This seems to have been Google’s way of warning any would-be Play Store mutineers that they would not be given gentle handling. Epic Games CEO Tim Sweeney was likewise unamused. In a comment provided to Android Central — which, by the way, predicted that this exact thing would happen — he took the company to task for its “irresponsible” decision to “endanger users.”
Indeed, companies really should try not to endanger their users for selfish reasons. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/24/fortnites-android-installer-shipped-with-an-epic-security-flaw/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/177368859376 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com
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It’s not just parents who are worrying about their children’s device usage. According to a new study released by Pew Research Center this week, U.S. teens are now taking steps to limit themselves from overuse of their phone and its addictive apps, like social media. A majority, 54% of teens, said they spend too much time on their phone, and nearly that many – 52% – said they are trying to limit their phone use in various ways. In addition, 57% say they’re trying to limit social media usage and 58% are trying to limit video games. The fact that older children haven’t gotten a good handle on balanced smartphone usage points to a failure on both parents’ parts and the responsibilities of technology companies to address the addictive nature of our devices. For years, instead of encouraging more moderate use of smartphones, as the tools they’re meant to be, app makers took full advantage of smartphones’ always-on nature to continually send streams of interruptive notifications that pushed users to constantly check in. Tech companies even leveraged psychological tricks to reward us each time we launched their app, with dopamine hits that keep users engaged. Device makers loved this addiction because they financially benefited from app sales and in-app purchases, in addition to device sales. So they built ever more tools to give apps access to users’ attention, instead of lessening it. For addicted teens, parents were of little help as they themselves were often victims of this system, too. Today, tech companies are finally waking up to the problem. Google and Apple have now both built in screen time monitoring and control tools into their mobile operating systems, and even dopamine drug dealers like Facebook, Instagram and YouTube have begun to add screen time reminders and other “time well spent” features. But these tools have come too late to prevent U.S. children from developing bad habits with potentially harmful side effects. Pew says that 72% of teens are reaching for their phones as soon as they wake up; four-in-ten feel anxious without their phone; 56% report that not have their phone with them can make them feel lonely, upset or anxious; 51% feel their parents are distracted by phones during conversations (72% of parents say this is true, too, when trying to talk to teens); and 31% say phones distract them in class. The problems are compounded by the fact that smartphones aren’t a luxury any longer – they’re in the hands of nearly all U.S. teens, 45% of whom are almost constantly online. The only good news is that today’s teens seem to be more aware of the problem, even if their parents failed to teach balanced use of devices in their own home. Nine-in-ten teens believe that spending too much time online is a problem, and 60% say it’s a major problem. 41% say they spend too much time on social media. In addition, some parents are starting to take aim at the problem, as well, with 57% reporting they’ve set some screen time restrictions for their teens. Today’s internet can be a toxic place, and not one where people should spend large amounts of time. Social networking one the top activities taking place on smartphones, reports show. But many of these networks were built by young men who couldn’t conceive of all the ways things could go wrong. They failed to build in robust controls from day one to prevent things like bullying, harassment, threats, misinformation, and other issues. Instead, these protections have been added on after the fact – after the problems became severe. And, some could argue, that was too late. Social media is something that’s now associated with online abuse and disinformation, with comment thread fights and trolling, and with consequences that range from teen suicides to genocide. If we are unable to give up our smartphones and social media for the benefits they do offer, at the very least we should be monitoring and moderating our use of them at this point. Thankfully, as this study shows, there’s growing awareness of this among younger users, and maybe, some of them will even do something about it in the future – when they’re the bosses, the parents, and the engineers, they can craft new work/life policies, make new house rules, and write better code. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/24/a-majority-of-u-s-teens-are-taking-steps-to-limit-smartphone-and-social-media-use/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/177350927766 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com PayPal is revamping its mobile app. Again. In an effort to keep pace with newcomers like the bank-owned Zelle, PayPal says its new app will focus on making it easier to use its core features – that is, sending and requesting money. That means many of the app’s homescreen buttons – like Offers, Donate, Order Ahead and others are being tucked away underneath a new “More” menu to eliminate some of the clutter. The PayPal homescreen had gotten a little too busy with all the extra features it has been promoting, which aren’t central to the PayPal experience. For example, it threw in a button suggesting “Invest with Acorns,” after taking a stake in the mobile investing app that rounds up purchases and automatically invests the extra change on your behalf. It has been pushing its Order Ahead functionality for years, even though no one thinks to launch a payments app when they’re hungry. Now these buttons no longer get top billing and valuable homescreen space. Above: PayPal’s app today, before the update However, even though PayPal is removing a lot of these extras from the homescreen, it’s not actually giving its “Send” and “Request” buttons more room. In fact, they’re getting a little less. Today, those buttons are in the center of the homescreen, hosted in a big, greenish-blue banner. The updated app relocates them to a bottom bar. However, it reverts the app’s color scheme to PayPals’ more familiar dark blue-and-white branding, so the relocated buttons are actually easier to see. The homescreen instead dedicates most of its room to a new personalized notifications section. Here, users will see alerts about money they’ve received or payment requests from others in big, blue cards you can swipe through horizontally. Below this, is a strip of profile icons and names of those you’ve recently paid – the theory being that PayPal is often used among the same set of family, friends or businesses. This makes it easier to make your next payment to one of your “regulars.” Beneath this strip, your PayPal balance is displayed, while other notifications and settings are accessed through small buttons at the top of the screen, as before. The overall design feels more in tune with PayPal’s brand than the last update. Though the prior big revamp, which was over two years ago, modernized things up a bit, it did so with too-light icons, small fonts and odd, off-brand color choices. PayPal says the new app is rolling out now on Android to select markets, including Australia and Italy. It will then roll out to the U.S. and other markets worldwide, followed by a release on iOS. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/24/paypal-revamps-its-app-to-remove-clutter-add-more-personalization/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/177347866256 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com A new app called HiHello is taking aim at business cards. While plenty of apps in the past have tried to kill the business card, they never achieved critical mass. Mainly, this is because most required that both parties — the business card holder and recipient — have their app installed. HiHello is different. Instead of forcing everyone to download its app, it simply generates a QR code that can be scanned by anyone with a modern smartphone. HiHello specifically takes advantage of the fact that today’s smartphones now have QR code readers built in — users no longer need to download a separate QR code scanner app to exchange information over this format. On iPhone, you can use the native iOS Camera app to scan QR codes. And on Android, Google Lens (a part of Google Assistant) offers similar functionality. (Although this should really be in its camera, too, ahem.) What this means is that when a HiHello user wants to share their contact information with another person, all they need to do is have the recipient scan the QR code the HiHello app generates. The recipient doesn’t have to download or install anything, and is able to quickly save the contact information right into their phone’s address book. HiHello also allows you to create different types of cards with different information on them. For example, you could have one card for your business, one for your side hustle and one for personal connections. This way, you can keep some of your information private, as needed. You could create a card without your cell number for those contacts you didn’t want to be able to reach you by phone; or you could create a card with your virtual number (e.g. a Skype line or Burner) for dating prospects. You could create a card with your home address, cell and personal email for your family and friends. Or you could make one with your office address, work email, fax and office line for business contacts. And so on. The idea for the app comes from K9 Ventures founder Manu Kumar, who along with co-founder and Caltech and Columbia alum Hari Ravi, and a small team of fewer than half a dozen, has been working on the app following the release of iOS 11, which introduced the QR code reader functionality in the native camera app. Kumar, in particular, has been trying to solve the problem of business cards for years. In 2009, he co-founded CardMunch to turn business cards into digital contacts. The company was sold to LinkedIn a few years later, but LinkedIn abandoned it and shut it down. “LinkedIn…failed to recognize the potential for what this could do for them, and in a typical big company fashion proceeded to ruin and eventually kill the product,” Kumar wrote in a blog post about HiHello’s launch. “Yes, I’m still peeved,” he added. (So are we.) Kumar also noted that another problem with business cards is that people have to carry around different ones to represent their different roles or jobs. “The information you choose to share with someone is often dependent on the context in which you are meeting that person,” he said. To address this issue, HiHello allows users to create multiple cards with different information on them, which can be shared via the QR code scan in person, or sent out via text message or email — without exposing the email or phone number tied to your phone. HiHello has also made it easy to find the right card quickly through its iOS and Android widgets that let you choose which card you want to share with just a tap. The app is straightforward to set up and use. You’re first walked through a form where you enter your basic contact information to get started, and can then proceed to customize the different card types like “work” and “personal,” for example. You also can just choose to share your phone or email. (See above photo). When someone scans the QR code, it launches a website hosted on hihello.com where there’s a link to save the information directly to their phone’s contacts. This link can be sent in other ways right from the QR code screen as well, thanks to buttons at the bottom for “Message” and “Mail.” The new app is the first step in a bigger vision the company has for contact and relationship management, Kumar notes. Palo Alto-based HiHello, a team of five, is backed by Kumar’s K9 Ventures. The app is a free download on iOS and Android. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/cardmunch-founder-returns-with-hihello-a-new-app-aiming-to-replace-business-cards/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/177255029761 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Facebook has been a bit slow to adopt the voice computing revolution. It has no voice assistant, its smart speaker is still in development, and some apps like Instagram aren’t fully equipped for audio communication. But much of that is set to change judging by experiments discovered in Facebook’s code, plus new patent filings. Developing voice functionality could give people more ways to use Facebook in their home or on the go. Its forthcoming Portal smart speaker is reportedly designed for easy video chatting with distant family, including seniors and kids that might have trouble with phones. Improved transcription and speech-to-text-to-speech features could connect Messenger users across input mediums and keep them on the chat app rather than straying back to SMS. But Facebook’s voice could be drowned out by the din of the crowd if it doesn’t get moving soon. All the major mobile hardware and operating system makers now have their own voice assistants like Siri, Alexa, Google Assistant and Samsung Bixby, as well as their own smart speakers. In Q2 2018, Canalys estimates that Google shipped 5.4 million Homes, and Amazon shipped 4.1 million Echoes. Apple’s HomePod is off to a slow start with less than 6 percent of the market, behind Alibaba’s smart speaker, according to Strategy Analytics. Facebook’s spotty record around privacy might deflect potential customers to its competitors. Given Facebook is late to the game, it will need to arrive with powerful utility that solves real problems. Here’s a look at Facebook’s newest developments in the voice space, and how its past experiments lay the groundwork for its next big push. Aloha voiceFacebook is developing its own speech recognition feature under the name Aloha for both the Facebook and Messenger apps, as well as external hardware — likely the video chat smart speaker it’s developing. Code inside the Facebook and Messenger Android apps dug up by frequent TechCrunch tipster and mobile researcher Jane Manchun Wong gives the first look at a prototype for the Aloha user interface. Labeled “Aloha Voice Testing,” as a user speaks while in a message thread, a horizontal blue bar expands and contracts to visualize the volume of speech while recognizing and transcribing into text. The code describes the feature as having connections with external Wi-Fi or Bluetooth devices. It’s possible that the software will run on both Facebook’s hardware and software, similar to Google Assistant that runs both on phones and Google Home speakers. [Update: As seen below, the Aloha feature contains a “Your mobile device is now connected Portal” screen, confirming that name for the Facebook video chat smart speaker device.] Facebook declined to comment on the video, with its spokesperson Ha Thai telling me, “We test stuff all the time — nothing to share today but my team will be in touch in a few weeks about hardware news coming from the AR/VR org.” It unclear if that hardware news will focus on voice and Aloha or Portal, or if it’s merely related to Facebook’s Oculus Connect 5 conference on September 25th. A source previously told me that years ago, Facebook was interested in developing its own speech recognition software designed specifically to accurately transcribe how friends talk to each other. These speech patterns are often more casual, colloquial, rapid and full of slang than the way we formally address computerized assistants like Amazon Alexa or Google Home. Wong also found the Aloha logo buried in Facebook’s code, which features volcano imagery. I can confirm that I’ve seen a Facebook Aloha Setup chatbot with a similar logo on the phones of Facebook employees. If Facebook can figure this out, it could offer its own transcription features in Messenger and elsewhere on the site so users could communicate across mediums. It could potentially let you dictate comments or messages to friends while you have your hands full or can’t look at your screen. The recipient could then read the text instead of having to listen to it like a voice message. The feature also could be used to power voice navigation of Facebook’s apps for better hands-free usage. Speaker and camera patentsFacebook’s video chat smart speaker was reportedly codenamed Aloha originally but later renamed Portal, Alex Heath of Business Insider and now Cheddar first reported in August 2017. The $499 competitor to the Amazon Echo Show was initially set to launch at Facebook’s F8 in May, but Bloomberg reported it was pushed back amid concerns that it would exacerbate the privacy scandal ignited by Cambridge Analytica. A new patent filing reveals Facebook was considering building a smart speaker as early as December 26th, 2016 when it filed a patent for a cube-shaped device. The patent diagrams an “ornamental design for a speaker device” invented by Baback Elmieh, Alexandre Jais and John Proksch-Whaley. Facebook had acquired Elmieh’s startup Nascent Objects in September of that year and he’s now a technical project lead at Facebook’s secretive Building 8 hardware lab. The startup had been building modular hardware, and earlier this year he was awarded patents for work at Facebook on several modular cameras. The speaker and camera technology Facebook has been developing could potentially evolve into what’s in its video chat speaker. The fact that Facebook has been exploring speaker technology for so long and that the lead on these patents is still running a secret project in Building 8 strengthens the case that Facebook has big plans for the voice space. Instagram voice messagingAnd finally, Instagram is getting deeper into the voice game, too. A screenshot generated from the code of Instagram’s Android app by Wong reveals the development of a voice clip messaging feature heading to Instagram Direct. This would allow you to speak into Instagram and send the audio clips similar to a walkie-talkie, or the voice messaging feature Facebook Messenger added back in 2013. You can see the voice button in the message composer at the bottom of the screen, and the code explains that to “Voice message, press and hold to record.” The prototype follows the recent launch of video chat in Instagram Direct, another feature on which TechCrunch broke the news thanks to Wong’s research. An Instagram spokesperson declined to comment, as is typical when features are spotted in its code but aren’t publicly testing yet, saying, “Unfortunately nothing more to share on this right now.” The long road to VoicebookFacebook has long tinkered in the voice space. In 2015, it acquired natural language processing startup Wit.ai that ran a developer platform for building speech interfaces, though it later rolled Wit.ai into Messenger’s platform team to focus on chatbots. Facebook also began testing automatically transcribing Messenger voice clips into text in 2015 in what was likely the groundwork for the Aloha feature seen above. The company also revealed its M personal assistant that could accomplish tasks for users, but it was only rolled out to a very limited user base and later turned off. The next year, Facebook’s head of Messenger David Marcus claimed at TechCrunch Disrupt that voice “is not something we’re actively working on right now,” but added that “at some point it’s pretty obvious that as we develop more and more capabilities and interactions inside of Messenger, we’ll start working on voice exchanges and interfaces.” However, a source had told me Facebook’s secretive Language Technology Group was already exploring voice opportunities. Facebook also began testing its Live Audio feature for users who want to just broadcast sound and not video. By 2017, Facebook was offering automatic captioning for Pages’ videos, and was developing a voice search feature. And this year, Facebook began trying voice clips as status updates and Stories for users around the world who might have trouble typing in their native tongue. But executives haven’t spoken much about the voice initiatives. The most detailed comments we have come from Facebook’s head of design Luke Woods at TechCrunch Disrupt 2017 where he described voice search saying it was, “very promising. There are lots of exciting things happening…. I love to be able to talk to the car to navigate to a particular place. That’s one of many potential use cases.” It’s also one that voice transcription could aid. It’s still unclear exactly what Facebook’s Aloha will become. It could be a de facto operating system or voice interface and transcription feature for Facebook’s smart speaker and apps. It could become a more full-fledged voice assistant like M, but with audio. Or perhaps it could become Facebook’s bridge to other voice ecosystems, serving as Facebook’s Alexa Skill or Google Assistant Action. When I asked Woods “How would Facebook on Alexa work?,” he said with a smile “That’s a very interesting question! No comment.” from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/facebook-voice/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/177255029596 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com A new way to attack Facebook is to fraudulently report a news story as false in hopes of reducing its visibility, either because someone wants to censor it or just doesn’t agree with it. Sometimes known as “brigading,” a concerted effort by trolls to flag a piece of content can reduce its visibility. Facebook now sends stories reported as false to third-party fact checkers, and these purposefully inaccurate reports can clog the already-overcrowded queues that fact checkers struggle to worth through. That’s why Facebook gives users a trustworthiness score ranging from 0 to 1 depend on the reliability of their flags of false news, The Washington Post reports. If they flag something as false news but fact checkers verify it as true, that could hurt their score and reduce how heavily Facebook factors in their future flagging. If users consistently report false news that’s indeed proven to be false, their score improves and Facebook will trust their future flagging more. Facebook’s News Feed product manager Tessa Lyons confirmed the scoring system exists. There’s currently no way to see your own or someone else’s trustworthiness score. And other signals are used to compute the score as well, though Facebook won’t reveal them for fear of trolls gaming the system. Friend-ranking scoresThis isn’t the only way Facebook ranks users, though. It assigns you a shifting score of affinity toward each of your friends that determines how frequently you see them in the News Feed. This “friend-ranking” score is essentially a measure of graph distance from you to someone else. If you like a ton of someone’s posts, get tagged in photos with them, search for them, view their profile, communicate with them, have lots of mutual friends, are in the same Groups and have similar biographical characteristics like location and age, your score toward them is lower and you’ll see more of them in your feed. However, they have a different score for you depending on their behavior, so constantly viewing someone else’s profile won’t make you show up in their feed more if they don’t reciprocate the interest. I first reported on these friend scores almost exactly seven years ago, and you can still view them for yourself using this browser bookmarklet built by Jeremy Keeshin. Visit this site, drag the “Facebook Friends Rankings” link into your desktop browser’s bookmark bar, open Facebook while logged in, and tap the bookmarklet to reveal the Friend Ranking scores of your friends. It snoops the Facebook JavaScript to pull out the scores. The people you see at the top are who you’re closest to. The need for this score highlights the difficulties of Facebook’s battle against fake news. Between subjectivity and purposeful trolling, there’s a lot of noise coming in with the signal about what should be removed. Anyone saying Facebook should have easily solved the fake news problems is likely underappreciating the nuance required and the intelligent human adversaries Facebook must defeat. Facebook has a huge array of signals it can use to calculate Friend Rankings or trustworthiness scores. The question will be whether it can intelligently sort those signals to make coherent inferences about what to show us and when to believe us. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/facebook-score/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/177244676896 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Braavo, a startup that provides financing to mobile app developers, is announcing that it has raised $6 million in Series A funding. The might not seem like much compared to the $70 million that Braavo announced raising last year, but that was debt financing, used to loan money to developers. This new round is equity financing, used to fund Braavo’s own operations and growth. Co-founder Mark Loranger told me Braavo was founded in 2015 in response to the “new dynamics” of mobile app businesses. And it’s worked with developers including Verv, Fanatee and Pixite. “The data is there to create ways to provide financing to companies that otherwise would have to raise more [venture funding] and dilute themselves,” Loranger said. For its first financing product, Braavo looks at Apple App Store and Google Play data, specifically the amount of money already earned by an app but not yet paid out. It can then provide an advance on some of that revenue. Loranger described Braavo’s newer product as “more exciting” and “more data-driven.” It looks at user acquisition, user engagement and revenue, projecting how revenue would grow if a developer had more money for user acquisition — and then it can provide debt financing for that growth. Braavo gets paid back as “a fixed percentage of future earnings,” Loranger said, so its incentives are aligned with the developers: “We only make our money back as they earn more revenue in the future.” And if app revenue doesn’t grow as anticipated, that just means Braavo gets paid back more slowly. “We’ve never, ever lost a dime,” he said. The company is also announcing the launch of a new analytics product that will allow businesses to track key metrics like the lifetime value of their customers. Loranger said this will be available for free to anyone to anyone with a “revenue-generating mobile app business.” Rather than charging for the product directly, the goal is to “create more success for mobile app business that may end up qualifying for funding.” The new round brings Braavo’s total equity financing to nearly $8 million. It was led by e.ventures, with participation from SWS Venture Capital (founded by Green Dot CEO Steve Streit) and Shipt CEO Bill Smith. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/braavo-series-a/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/177244676746 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Tinder is today rolling out what may be one of its smartest additions yet with the launch of Tinder U, a feature designed specifically for Tinder users in college. Once enabled, students with a .edu email address will be able to register with their school, then swipe on students who also attend their school or others nearby. Beyond limiting potential matches to other students, the overall Tinder experience is unchanged. Students will still be able to view each others’ profiles, swipe right and left to match or pass, message mutual matches, use Super Likes, and more. To use Tinder U, students will first have to be geolocated on campus and log in to the Tinder app using their .edu email address. They’ll then have to check their inbox for the verification email and tap the button to confirm their account. After completing this process, users will be in the Tinder U experience the next time they launch the app. Here, students will see their school’s logo appear at the top of the screen, and individual profile photos will have flair on the bottom left to indicate the user’s school. Tinder U doesn’t prevent users from swiping off campus, however – using a toggle button at the top of the screen (see photo above), users can choose to swipe by location instead, or by Tinder Picks by toggling over to the diamond icon, if they’re a Gold member. Tinder U makes sense for the company, whose user base already skews younger – it has said before that half its user base is between 18 and 24, for example. And dating apps’ usage, in general, among this age group has roughly tripped from 10% in 2013 to 27% by 2016, according to Pew Research. And of course, there’s the fact that Tinder itself got its start on college campuses – a market that’s young, single, and more willing to adopt mobile dating apps than other, older demographics. The feature arrives at a time when Facebook is poised to enter the dating market – a market Tinder and its parent company Match Group today dominate. Tinder now has an estimated 50 million worldwide users, and nearly 3.8 million subscribers. “Five years ago at college campuses around the U.S, students first heard about Tinder through friends. Tinder spread like wildfire, because it was a really fun and easy way to meet people who went to school, but you didn’t know personally,” Match Group CEO Mandy Ginsberg recently said, when announcing the product. “We believe it is critical that Tinder maintains a strong foothold at universities around the globe, especially given that every 18-year-old who starts college is building a social life from scratch making new friends and starting new relationships.” Tinder says the new feature is launching initially on iOS devices at 4-year, accredited, not-for-profit schools in the U.S. that deliver courses in a traditional face-to-face learning format – meaning, no online universities or virtual schools will be supported. The company didn’t provide a timeframe for the Android release. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/tinders-latest-feature-tinder-u-is-only-for-college-students/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/177244676601 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Google Fit is getting a major update today. The company’s activity tracking app has been around for a few years now but until today, it pretty much worked and looked that same as on the day it launched. Today’s redesign is quite a departure from that old look and feel, though, and it also introduces quite a few new features that help take the service in a new direction. The most obvious new feature in the new version is that instead of only focusing on active minutes (or ‘Move Minutes’ as they are called now), Google has now introduced the concept of Heart Points. With this, you don’t just score points for moving, the app will also reward you for activities that actually get your heart beating a bit faster. Google Fit will give you one point for every minute of moderate activity and double points for more intense activities (think running or kickboxing). You won’t be able to buy anything with those points, but you’re more likely to live longer, so there’s that. Like before, Google Fit will automatically track your activities thanks to the sensors in your phone or Wear OS watch. You can always manually add activities, too, or use apps like Strava, Runkeeper, Endomondo and MyFitnessPal to get credit for the workouts you track with them. What’s also new in this update is actionable coaching, something that was sorely missing from the old version. It remains to be seen how useful this new feature is in day-to-day use, but the idea here is to give you feedback on how active you’ve been throughout the week and help you stay motivated. What I’m actually the most excited about, though, is the new look and feel. Based on the screenshots Google has shared so far, the app now provides you with far more details at a glance, without having to dig into timelines (which weren’t all that usable in the old version to begin with). The new version is now rolling out to Android and Wear OS users. from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/google-fit-gets-a-redesign-adds-heart-points-and-coaching/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/177244676466 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com Netflix is one of the highest-grossing apps on the iOS App Store, but it looks like the video streaming giant is contemplating how it might make an even bigger margin on its iPhone and iPad users. TechCrunch has learned and confirmed that Netflix, in its own words, is “testing the iTunes payment method” in 33 countries. More specifically, Netflix is testing how to bypass iTunes. Until September 30, new or lapsed subscribers in selected markets across Europe, Latin America and Asia will be unable pay using iTunes. They are instead getting redirected to the mobile web version to log payment details directly with Netflix. Others like Spotify also have moved users away from using iTunes to pay for subscriptions. It’s notable that both Spotify and Netflix have something else in common: Apple — now the world’s biggest company passing a $1 trillion market cap earlier this month — has made many big moves to encroach on their space, and thus it makes little sense for either company to cut Apple in more than it has to on its direct customer relationships. (You might say the same for Google.) Netflix’s iOS test was first spotted by NDTV in India last week, with users also flagging changes on Twitter. Journalist Manish Singh (in a tweet he then deleted) subsequently said Netflix was running a two-month experiment. A customer support agent contacted by us earlier today confirmed that the test has actually been running since June, starting first in 10 countries and then expanding to 33 from August 2 until September 30. “During this time, customers in these countries may experience any of the following when launching the Netflix app on an iOS (mobile or tablet) device: 1. Ability to sign up in app with only iTunes Mode Of Payment. 2. Ability to log into Netflix but not sign up (sign up only via mobile browser),” he wrote. “We are constantly innovating and testing new signup approaches on different platforms to better understand what our members like. Based on what we learn, we work to improve the Netflix experience for members everywhere.” Asked for more clarification, a spokesperson, provided a statement echoing the same words also used by the customer support agent. The full list of countries where the billing test is running is as follows: Argentina, Australia, Austria, Belgium, Brazil, Canada, Colombia, Croatia, Czech Republic, Denmark, Ecuador, Finland, France, Germany, Great Britain, Hungary, India, Indonesia, Italy, Japan, Korea, Malaysia, Mexico, Norway, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Slovakia, South Africa, Spain, Sweden, Taiwan and Thailand. Although Netflix is calling this a test, it’s notable that the company has been gradually shifting its customer relationships on other platforms to develop more direct billing with its users. As of May 2018, Netflix stopped allowing new or rejoining customers to use Google Play to pay for its service. “If you are currently billed by Google Play, you can continue to use Google Play billing until your account is cancelled,” the company notes on a help page about the change, which is in line with how it appears to be testing billing now on iOS. Changing the billing to a direct format means that Netflix bypasses giving Google and Apple a cut on those subscriptions. Currently, Apple takes a 30 percent cut on the first year of a subscription, which goes down to 15 percent for subsequent years. Apple has something of the upper hand especially when it comes to newer apps or those still building up their user bases: it controls the App Store on iOS devices, and with active billing details for a large number of these users, Apple greatly reduces friction for enticing users to sign up and subscribe to a service (the same goes for in-app purchases, too, although that is less relevant to Netflix). But the math and strategy change for the biggest app publishers, who have their own brands (and even their own memes). These might be more willing to take the chance of creating a little bit more friction in exchange for a bigger return. Although it’s not elaborating too much about what it is doing, this might be particularly the case for Netflix. In July, the company posted a miss in its quarterly revenues and subscriber additions. Growth may be slowing, so now might be a good time for the company to refocus the margins its making on its 130 million+ users. The test for payments comes at the same time that Netflix is making other tests and tweaks to its service, including an experiment to see how well video promos between episodes do with users (they seem to universally dislike them), and closing off the option to leave user reviews on videos. If the billing test grows, or becomes a permanent thing, as it has with Google, it looks like Apple might soon need to update its subscription pages for developers:
We’ll update this post as we learn more. Additional reporting Jon Russell from RSSMix.com Mix ID 8176981 https://techcrunch.com/2018/08/21/netflix-itunes-2/ http://www.gadgetscompared.com http://ikonografico.tumblr.com/post/177244676261 via http://www.gadgetscompared.com |
AuthorMy name is Alan and I love to read ebooks. Archives
November 2020
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