Posts Tagged: online

Apple Cash will offer virtual card numbers for online shopping

Apple Cash may soon offer a "virtual card number" in the iOS 17.4 beta that can be used to shop online where Apple Pay isn't available, according to a Reddit post spotted by 9to5Mac. The new feature promises a new security code for every transaction and the number can be accessed in Safari's Autofill for easy use. 

In the beta, Apple Cash users are prompted to "set up virtual card number." Once that's done, you can see it via the settings menu, including the card number, expiration date and security code. The number is separate from the one used for Apple Pay transactions and can be changed, according to 9to5Mac

As a reminder, Apple Cash is similar to a debit card, allowing you to send and receive money via Apple Pay and the Message app. Funds can be stored and it can be linked to a bank account or other debit card to transfer money back and forth. Apple Pay cashback earnings are paid off as Apple Cash, and funds can be used to pay off Apple Pay balances. 

Apple Cash used to be operated on the Discover Network, but Apple switched over to Visa back in 2022. Until now, though, Apple Cash has had no card number, so using it online was a non-starter. Apple says 15 percent of retailers still don't accept Apple Pay — so with the virtual card number, you might be able to pay with Apple Cash on those sites. The feature is still in beta on iOS 17.4, which is supposed to arrive in March. 

Apple Cash update adds 'virtual card number' for online shopping
Reddit/simpledsp

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/apple-cash-will-offer-virtual-card-numbers-for-online-shopping-123508385.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Naughty Dog cancels development on The Last of Us Online

Alas, The Last of Us Online will never see the light of day. Naughty Dog has announced that it has "made the incredibly difficult decision to stop" its development. It explains that the online team had a clear vision of the project and had already refined its gameplay. However, it soon became clear when the company was ramping the game up to full production that it was going to bite off more than it can chew. If it releases an online game, it has to dedicate all its resources to supporting post launch content in the future. That means becoming a studio that exclusively offers live gaming services — one with no capacity to release more single-player narrative games like the original The Last of Us titles. 

The studio first gave us a peek at concept art from the project in 2022, but it offered very little in terms of updates since. After the PlayStation Showcase in May, it admitted that it knows fans of the franchise are looking forward to hearing more about the game but that it realized that it needed more time to work on it and couldn't share details just yet. Bloomberg reported shortly after that, though, that the studio had already reassigned developers working on the project to other teams and was reconsidering its viability. Clearly, Naughty Dog has decided its path, and it doesn't lead to the release of an online title. The developer says it has "more than one ambitious, brand new single player game" in the works and will be sharing what's next when it's ready.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/naughty-dog-cancels-development-on-the-last-of-us-online-055333989.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

ESPN Bet online sportsbook to launch Nov. 14 in 17 states

ESPN Bet — a rebrand of the PENN Entertainment sportsbook — will launch in 17 states on November 14.
Digital Trends

Hitting the Books: The dangerous real-world consequences of our online attention economy

If reality television has taught us anything, it’s there’s not much people won’t do if offered enough money and attention. Sometimes, even just the latter. Unfortunately for the future prospects of our civilization, modern social media has focused upon those same character foibles and optimized them at a global scale, sacrifices at the altar of audience growth and engagement. In Outrage Machine, writer and technologist Tobias Rose-Stockwell, walks readers through the inner workings of these modern technologies, illustrating how they’re designed to capture and keep our attention, regardless of what they have to do in order to do it. In the excerpt below, Rose-Stockwell examines the human cost of feeding the content machine through a discussion on YouTube personality Nikocado Avocado’s rise to internet stardom.

 

lots of angry faces, black text white background
Legacy Lit

Excerpted from OUTRAGE MACHINE: How Tech Amplifies Discontent, Disrupts Democracy—And What We Can Do About It by Tobias Rose-Stockwell. Copyright © 2023 by Tobias Rose-Stockwell. Reprinted with permission of Legacy Lit. All rights reserved.


This Game Is Not Just a Game

Social media can seem like a game. When we open our apps and craft a post, the way we look to score points in the form of likes and followers distinctly resembles a strange new playful competition. But while it feels like a game, it is unlike any other game we might play in our spare time.

The academic C. Thi Nguyen has explained how games are different: “Actions in games are screened off, in important ways, from ordinary life. When we are playing basketball, and you block my pass, I do not take this to be a sign of your long-term hostility towards me. When we are playing at having an insult contest, we don’t take each other’s speech to be indicative of our actual attitudes or beliefs about the world.” Games happen in what the Dutch historian Johan Huizinga famously called “the magic circle”— where the players take on alternate roles, and our actions take on alternate meanings.

With social media we never exit the game. Our phones are always with us. We don’t extricate ourselves from the mechanics. And since the goal of the game designers of social media is to keep us there as long as possible, it’s an active competition with real life. With a constant type of habituated attention being pulled into the metrics, we never leave these digital spaces. In doing so, social media has colonized our world with its game mechanics.

Metrics are Money

While we are paid in the small rushes of dopamine that come from accumulating abstract numbers, metrics also translate into hard cash. Acquiring these metrics don’t just provide us with hits of emotional validation. They are transferable into economic value that is quantifiable and very real.

It’s no secret that the ability to consistently capture attention is an asset that brands will pay for. A follower is a tangible, monetizable asset worth money. If you’re trying to purchase followers, Twitter will charge you between $ 2 and $ 4 to acquire a new one using their promoted accounts feature.

If you have a significant enough following, brands will pay you to post sponsored items on their behalf. Depending on the size of your following in Instagram, for instance, these payouts can range from $ 75 per post (to an account with two thousand followers), up to hundreds of thousands of dollars per post (for accounts with hundreds of thousands of followers).

Between 2017 and 2021, the average cost for reaching a thousand Twitter users (the metric advertisers use is CPM, or cost per mille) was between $ 5 and $ 7. It costs that much to get a thousand eyeballs on your post. Any strategies that increase how much your content is shared also have a financial value.

Let’s now bring this economic incentive back to Billy Brady’s accounting of the engagement value of moral outrage. He found that adding a single moral or emotional word to a post on Twitter increased the viral spread of that content by 17 percent per word. All of our posts to social media exist in a marketplace for attention — they vie for the top of our followers’ feeds. Our posts are always competing against other people’s posts. If outraged posts have an advantage in this competition, they are literally worth more money.

For a brand or an individual, if you want to increase the value of a post, then including moral outrage, or linking to a larger movement that signals its moral conviction, might increase the reach of that content by at least that much. Moreover, it might actually improve the perception and brand affinity by appealing to the moral foundations of the brand’s consumers and employees, increasing sales and burnishing their reputation. This can be an inherently polarizing strategy, as a company that picks a cause to support, whose audience is morally diverse, might then alienate a sizable percentage of their customer base who disagree with that cause. But these economics can also make sense — if a company knows enough about its consumers’ and employees’ moral affiliations — it can make sure to pick a cause-sector that’s in line with its customers.

Since moral content is a reliable tool for capturing attention, it can also be used for psychographic profiling for future marketing opportunities. Many major brands do this with tremendous success — creating viral campaigns that utilize moral righteousness and outrage to gain traction and attention among core consumers who have a similar moral disposition. These campaigns also often get a secondary boost due to the proliferation of pile- ons and think pieces discussing these ad spots. Brands that moralize their products often succeed in the attention marketplace.

This basic economic incentive can help to explain how and why so many brands have begun to link themselves with online cause-related issues. While it may make strong moral sense to those decision-makers, it can make clear economic sense to the company as a whole as well. Social media provides measurable financial incentives for companies to include moral language in their quest to burnish their brands and perceptions.

But as nefarious as this sounds, moralization of content is not always the result of callous manipulation and greed. Social metrics do something else that influences our behavior in pernicious ways.

Audience Capture

In the latter days of 2016, I wrote an article about how social media was diminishing our capacity for empathy. In the wake of that year’s presidential election, the article went hugely viral, and was shared with several million people. At the time I was working on other projects full time. When the article took off, I shifted my focus away from the consulting work I had been doing for years, and began focusing instead on writing full time. One of the by-products of that tremendous signal from this new audience is the book you’re reading right now.

A sizable new audience of strangers had given me a clear message: This was important. Do more of it. When many people we care about tell us what we should be doing, we listen.

This is the result of “audience capture”: how we influence, and are influenced by those who observe us. We don’t just capture an audience — we are also captured by their feedback. This is often a wonderful thing, provoking us to produce more useful and interesting works. As creators, the signal from our audience is a huge part of why we do what we do.

But it also has a dark side. The writer Gurwinder Boghal has explained the phenomena of audience capture for influencers illustrating the story of a young YouTuber named Nicholas Perry. In 2016, Perry began a You- Tube channel as a skinny vegan violinist. After a year of getting little traction online, he abandoned veganism, citing health concerns, and shifted to uploading mukbang (eating show) videos of him trying different foods for his followers. These followers began demanding more and more extreme feats of food consumption. Before long, in an attempt to appease his increasingly demanding audience, he was posting videos of himself eating whole fast-food menus in a single sitting.

He found a large audience with this new format. In terms of metrics, this new format was overwhelmingly successful. After several years of following his audience’s continued requests, he amassed millions of followers, and over a billion total views. But in the process, his online identity and physical character changed dramatically as well. Nicholas Perry became the personality Nikocado — an obese parody of himself, ballooning to more than four hundred pounds, voraciously consuming anything his audience asked him to eat. Following his audience’s desires caused him to pursue increasingly extreme feats at the expense of his mental and physical health.

a horrifying before and after
Legacy Lit

Nicholas Perry, left, and Nikocado, right, after several years of building a following on YouTube. Source: Nikocado Avocado YouTube Channel.

Boghal summarizes this cross-directional influence.

When influencers are analyzing audience feedback, they often find that their more outlandish behavior receives the most attention and approval, which leads them to recalibrate their personalities according to far more extreme social cues than those they’d receive in real life. In doing this they exaggerate the more idiosyncratic facets of their personalities, becoming crude caricatures of themselves.

This need not only apply to influencers. We are signal-processing machines. We respond to the types of positive signals we receive from those who observe us. Our audiences online reflect back to us what their opinion of our behavior is, and we adapt to fit it. The metrics (likes, followers, shares, and comments) available to us now on social media allow for us to measure that feedback far more precisely than we previously could, leading to us internalizing what is “good” behavior.

As we find ourselves more and more inside of these online spaces, this influence becomes more pronounced. As Boghal notes, “We are all gaining online audiences.” Anytime we post to our followers, we are entering into a process of exchange with our viewers — one that is beholden to the same extreme engagement problems found everywhere else on social media.

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/hitting-the-books-the-dangerous-real-world-consequences-of-our-online-attention-economy-143050602.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

[Deal] Save a massive 40% off everything across Monster’s online store

What better way to prepare for July 4th than making an incredible 40% saving on everything in Monster’s online store? Whether its audio, smart home electronics, must-have gaming accessories, lighting, or cables, you can save a ton of money with Monster from the 2 – 8th of July. Starting from July 2nd, everything in Monster’s […]

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Bipartisan Senate group reintroduces a revised Kids Online Safety Act

US Senators Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Marsha Blackburn (R-TN) reintroduced a bill today that would put the onus on social media companies to add online safeguards for children. The Kids Online Safety Act (KOSA) was first introduced last February (sponsored by the same pair) but never made it to the Senate floor after backlash from advocacy groups. The revamped legislation “provides specific tools to stop Big Tech companies from driving toxic content at kids and to hold them accountable for putting profits over safety,” said Blumenthal. It follows a separate bill introduced last month with a similar aim.

Like the original KOSA, the updated bill would require annual independent audits by “experts and academic researchers” to force regulation-averse social media companies to address the online dangers posed to children. However, the updated legislation attempts to address the concerns that led to its previous iteration’s downfall, namely that its overly broad nature could do more harm than good by requiring surveillance and censorship of young users. The EFF described the February 2022 bill as “a heavy-handed plan to force platforms to spy on young people” that “fails to properly distinguish between harmful and non-harmful content, leaving politically motivated state attorneys general with the power to define what harms children. One of the primary fears is that states could use the flimsy definitions to ban content for political gain.”

The rewritten bill adds new protections for services like the National Suicide Hotline, LGBTQ+ youth centers and substance-abuse organizations to avoid being unnecessarily harmed. In addition, it would make social platforms give minors options to safeguard their information, turn off addictive features and opt out of algorithmic recommendations. (Social platforms would have to enable the strongest settings by default.) It would also give parents “new controls to help support their children and identify harmful behaviors” while offering children “a dedicated channel to report harms” on the platform. Additionally, it would specifically ban the promotion of suicide, eating disorders, substance abuse, sexual exploitation and the use of “unlawful products for minors” like gambling, drugs and alcohol. Finally, it would require social companies to provide “academic and public interest organizations” with data to help them research social media’s effects on the safety and well-being of minors.

The American Psychological Association, Common Sense Media and other advocacy groups support the updated bill. It has 26 cosponsors from both parties, including lawmakers ranging from Dick Durbin (D-IL) and Sheldon Whitehouse (D-RI) to Chuck Grassley (R-IA) and Lindsey Graham (R-SC). Blackburn told CNBC today that Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) is “a hundred percent behind this bill and efforts to protect kids online.”

Despite the Senators’ renewed optimism about passing the bill, some organizations believe it’s still too broad to avoid a negative net impact. “The changes made to the bill do not at all address our concerns,” Evan Greer, director of digital rights advocacy group Fight For the Future, said in an emailed statement to Engadget. “If Senator Blumenthal’s office had been willing to meet with us, we could have explained why. I can see where changes were made that attempt to address the concerns, but they fail to do so. Even with the new changes, this bill will allow extreme right-wing attorneys general to dictate what content platforms can recommend to younger users.”

The ACLU also opposes the resurrected bill. “KOSA’s core approach still threatens the privacy, security and free expression of both minors and adults by deputizing platforms of all stripes to police their users and censor their content under the guise of a ‘duty of care,’” ACLU Senior Policy Counsel Cody Venzke toldCNBC. “To accomplish this, the bill would legitimize platforms’ already pervasive data collection to identify which users are minors when it should be seeking to curb those data abuses. Moreover, parental guidance in minors’ online lives is critical, but KOSA would mandate surveillance tools without regard to minors’ home situations or safety. KOSA would be a step backward in making the internet a safer place for children and minors.”

Blumenthal argues that the bill was “very purposely narrowed” to prevent harm. “I think we’ve met that kind of suggestion very directly and effectively,” he said at a press conference. “Obviously, our door remains open. We’re willing to hear and talk to other kinds of suggestions that are made. And we have talked to many of the groups that had great criticism and a number have actually dropped their opposition, as I think you’ll hear in response to today’s session. So I think our bill is clarified and improved in a way that meets some of the criticism. We’re not going to solve all of the problems of the world with a single bill. But we are making a measurable, very significant start.”

This article originally appeared on Engadget at https://www.engadget.com/bipartisan-senate-group-reintroduces-a-revised-kids-online-safety-act-212117992.html?src=rss
Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

A studio of ‘Witcher 3’ developers are making an online action game set in feudal Japan

A group of former CD Projekt Red developers is working on a new online action that will take players to feudal Japan. This week, Dark Passenger co-founders Jakub Ben and Marcin Michalski announced the formation of their studio and put out a call for talent in a series of tweets spotted by PC Gamer. Ben and Michalski were part of the art team that worked on The Witcher 3 and later went on to do contract work on Cyberpunk 2077.

Dark Passenger’s first game doesn’t have a name yet, but the studio’s website provides some details on the project. Ben and Michalski say they want to create an online multiplayer game with support for both competitive and cooperative play. They describe a title that sounds like it will borrow elements from games like Titanfall and Absolver. “Our locomotion system will allow players to perform incredible [feats] such as running on arrows that were fired by other players, fast climbing on vertical surfaces with the use of shuko claws or using [a] yari spear like a pole to jump over obstacles,” the studio said. “Engaging [in] close-ranged combat will demand as much dexterity as tactics and close cooperation with teammates.”

The news of the founding comes after former CDPR executive Konrad Tomaszkiewicz announced at the start of the year he was creating a studio named Rebel Wolves. He said his team would release its first project, a dark fantasy role-playing game built in Unreal Engine 5, sometime in 2025. After directing the critically acclaimed The Witcher 3 and contributing to Cyberpunk 2077, Tomaszkiewicz left CDPR in May 2021 amid allegations he bullied coworkers. Before his departure, it came out that work on Cyberpunk involved a lengthy and brutal crunch period for many of its developers.

As PC Gamer points out, Dark Passenger’s careers page alludes to some of the criticisms of CDPR. “We create a prejudice-free environment based on tolerance, support and understanding. We treat individual needs as seriously as the group’s expectations,” the page states. “We provide all amenities, private medical care and paid overtime. With an emphasis on work-life balance, we offer flexible working hours and holidays.” As for when you can expect to play the studio’s first game, Dark Passenger has not shared a release date.

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Ubisoft is killing online support for 15 games on September 1st

If you have fond memories of older Ubisoft games with online components from the early 2010s, you might want to check in on them soon. That's because on September 1st 2022, Ubisoft is dropping support for online services in 15 different games including Assassin's Creed Brotherhood.

In a post on Ubisoft's website, the company says it's decommissioning online services in some of its older games in order to "focus our resources on delivering great experiences for players who are playing newer or more popular titles." Depending on the title, gamers will no longer be able to access multiplayer modes or even download and install additional content (DLC). 

Affected games are spread across various platforms including the Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, PC, HTC Vive, Oculus and Wii U, with notable titles including Assassin's Creed Brotherhood, the 2012 release of Assassin's Creed 3, Anno 2070 and more. And in some cases like Space Junkies, which is a multiplayer-only title, the game will be completely unplayable. Meanwhile, for others such as Ghost Recon Future Soldier, you'll need to put your console in offline mode just to play the solo campaign. 

While most of these games enjoyed 10 to 12 years of support since their release, it's still a bit sad to see Ubisoft drop support for online services for some of its most iconic franchises — especially in titles where DLC will no longer be accessible. For a full list of games that are being decommissioned on September 1st, please visit the company's help page here for more information. 

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Biden administration launches $45 billion plan to get the entire US online by 2030

The Biden administration has formally started its $ 45 billion effort to bring affordable and reliable high-speed broadband internet access to everyone in the US by 2030. The Internet for All funding is part of the $ 65 billion earmarked for broadband in the $ 1 trillion Bipartisan Infrastructure Law. Starting today, states and other entities can apply for funding from three Internet for All programs.

“In the 21st century, you simply cannot participate in the economy if you don’t have access to reliable, affordable high-speed internet,” Commerce Secretary Gina Raimondo, who is overseeing the distribution of the funds, said. “Thanks to President Biden’s Bipartisan Infrastructure Law, Americans across the country will no longer be held back by a lack of high-speed internet access. We are going to ensure every American will have access to technologies that allow them to attend class, start a small business, visit with their doctor and participate in the modern economy.”

States could use the funding to install fiber-optic cables, put more Wi-Fi networks in place or even offer some people free broadband internet access. The launch of the program follows news earlier this week that the Biden administration has teamed up with 20 providers to offer subsidized internet service to low-income households.

Most of the Internet for All funding will be available from the Broadband Equity, Access and Deployment (BEAD) Program. States and other territories will need to file a letter of intent and a budget for planning funds. They'll then receive $ 5 million in planning funds to help them put together a five-year plan detailing how they'll provide comprehensive internet access to all residents.

Each state that takes part in the program will receive at least $ 100 million from the BEAD pot of $ 42.5 billion. After that, funding allocations will be decided in part based on updated broadband coverage maps that the Federal Communications Commission is expected to release this fall.

Under the $ 1 billion Enabling Middle Mile Broadband Infrastructure Program, funding will be allocated based on a "technology-neutral, competitive basis" to build, buy or improve infrastructure elements that carry "large amounts of data at high speeds over long distances." As for the $ 1.5 billion State Digital Equity Planning Grant Program, that's designed to bolster adoption and use of the internet with the help of digital literacy training.

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Google I/O takes place in-person and online on May 11-12th

Shortly after releasing its customary puzzle for users to decipher in order to find out when Google I/O will be held, its CEO Sundar Pichai revealed that it’s on May 11-12 and that it will happen in the Shoreline Amphitheater where it is usually held, Covid-19 notwithstanding. While there will be a limited in-person audience […]

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WhatsApp’s online backups are getting end-to-end encryption

WhatsApp’s backups are now end-to-end encrypted in the cloud as Facebook rolls out a new update.
Android | Digital Trends

Facebook is coming back online after hours-long outage

Facebook services are slowly coming back online after one of the biggest outages in recent memory. Facebook, Instagram, WhatsApp and Messenger’s apps appear to be working again, though some of the websites are loading more slowly than usual. 

As of 6:05pm ET Monday, the "Facebook for Business Status" page was still showing "major disruptions," to the social network's core services. But that was still an improvement from earlier in the day when the website was offline entirely. 

"To the huge community of people and businesses around the world who depend on us: we're sorry," Facebook wrote in a statement posted to Twitter. The company confirmed its services "are coming back online now." In a post on Facebook, CEO Mark Zuckerberg also apologized for the services going down. 

Zuckerberg didn’t elaborate on the cause of the lengthy outage. In an earlier tweet, the company’s outgoing Chief Technology Officer, Michael Schroepfer, cited “networking issues.”

The outage lasted more than six hours, taking down Instagram, WhatsApp, Messenger and Oculus. It also wreaked havoc on the company internally, with employees reportedly unable to access emails, Workplace and other tools. The New York Timesreported that employees were also physically locked out of offices as workers’ badges stopped working.

It also shaved billions of dollars off of Zuckerberg’s personal net worth as Facebook’s stock tanked, Bloomberg reported. Elsewhere, the company is still reeling from the fallout of a whistleblower who has accused the company of prioritizing “profits over safety.” The whistleblower was The Wall Street Journal’s primary source for several articles that details how Instagram is harmful to teens and the company’s controversial “cross check” program that allows high profile users to break its rules.

Security reporter Brian Krebs reported the outage was linked to issues with Facebook's BGP (Border Gateway Protocol) records, which prevented the company's services from being accessible. He later added it was "a routine BGP update gone wrong." DNS provider Cloudflare also cited BGP as the likely culprit, writing in a blog post that it was "as if someone had 'pulled the cables' from their data centers all at once and disconnected them from the Internet." 

Engadget is a web magazine with obsessive daily coverage of everything new in gadgets and consumer electronics

Turkey orders Google to change its online ad strategy

Google is facing yet another fine for allegedly abusing its search ad clout, although the financial punishment this time is less serious than its implications. Arab News reports that Turkey’s Competition Board has given Google six months to change it…
Engadget

Zoom is getting into ticketed online events

By this point in the pandemic, chances are you’ve already used Zoom to not only attend work meetings but to take part in classes and workshops. So it should come as no surprise Zoom plans to capitalize on that trend. The company has started beta test…
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SXSW will host an online festival in 2021

As part of its 2021 plans, SXSW will host an online festival that will attempt to replicate the best features of its annual conference in Austin, Texas. SXSW Online will run from March 16th to March 20th, 2021. SXSW's organizers say the event will al…
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Rockstar rolls back the ‘Red Dead Online’ update that broke everything

Rockstar Games recently tried to fix some Red Dead Online bugs it unintentionally introduced in July’s major update, which added a naturalist role to the game. However, it accidentally made things much, much worse on PS4 and Xbox One. There were glit…
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In-game content based on Netflix’s Cursed drama is coming soon to Black Desert Online

Pearl Abyss and Kakao Games have announced that they are developing in-game content for the Black Desert MMORPG title based on Netflix’s Original Series, the Cursed. In case you aren’t familiar with Cursed, it’s a medieval high-fantasy series that made its debut on the streaming service on July 17th. The crossover content is scheduled for […]

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US government drops online class restrictions for international students

The Trump administration has backpedaled on a policy that would have forced international college students to leave the US if their fall courseload was entirely online. A federal judge in Boston announced that the Department of Homeland Security has…
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India may require online shops to hand over site code

India’s plan to tightly regulate online shopping could give it a peek at how many internet giants work. Bloomberg says it obtained a draft e-commerce policy that would mandate access to sites’ source codes and algorithms. This would help prevent “dig…
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Nigerians face US charges over online fraud worth ‘hundreds of millions’

US law enforcement is cracking down on a pair of alleged online fraudsters that appear to have been wildly successful. The United Arab Emirates has sent the US two Nigerian nationals, Ramon Olorunwa Abbas and Olakean Jacob Ponle, to face charges rela…
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Fan mod adds modern online features to ‘Super Smash Bros. Melee’

New features have dropped for Super Smash Bros Melee via Project Slippi, a mod that brings the 2001 Gamecube game online. Now, the game has rollback netcode, integrated matchmaking, auto-updates and replays, Slippi creator Jas “Fizzi” Laferriere twee…
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Study finds security holes in online voting for New Jersey and West Virginia

States are under pressure to use online voting for the US presidential election when COVID-19 could remain a threat in November, but those platforms might not be as secure as you’d like. MIT and the University of Michigan have published a report deta…
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Samsung will launch the Galaxy Note 20 with a special online event in August

Phone launches have been severely disrupted this year due to COVID-19, and things aren’t looking much different in the near future. Most companies are opting for online events to show off their new products, and that will include Samsung’s next Galaxy Note 20. Galaxy Note 20 online launch Unlike previous years (and even the Galaxy […]

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Formula E team fills the sports void with online marble races

Formula E is delivering more than realistic race simulations to fill the gap in broadcasts left by the temporary shutdown of conventional sports. The Envision Virgin Racing team has teamed up with Jelle’s Marble Runs, the YouTube channel of Marbleymp…
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Pray #WithMe: Connect online with your faith community

This week, millions of people across the globe will celebrate Passover and Easter. And in the coming weeks, millions will begin to observe Ramadan. This year, these important religious holidays will feel very different, as faith organizations all over the world look for new ways to celebrate safely in order to reduce the spread of COVID-19 within their communities.

During these difficult times, it’s important for us to continue to connect with each other and feel part of our wider communities, even from home.

While some faith organizations have used digital tools to connect with their congregations for many years, this year’s broadly mandated orders to stay home will make it essential for churches, synagogues, mosques, families and individuals to find new ways of coming together, online.

The shift has already begun. Since the start of March, the combined subscribers of all Vatican News channels has more than doubled.

To assist faith organizations everywhere who are new to online services, YouTube has brought together helpful information to get started with live streaming. Please visit our Playlist and Help Center for best practices, or check out instructions for hosting a live stream event either from a mobile device or desktop.

For those who are observing Passover this week, synagogues are offering many ways to share and celebrate online. Park Avenue Synagogue, in New York City, is live streaming Seders and festival services throughout the week, starting with a one hour Seder on Wednesday, April 8 at 6 p.m. ET.

We also invite you to celebrate with a special Saturday Night Seder, premiering exclusively on YouTube via Tasty and SaturdayNightSeder on Saturday, April 11 at 8 p.m. ET. This Passover-themed variety show will raise funds for the CDC Foundation, and includes comedy sketches, heartfelt moments and music, with an impressive list of participants including Jason Alexander, Ben Platt, Idina Menzel, Dan Levy, Henry Winkler, Tan France and Senator Chuck Schumer, among many others.

For those celebrating Good Friday and Easter, many churches are hosting live streams for their local congregations, so please check in with your church. The Vatican will live stream all of its Holy Week services from St. Peter’s Basilica, including Easter Sunday mass at 11 a.m. CET.

Renowned opera singer Andrea Bocelli will perform live at 7 p.m. CET on Sunday, April 12 from Milan’s historic Duomo Cathedral, available exclusively on YouTube. The concert entitled, “Music For Hope,” will represent a message of love, healing and hope to Italy and the world. The Duomo, currently closed, will open its doors exceptionally for Andrea Bocelli who will be accompanied only by the cathedral organist, Emanuele Vianelli, playing one of world’s largest pipe organs. The “Music For Hope” trailer can be seen here.

We’ll have more to share in the next few weeks about upcoming Ramadan celebrations.

We wish safe and healthy holidays for faith communities across the world.

—The YouTube Team


YouTube Blog

No surprise: Google stops selling the Pixel 3 online

This is no surprise, but Google has officially nixed the Pixel 3. The device held on for a little bit after the Pixel 4 announcement, at least on Google’s online store, but now it’s been pulled and thrown in the same graveyard as other old Pixel devices. RIP Google Pixel 3 This means if you […]

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Coronavirus claims another victim: Google I/O 2020 is getting canceled, will be online only this year

If you thought 2020 was going to be the year of folding phones, game streaming, or the Linux desktop, you’d be wrong. This year is all about things getting canceled and ruined thanks to the coronavirus. Google I/O is the next on the reaper’s list, and Google has officially nixed the physical event for their […]

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Radiohead’s online ‘library’ hosts rarities, art and merch

It's been difficult to track down all things Radiohead on the web for a while. Even though the group recently posted its entire catalog to YouTube, you've still had to search fan sites and other sources for every last little bit of art, video or mer…
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China tells online stores to stop selling e-cigarettes

E-cigarette sales bans are quickly becoming an international phenomenon. China's tobacco regulators have asked online shopping companies to "temporarily" close online stores that sell e-cigarettes — effectively, it's banning e-cig sales on the inte…
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‘Driveclub’ online features shut down March 31st, 2020

Driveclub has struggled despite its early hype and eventual refinement, and now Sony is ready to end its troubled saga. The company has announced that the servers for Driveclub, Driveclub VR and Driveclub Bikes will all shut down just before midnigh…
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[TA Deals] Protect yourself online with a discounted Heimdal Thor Premium subscription (80% off)

You can never be too careful when you’re dealing with personal information on the internet, and Heimdal Thor is here to help. It combines two award winning security programs from Heimdal security to protect your device from malware and security threats by utilizing machine learning. Stop ransomware, data leakage, viruses, APTs, exploits, & other advanced […]

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First photo from the OnePlus 6T camera is released online

OnePlus likes to hype up their cameras ahead of launches, and CEO Carl Pei is hopping in to get everyone excited for their latest flagship. He’s shared a photo directly from the OnePlus 6T over on Weibo so everyone can see just what the phone is capable of. That’s if you trust him to upload […]

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Dashlane 6 is here, offering comprehensive online security and identity monitoring

Dashlane has dropped a major update to their password management suite, and it really pushes well beyond that boundary of just keeping up with your passwords and sensitive log-in information. Like previous versions, it still does that stuff really well. Dashlane’s Identity Dashboard keeps up with your passwords and generates a score based on how […]

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The big stores that track your every online move

A study by Princeton researchers came to light earlier this month, revealing that over 400 of the world's most popular websites use the equivalent of hacking tools to spy on you without your knowledge or consent.
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Pornhub owner may become the UK’s gatekeeper of online porn

NSFW Warning: This story may contain links to and descriptions or images of explicit sexual acts. Mindgeek may be the most powerful company that you've never heard of, or at least, a company you'll claim never to have heard about in polite company….
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30 governments are interfering with democracy online

Political mudslinging is a concept as old as politics itself, but in recent years it's found its way off the podium and onto the internet, and a new report now shows the extent of the problem. According to findings from Freedom House, governments in…
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Stephen Hawking makes his doctoral thesis available online

Ever wondered how Stephen Hawking saw the universe as a doctoral candidate, when his theories about black holes were just coming into fruition? You don't have to hear about it second-hand — you can now go straight to the source. The legendary cosm…
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An update on our commitment to fight violent extremist content online

In June, we announced four steps we’re taking to combat terrorist content on YouTube:

  1. Better detection and faster removal powered by machine learning;
  2. More expert partners to help identify violative content;
  3. Tougher standards for videos that are controversial but do not violate our policies; and
  4. Amplified voices speaking out against hate and extremism.

We shared our progress across these steps in August and wanted to update you again on where things are today.

Better detection and faster removal

We’ve always used a mix of human flagging and human review together with technology to address controversial content on YouTube. In June, we introduced machine learning to flag violent extremism content and escalate it for human review. We continue to get faster here:

  • Over 83 percent of the videos we removed for violent extremism in the last month were taken down before receiving a single human flag, up 8 percentage points since August.
  • Our teams have manually reviewed over a million videos to improve this flagging technology by providing large volumes of training examples.

Inevitably, both humans and machines make mistakes, and as we have increased the volume of videos for review by our teams, we have made some errors. We know we can get better and we are committed to making sure our teams are taking action on the right content. We are working on ways to educate those who share video meant to document or expose violence on how to add necessary context.

More experts

Outside experts are essential to advising us on our policies and flagging content for additional inputs that better train our systems. Our partner NGOs bring expert knowledge of complex issues like hate speech, radicalization, and terrorism.

We have added 35 NGOs to our Trusted Flagger program, which is 70 percent of the way towards our goal. These new partner NGOs represent 20 different countries and include NGOs like the International Center for the Study of Radicalization at King’s College London and The Wahid Institute in Indonesia, which is dedicated to promoting religious freedom and tolerance.

Tougher standards

We started applying tougher treatment to videos that aren’t illegal and don’t violate our Guidelines, but contain controversial religious or supremacist content. These videos remain on YouTube, but they are behind a warning interstitial, aren’t recommended, monetized, and don’t have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes. This is working as intended and helping us strike a balance between upholding free expression, by providing a historical record of content in the public interest, while also keeping these videos from being widely spread or recommended to others.

Amplify voices speaking out against hate and extremism

We continue to support programs that counter extremist messages. We are researching expansion for Jigsaw’s Redirect Method to apply this model to new languages and search terms. We’re heavily investing in our YouTube Creators for Change program to support Creators who are using YouTube to tackle social issues and promote awareness, tolerance and empathy. Every month these Creators release exciting and engaging new videos and campaigns to counter hate and social divisiveness:

  • In September, three of our fellows, from Australia, the U.K., and the U.S., debuted their videos on the big screen at the Tribeca TV festival, tackling topics like racism, xenophobia, and experiences of first generation immigrants.
  • Local YouTube Creators in Indonesia partnered with the MAARIF Institute and YouTube Creators for Change Ambassador, Cameo Project, to visit ten different cities and train thousands of high school students on promoting tolerance and speaking out against hate speech and extremism.
  • We’re adding two new local Creators for Change chapters, in Israel and Spain, to the network of chapters around the world.

In addition to this work supporting voices to counter hate and extremism, last month Google.org announced a $ 5 million innovation fund to counter hate and extremism. This funding will support technology-driven solutions, as well as grassroots efforts like community youth projects that help build communities and promote resistance to radicalization.

Terrorist and violent extremist material should not be spread online. We will continue to heavily invest to fight the spread of this content, provide updates to governments, and collaborate with other companies through the Global Internet Forum to Counter Terrorism. There remains more to do so we look forward to continuing to share our progress with you.

The YouTube Team


YouTube Blog

First-ever ‘negative emissions’ power plant goes online

Unfortunately, it's no longer enough to cut CO2 emissions to avoid further global temperature increases. We need to remove some of the CO2 that's already there. Thankfully, that reversal is one step closer to becoming reality. Climeworks and Reykj…
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‘Eve Online’ is going mobile next year with ‘Project Aurora’

Popular space MMO Eve Online has been doing pretty well lately, bringing a massive map, galactic trade economies and the vastness of space to players over its 14-year history. It's made several moves to keep folks interested in its PC-based game titl…
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The best foam mattresses you can buy online

By Kevin Purdy This post was done in partnership with The Sweethome, a buyer's guide to the best homewares. When readers choose to buy The Sweethome's independently chosen editorial picks, it may earn affiliate commissions that support its work. Rea…
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Democrats call for tougher online ad spending rules

Politicians aren't just asking Facebook to testify on how suspicious Russia-linked ads allegedly reached its social network — they want some political reform to prevent this from happening again. A mix of House and Senate Democrats have written a l…
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Four years on, ‘GTA Online’ is still a money-spinner

Almost four years down the line, GTA V is still drawing big crowds. And players are dropping a lot of dollar on the game's ballistic online mode. That cash is filling up the safes at Take-Two Interactive. The distributor announced on Wednesday that t…
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An update on our commitment to fight terror content online

A little over a month ago, we told you about the four new steps we’re taking to combat terrorist content on YouTube: better detection and faster removal driven by machine learning, more experts to alert us to content that needs review, tougher standards for videos that are controversial but do not violate our policies, and more work in the counter-terrorism space.

We wanted to give you an update on these commitments:

Better detection and faster removal driven by machine learning: We’ve always used a mix of technology and human review to address the ever-changing challenges around controversial content on YouTube. We recently began developing and implementing cutting-edge machine learning technology designed to help us identify and remove violent extremism and terrorism-related content in a scalable way. We have started rolling out these tools and we are already seeing some positive progress:

  • Speed and efficiency: Our machine learning systems are faster and more effective than ever before. Over 75 percent of the videos we’ve removed for violent extremism over the past month were taken down before receiving a single human flag.
  • Accuracy: The accuracy of our systems has improved dramatically due to our machine learning technology. While these tools aren’t perfect, and aren’t right for every setting, in many cases our systems have proven more accurate than humans at flagging videos that need to be removed.
  • Scale: With over 400 hours of content uploaded to YouTube every minute, finding and taking action on violent extremist content poses a significant challenge. But over the past month, our initial use of machine learning has more than doubled both the number of videos we’ve removed for violent extremism, as well as the rate at which we’ve taken this kind of content down.

We are encouraged by these improvements, and will continue to develop our technology in order to make even more progress. We are also hiring more people to help review and enforce our policies, and will continue to invest in technical resources to keep pace with these issues and address them responsibly.

More experts: Of course, our systems are only as good as the the data they’re based on. Over the past weeks, we have begun working with more than 15 additional expert NGOs and institutions through our Trusted Flagger program, including the Anti-Defamation League, the No Hate Speech Movement, and the Institute for Strategic Dialogue. These organizations bring expert knowledge of complex issues like hate speech, radicalization, and terrorism that will help us better identify content that is being used to radicalize and recruit extremists. We will also regularly consult these experts as we update our policies to reflect new trends. And we’ll continue to add more organizations to our network of advisors over time.

Tougher standards: We’ll soon be applying tougher treatment to videos that aren’t illegal but have been flagged by users as potential violations of our policies on hate speech and violent extremism. If we find that these videos don’t violate our policies but contain controversial religious or supremacist content, they will be placed in a limited state. The videos will remain on YouTube behind an interstitial, won’t be recommended, won’t be monetized, and won’t have key features including comments, suggested videos, and likes. We’ll begin to roll this new treatment out to videos on desktop versions of YouTube in the coming weeks, and will bring it to mobile experiences soon thereafter. These new approaches entail significant new internal tools and processes, and will take time to fully implement.

Early intervention and expanding counter-extremism work: We’ve started rolling out features from Jigsaw’s Redirect Method to YouTube. When people search for sensitive keywords on YouTube, they will be redirected towards a playlist of curated YouTube videos that directly confront and debunk violent extremist messages. We also continue to amplify YouTube voices speaking out against hate and radicalization through our YouTube Creators for Change program. Just last week, the U.K. chapter of Creators for Change, Internet Citizens, hosted a two-day workshop for 13-18 year-olds to help them find a positive sense of belonging online and learn skills on how to participate safely and responsibly on the internet. We also pledged to expand the program’s reach to 20,000 more teens across the U.K.

And over the weekend, we hosted our latest Creators for Change workshop in Bandung, Indonesia, where creators teamed up with Indonesia’s Maarif Institute to teach young people about the importance of diversity, pluralism, and tolerance.

Altogether, we have taken significant steps over the last month in our fight against online terrorism. But this is not the end. We know there is always more work to be done. With the help of new machine learning technology, deep partnerships, ongoing collaborations with other companies through the Global Internet Forum, and our vigilant community we are confident we can continue to make progress against this ever-changing threat. We look forward to sharing more with you in the months ahead.

The YouTube Team


YouTube Blog

Nintendo Switch Online app pops up a few days before the service is live

The true, full-fledged online gaming platform from Nintendo is approaching showtime. Nintendo won’t begin offering the service until Friday, but the company is already letting owners of the Switch grab the companion app for their mobile devices. The Nintendo Switch Online app went live on Google Play and the Apple App Store three days before the […]

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Nintendo’s Switch Online apps for iOS and Android are available

The disjointed rollout of Nintendo Switch online features continues, as the company has released its mobile apps for iOS and Android ahead of the Splatoon 2 launch on Friday. That's going to be the first game to make use of the Switch Online app, whi…
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Channel 4’s online TV ads will call you out by name

Adverts are about to get a lot more personalised — or creepier, depending on your point of view — the next time you hop on the All 4 streaming service to catch up on The Island with Bear Grylls. This month, Channel 4 is bringing a new ad format to…
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The Quartz will be ZTE’s first Android Wear watch, and it was just leaked online

It looks like ZTE is preparing to enter the Android Wear smartwatch world. In fact, the ZTE Quartz is shaping up to be quite a nice-looking device. Here’s everything we know about the ZTE Quartz so far.

The post The Quartz will be ZTE’s first Android Wear watch, and it was just leaked online appeared first on Digital Trends.

Android Army–Digital Trends

Run-DMC sues Amazon, Walmart over online counterfeits

It's not just tech giants like Apple that are taking online stores to task for allowing counterfeit goods on their virtual shelves. Run-DMC is suing Amazon, Walmart (including Jet.com) and partners for selling bogus shirts, hats and other goods that…
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How to use Apple Pay to buy things in stores and online

Apple Pay is Apple’s mobile payment service, one that lets you forgo the need to input 16-digit numbers and swipe a physical card. Here’s how to set it up on your iOS, MacOS, or WatchOS device, and where you can use it.

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Mobile–Digital Trends