Facebook on Wednesday said it has suspended more than 400 of thousands of applications it has investigated to determine whether people’s personal information was being improperly shared. Applications were suspended “due to concerns around the developers who built them or how the information people chose to share with the app may have been used,” vice president of product partnerships Ime Archibong said in a blog post. Apps put on hold at the social network were being scrutinized more closely, according to Archibong. The app unit launched in March by Facebook stemmed from the Cambridge Analytica data privacy scandal. Facebook admitted that up to 87…
Author: Loknath Das
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Amazon Game Studios’ next project is an adaptation of an Amazon Prime Original television show, The Grand Tour, the car enthusiast program hosted by Jeremy Clarkson, Richard Hammond and James May, all formerly of Top Gear. Aptly titled The Grand Tour Game, the racing game will feature “incredible cars, exotic locations and ridiculous challenges” from the TV series, Amazon said in a news release. The Grand Tour Game will be delivered episodically alongside season three of the show. It will feature four-player split-screen support and voice-over from Clarkson, Hammond and May. The game will also incorporate footage from the show, with “seamless” transitions between…
BattleTech, the turn-based strategy title from Harebrained Schemes, turned a lot of heads when it was released in April. Now the developers have announced their first expansion. Called Flashpoint, it will include new BattleMechs, a new biome and a new mission type. Flashpoint is the first in a series of procedurally generated short stories, according to a news release issued this week to coincide with the Gamescom convention in Germany. The announcement was accompanied by a new trailer, which we’ve embedded above. “Flashpoints are high-stakes branching short stories, comprised of procedural mercenary missions linked together with new crew conversations, special events, critical choices, and valuable rewards,”…
The NBA socialverse is petty, dramatic, and even a little bit narcissistic. And that’s what makes it the best pro-sports social media world on the internet. It’s one of the few places where headlines are made by someone liking an Instagram comment. It’s also a place where you’ll see stars slide into random people’s DMs—not for anything like that, but just to argue about their skills. And it’s certainly the only place where grown men share pictures from Arthur, a decades-old PBS cartoon. What makes NBA stars on Twitter and Instagram different from stars in other sports is that many of them aren’t shy about…
Synergy said Microsoft’s dominance of the large collaboration segment has helped it to distance itself further from the chasing pack of SaaS providers. “Thanks primarily to its leadership in the collaboration segment, Microsoft’s annual revenue growth is running at 45%, far surpassing overall market growth,” the analyst noted. Along with Google, ServiceNow and Oracle, Microsoft is the fastest-growing SaaS provider. Synergy said Salesforce is the second-largest SaaS provider and remains the dominant player in customer relationship management (CRM), but this segment is relatively low growth compared to other SaaS segments, enabling Microsoft to pull ahead in the overall market. The third-biggest SaaS provider is Adobe,…
Cisco’s transformation from a networking hardware company into a diversified business with lots of exposure to software is finally starting to pay off, according to CNBC’s Jim Cramer. Last Wednesday, the company reported earnings of 70 cents per share, excluding certain items, up a penny from analysts’ estimates of 69 cents per share. It also beat top line expectations, reporting $12.84 in revenue versus the $12.77 billion that Wall Street estimated. Shares rose more than 6 percent on the fourth quarter results. The Mad Money host gave all the credit to CEO Chuck Robbins, who is leading the charge to shift from hardware to…
Social networking giant Facebook is donating $250,000 (nearly Rs 1.75 crore) for relief work in Kerala, which has been battered by torrential rains, floods and landslides, leaving over 300 dead amid massive destruction, the company said on Monday. Facebook will donate the money through the Community Resilience Fund for GOONJ – a Delhi-based non-profit organisation that is leading the relief and recovery efforts in the impacted localities. “In the last few days, Facebook along with the power of the community, has helped reach out to people through features such as Live, creating Page, joining community and raising funds,” a Facebook spokesperson told…
For the efforts it makes to “customise” audience for its advertisers, Facebook should legally be considered as a “content creator” just as any other media outlet, according to US attorneys involved in a case relating to the social networking giant’s ad policies, the media reported. This assertion may have immediate legal ramifications and open the way for news publishers and users demanding reward from Facebook for the content that they provide, The Outline reported on Saturday. The attorneys with the southern district of New York argued that when Facebook mines user data to “create” and “customise” an audience for a particular advertiser, it amounts…
Photo-messaging app Snapchat has been spotted testing the new redesign on Android that the company plans to introduce very soon. An engineer Jane Manchun Wong discovered that Snapchat’s Android app hides a rough alpha version of the revamp with an experience more on par with the iOS version, Engadget reported on Sunday, also citing XDA Developers. “Snapchat’s new faster Android user interface (UI) is underway. It’s generally smoother than the old one. Emoji brush is coming to the new UI for Android too!” Wong tweeted. Since the new version is reportedly in its alpha testing phase, it is still very rough around the edges with…
Rovio Entertainment, the maker of the Angry Birds mobile game series and movie, on Friday reported an increase in second-quarter sales at its games business, providing a positive sign for investors after a profit warning in February. The Finnish company, which listed on the stock market in Helsinki last September, reported lower second-quarter earnings due to declining revenue from its 2016 Hollywood movie, but the number of active players for its games rose more than analysts had expected. Second-quarter adjusted operating profit fell to EUR 6 million ($7 million), down from EUR 16 million a year earlier and slightly above the average market forecast according…