Like many of you out there in Internet land, I woke up Thursday morning to an interesting bug on my Facebook page. According to my own account, I had a lot to celebrate, as I’d apparently become friends with 226 people 46 years ago Thursday, on December 31, 1969. That, by the way, is just shy of two decades before I was born. I’ve been called an old soul before, but this seems ridiculous – especially given that Facebook itself is only 11 years old. A Facebook spokeswoman said in a statement that the company has “identified this bug and…
Author: Richard
The AAP government’s ambitious odd-even scheme to curb pollution in the national capital received a thumbs up from social media users with #OddEvenPlan trending on Facebook and Twitter. “#OddEvenPlan a friend says he has two cars, odd & even, but will use only 1 car to join the anti-pollution campaign. #ThatsTheSpirit,” said a Twitter user Arvind Jha. Abhishek Gupta tweeted, “Great to see everyone voluntarily following the odd even formula. Wow! Delhi we can do it #OddEvenPlan”. “Give it a try friends. If it succeeds; we all will breathe easy. If it fails; we will learn how to make it…
Martin Shkreli, the pharmaceutical executive facing US charges of securities fraud, lost control of his Twitter account to hackers on Sunday, hours after he took to Twitter to plead his innocence, his spokesman said. “It was hacked,” Craig Stevens, a spokesman for the former chief executive of Turing Pharmaceuticals, said in an email. “We have been working with Twitter to get it fixed.” Shkreli, who gained notoriety this year when Turing hiked the price of an anti-infective drug often taken by people with AIDS, was arrested on fraud charges on Thursday and released on bail. He has actively defended his…
In a bid to get close to the burgeoning video gaming community that has sparked the rise of Twitch andYouTube Gaming, micro-blogging service Twitter announced on Thursday an ex-YouTube employee is now heading their video gaming division. Rodrigo Velloso, YouTube’s former director of gaming content, joined the San Francisco-headquartered social network in September as director of gaming partnerships. Speaking to entertainment magazine Variety, Velloso said: “My entire career at Google revolved around content partnerships.” “I want to work with content creators and give them the tools, or in some cases build them the tools, to allow them to produce the…
The latest iPhones come with the ability to turn still images into video – just like magic – but sharing options had been limited to other Apple apps. That’s changing as Facebook, one of the leading forums for photo sharing, adds Apple’s Live Photos feature to Facebook’s iPhone and iPad app. Facebook will start offering it Monday to a limited number of users initially, with a broader rollout planned in the coming weeks. Facebook’s support follows a similar move by Yahoo’s Tumblr service. With Live Photos on the iPhone 6s and 6s Plus, every still shot is accompanied by a…
Hike, claimed to be India’s first home-grown messaging platform, is launching its messenger app in eight vernacular languages. The app will be launched on Wednesday with improved user interface, keyboard, predictive texts and stickers in Hindi, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Bengali, Malayalam, Kannada, and Telugu, the company said in an emailed statement. “Every single Hiker will now be able to choose a local language and will see a special keyboard that they can use built specifically for that language,” said Kavin Bharti Mittal, CEO and Founder, Hike. With this launch, people and communities can be in touch with contacts in their…
WhatsApp is no doubt one of the most widely used instant messaging services worldwide, and crossed900 million monthly active users back in September. One of the features however missing from theFacebook-owned messaging app has been video call support, which gives an edge to competing apps such as Hangouts and Skype. Leaked screenshots now tip that WhatsApp may soon receive video calling support. A German websitehas posted screenshots from WhatsApp for iOS that show an ongoing video call. (Also see: 10 WhatsApp Tips and Tricks Everyone Should Know) Based on the leaked screenshots, the WhatsApp video call interface appears to be…
Facebook is reportedly testing a new feature that will alert users when there’s a new post from one of your friends in the list. The new feature is currently said to be in testing and is visible to limited users. The biggest highlight of the new alert feature will be that users won’t be required to go through their entire Facebook news feed to check what’s been posted by one of the friends in the list. The new feature was first reported by Natt Garun of The Next Web and was seen on the Web profile. According to her, the…
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has asked RCom to keep the service in abeyance till there is a decision on its consultation process around differential pricing of data by operators is sorted out. The last date for public comments on Trai’s paper is December 30. “As directed by Trai, the commercial launch of Free basics has been kept in abeyance, till they consider all details and convey a specific approval,” a Reliance Communications spokesperson said. The regulator has received close to 5.7 lakh comments out which over 5.5 lakh comments are through Facebook’s campaign. “I think it’s important…
Microsoft India Chairman Bhaskar Pramanik says while he believes that the intentions behind Facebook’s Free Basics are noble, there are obvious concerns around net neutrality and the project doesn’t solve the basic problem of connectivity. “[Free Basics] doesn’t solve the problem of connectivity,” says Pramanik, ostensibly referring to the fact that you need to be a Reliance Communications customer within cellular coverage to benefit from the project in India. “Free Basics is more of availability of Internet through traditional means – somebody still has to provide connectivity otherwise you don’t get anything,” Pramanik told Gadgets 360 in an exclusive chat…