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…
Author: Loknath Das
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…
Facebook birthday fundraisers, a feature that allows users to raise funds for the causes they care about and donate it to nonprofit organisations, raked in more than $300 million (roughly Rs. 9,100 crores) in the first year, the company has said. To make it easier for users to pick one non-profit from a list of over 750,000 nonprofits on Facebook, the social networking giant also announced new tools for people using the feature. “…we will soon provide more information: when you click on a nonprofit in the list, you can learn more about the organisation, their mission, location and how many…
In its bid to deliver better experiences for its users, Twitter has removed support for some outdated but key developer tools in third-party apps. In a blog post on Thursday, Twitter said it will remove access to application programme interfaces (APIs) needed to power push notifications and an auto-refreshing timeline. “We’ve chosen to stop investing in other products including two legacy developer tools used by about 1 percent of third-party developers. This means that some Twitter-like apps will not be able to function the exact same way as before,” said Rob Johnson, Director of Product at Twitter. The changes will affect third-party Twitter apps including Tweetbot, Twitterrific,…
Facebook will broadcast Champions League matches in Latin America through 2021, UEFA announced Wednesday, in the latest bid by online platforms to tap into the lucrative live sports market. The deal will make Facebook “the exclusive free-to-air home for certain UEFA Champions League live matches across Spanish-speaking territories during the 2018-21 cycle,” UEFA said in a statement. The social network giant will show 32 matches per year, including the final, on UEFA’s Champions League Facebook page. The first match featured in the pact is Wednesday’s UEFA Super Cup, which sees Real Madrid face rivals Atletico Madrid. “We look forward to the launch…
Micro-blogging platform Twitter has been asked by the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) to comply with its requests to block objectionable content or face a shutdown in the country, the media reported on Thursday. According to a report in Dawn, Twitter is in danger of being banned in Pakistan because of the government’s inability to force the tech giant to bend to its notions of what is suitable for public consumption or falls within the constitutional realm of legitimate free speech. The PTA on Wednesday informed the Senate Standing Committee on Cabinet Secretariat that while Facebook, YouTube and other social media platforms complied with…
Facebook has added a new feature to its under-13 chat application Messenger Kids, which makes it easier for the children to add their friends on the platform. “Parents have to turn on a setting that creates a four-word passphrase that is used to generate these contact requests,” Tech Crunch reported on Tuesday. The connection requests will be sent directly to the parents, who have to still approve every contact before they can interact with their kids via the platform. “Both parents will receive a contact request from their child and both have to approve the request before the kids can begin chatting. “In other…
Charter Communications, Inc. (NASDAQ:CHTR) announced the launch of Spectrum Internet Gig for residential customers and Spectrum Business Internet Gig for small and medium-sized business clients in its south-central Wisconsin mar-kets, featuring the deployment of DOCSIS 3.1 internet services delivering a 1 Gbps connection to the home or business. Additionally, Spectrum will boost minimum internet speeds in its south-central Wisconsin markets to 200 Mbps at no additional cost to new and existing Spectrum Internet customers. Spectrum is fully committed to bringing faster internet speeds to the communities it serves with no modem fees or data caps. Spectrum Internet Gig is now…
If you walk through Havana, you’ll usually see groups of people huddled around certain plazas, parks and side streets with their cellphones held up to their faces. These people are online. In order to post a picture to Facebook, send an email or read the news, Cubans must buy an internet access card for about a dollar from Etecsa, the state-run telecommunications company, and then find a public hot spot — but that all seems set to change. On Tuesday, the Cuban government tested wireless internet directly on mobile phones nationwide for nine hours. The internet was free for the…