Google products are back online!
Google products are down 14-12-2020 from about 1200 GMT.
Users have reported difficulty accessing YouTube, Gmail, Google Sheets, and Meets.
There have been reports across Ghana and the UK at least.
It is still unclear what caused the Google apps to crash.
Meanwhile, Google search is still working fine.
The funny thing is when you search for “Google is down” on Google search, it tells you no.
Scientists are using smartphone batteries from allover the world to power covid19 research. Over 100,000 volunteers around the world are doing this through the DreamLab app.
The DreamLab app goes through simulations of food molecules to determine which nutrient combinations would offer the best medical benefits to fight covid19 or long covid symptoms.
Volunteering smartphones to be used in research has done in three months what normal computers would use 300 years to do. These volunteer smartphones have contributed to more than 53 million calculations.
Scientists continue to gush at the effort volunteers are bringing to the table. 100,000 smartphones are more powerful than supercomputers at the Imperial College of London’s Faculty of Medicine, for example.
Most people volunteer their smartphones when they are asleep during the night. You can plug in your phone’s charger before you go to bed. Then you turn on the DreamLab app. While you sleep, your phone comes alive and provides invaluable computing resource that could help fight the covid19 pandemic.
Pubs apps are perfect for making orders. They are also perfect for coordinating donation offers from other people interested in helping out the homeless. For Chris Fareham and his Facebook Group, pub apps are helping them access more food donations to help the rough sleepers.
Chris and his team decide beforehand which pubs to visit. When they arrive, they ask group members and friends for “pizzas, easy to eat foods, sealed soft drinks.” These orders are then delivered in takeaway boxes to their table at the selected pubs.
After collecting the donations, Fareham and his group use local charities to distribute the food to the homeless.
Chris Fareham was homeless for a time in 2017. He split with his wife and was diagnosed with cancer at the same time. Chris was sleeping in his car while getting treatment. After surgery, he ended up sleeping on someone’s floor.
Since then, Chris has been trying to help people he thinks are in need. While he tried out different schemes, using pub apps to collect donations has been the most successful so far.
Chris remembers a time before the coronavirus lockdown during a donation drive in Southampton. After delivering a trolley of donation items to the Society of St. James, the officers were really excited. They thought that was all. Then Chris told them “This is only a third maybe a quarter of what we’ve got to come. And they were like, ‘Oh, Okay.'”
Chris is happy to help people. The happiness he gets comes from knowing the people he helps are happy to see him. He hopes to continue his efforts when coronavirus lockdown restrictions are lifted.
“I ‘hacked’ Trump’s Twitter account.”
“No, you didn’t.”
“Sorry, I guessed the password.”
“No, you didn’t.”
Such has been the conversation regarding an alleged ‘hack’ into Trump’s Twitter account. Well, it was not really a hack if you guessed the password correctly, is it? Oh, it is? What if you are a researcher? Well, the Dutch Police want a glimpse of what you saw before pressing charges, Victor Gevers.
The first advice you get when opening your first online account is to never use a predictable phrase or word as your password. Well, according to Dutch researcher Victor Gevers, Trump never listened. And when has the realDonaldTrump ever listened? The researcher who announced last month that he’d practically ‘walked into’ Donald Trump’s Twitter account said he’d guessed the password as ‘MAGA2020!’ But nobody is accepting his claim. There was no two-factor authentication! Yeah, nobody believes him yet.
White House claims there was no hack. Twitter is also denying the claim. White House’s stance, I get easily, for it seems the Trump administration is in the habit of denying more than the election result. Besides, who would admit to using such a password in the first place?
Twitter, though, I don’t get. Like, why in Trump’s America would they deny there was ever a hack? Unless there was never a hack in the first place. Which leaves the Dutch with all the work to do. Bloody socialists!
The Dutch police claim whatever investigation they are doing was not instigated by their counterparts across the pond. It’s not like they would admit it yet. However, Victor Gevers is helping the High Tech Crime Team as a witness and not a suspect. He had already told reporters about taking over the account as far back as October 22.
But what prove can Gevers show? Just take your own Twitter account for example. What are some of the things that you alone have access to? Tick them off, will you?
If police find that Gevers accessed Trump’s Twitter account outside the realms of cyber research, he could face jail time; he runs spending up to four years in prison. So much for guessing the easiest password in the world, up there behind ‘yourefired’. Don’t bother, we’ll get there soon enough.
When he took over the account, Gevers said he never changed any settings. Nor did he send out any tweet. In addition, he said he’d tried unsuccessfully to reach out to members of Trump’s campaign team.
Victor Gevers says he had taken screenshots of parts of Trump’s Twitter account that only someone with a certain level of access can do.
Some have cast doubt on his claims, saying screenshots could be faked. But Gevers is standing by his words. He has been involved with the Dutch Institute for Vulnerability Disclosure for 22 years.
“I did not ‘hack’ Trump’s account, I did not bypass any security system as there was no adequate security in place. I just guessed the password and then tried to warn his team about the risks and how to solve them.”
Victor Gevers on guessing Trump’s Twitter password
It was not the first time he guessed Trump’s Twitter password either. In 2016, he gained access to Trump’s account by guessing the right phrase: ‘yourefired’.
Of course, why not just talk to your TVs and hope that they will respond. Our fingers are too busy with our smartphones for us to be moving the remote from hand to hand. And what’s better than a talking flat screen? Well, a smart screen that answers commands. For those interested in this kind of thing, Samsung TVs will soon come with Google Assistant. That is the latest, at least.
Google Assistant was launched on Samsung TVs in the United States last month. Since then, the South Korean device manufacturer has been working harder than worker bees to get the feature in as many countries as possible.
So far, Samsung’s 2020 TVs come with Google Assistant in Italy, France, UK, and Germany. By the end of the year, 12 more countries will be added to the list with Brazil, Spain, South Korea, and India getting theirs by end November.
Google Assistant will be available alongside Samsung’s Bixby voice assistant and Amazon’s Alexa. If you feel like you are in a UN building with all those voice assistants, it is because you actually are in one. Only the UN here is prefix for UN-Heard.
So, if you don’t know how to check weather settings in your city, you can just voice the command, and Google Assistant, your servant AI, will quickly tell you the sun is vexed and too tired to shine. “Go look outside yourself!”
Google Assistant will also allow you to change channels, increase or decrease volume, and control other smart home devices.
But the question is why? Is Samsung trying to sabotage the growth of its Bixby smart assistant, cos who would ignore Alexa and Google Assistant and use Bixby now that they are available? Well, who knows how these things work. I guess with the popularity of Google Assistant, this would make Samsung TVs more attractive. Right? Right?
Microsoft is like the guy at the gym who won’t let you win any personal glory. He sees you lifting weights and he starts counting how many labs you are shot. You do pushups and he does one-hand push ups. It has introduced a new feature sure to put the brakes on Zoom’s popularity: you can now call all-day for free on the web.
Microsoft Teams only became available to mobile users in 2020. Now, it is bringing the Friends and Family feature to web users in a bid to drag users away from Zoom.
The Microsoft Teams friends and family feature allows you to create video calls on web browsers with up to 300 users all-day for free. There is no need to have a Microsoft Teams account; you can join meetings via a link.
The new feature is timely given the raging coronavirus pandemic. With Thanksgiving just around the corner, many Americans now have a chance to engage in online conversations and parties without worrying about costs. You can have Thanksgiving online for free throughout the day.
Zoom, meanwhile, is not sitting idle. The pacesetter in video calls is suspending its 40-minute meeting limit for free applicants in time for Thanksgiving. Cisco Webex and Google Meets each have a limit on how long you can hold free meetings online.
Did you log into the Twitter app and wondered if you were on the wrong app? Did you for a moment think you were still on Facebook, what with those ephemeral Stories-like updates right at the top of you Twitter feed? Not to worry, that is just Twitter becoming social media app number 2 million that copied borrowed a Snapchat feature. They are called Fleets, and here is what they do.
Twitter released a vanishing tweet feature called Fleet on Tuesday, November 17, 2020. Much like Facebook and Instagram Stories, Twitter’s Fleet allows users to share fleeting content which disappears after a while.
Twitter Fleets are ephemeral pieces of content that disappear after 24 hours. They function just like the popular Stories features on apps like Facebook and Instagram, and exactly like WhatsApp’s Status feature.
Much like Stories, Twitter users can share videos, images, or texts as Fleets. Twitter had been testing the feature in India, Brazil, South Korea, and Italy before its worldwide rollout. As to why Twitter is taking the same well-trodden route as other social media apps, Twitter said they realised more people were willing to share their thoughts on the app if the content would be fleeting. In other words, people were more willing to share content if they had the intention of deleting it in the near future.
How did they know? Maybe, the algorithm picked up on all those tweets which were deleted soon after they were posted. But that could also be salvaged with a Twitter edit button, you know, Jack!
Speaking in a press call, Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter’s product lead, said:
“It is crucial that people feel inspired and have the tools and capabilities to actually talk and create content in order for the rest of us to stay informed about our interests,”
Kayvon Beykpour, Twitter Product Lead
To share a Fleet, just click on the share icon at the bottom of their tweets. In the mobile app, you can see a share icon at the top of the Twitter feed.
The idea behind introducing all these features is to encourage more people to share their views on the app. Twitter is already looking at other venues to increase engagement. The Twitter voice note was one such feature. Going forward, Twitter hopes to make it possible to reply to tweets with a voice clip. It is also looking to add audio features to Twitter DMs. In addition, Twitter wants to add a private chat room where users can chat with others through audio.
Snapchat seems to be the torch-bearer of the new social media age.
You do remember the Beastmaster TV show between 1999 and 2002, don’t you? If you need me to scratch your memory, then imagine a man who could understand animal language. I bet there are many of us wished we could speak to animals. Well thanks to a new app, we just might learn to understand cat language. Well, sort of…
A former Alexa engineer has developed an app that translates your cat’s miaow. MeowTalk will record your cat’s sound and then attempt to translate it to a language you understand.
For those who have lived with their cats for longer, chances are that you already understand some of your cat’s language. Well, MeowTalk will give you the option to add to its database. How it works is that you record the cat’s miaow. If you already know what your cat is saying, then you label it in the app. This will be stored in the app’s database of cat sounds.
Currently, MeowTalk only has 13 cat calls in its database. They include “Leave me alone!”, “Feed me!”, and “I’m hungry!”.
If you didn’t know already, researchers believe cats don’t have a language. Each cat’s sound is designed to evoke a reaction from its owner. That means a cat speaks only to its owners. Outside of those in its life, the cat is functionally mute.
Because of this, the MeowTalk records will help understand each individual cat’s miaows, perfect its translation over time, and… you guessed it, provide instant translation via a human voice.
MeowTalk is available for free on Google Play Store and the App Store.
Instagram will employ new tools to detect and self-harm and suicide posts on its platform in UK and Europe. The new technology will sift through images and texts to detect self-harming posts that violate its terms of use and make them less visible. If the posts appear to be extreme, Instagram will remove them completely from the app.
In a blog post on November 10, 2020, Adam Mosseri, Head of Instagram announced that they were working with experts to understand mental health better. In 2019, Instagram removed all graphic content that promoted self-harm and suicide. This extended to fictional representations of self-harm including in memes, paintings, and other forms of art.
In addition to blocking these posts, Instagram also offered help to people who searched for hashtags related to self-harm and suicide. These users are then directed to people capable of providing them help.
Going forward, Instagram will use artificial intelligence to direct posts that talk about self harm and suicide to human reviewers. Depending on what the decision is, the reviewers could either decide to remove the content and/or direct the person to organisations who help persons suffering from suicidal thoughts. In extreme cases, Instagram will call emergency services to offer the help needed to those in need.
Instagram’s policy on self-harm and suicide posts had been in existence outside of the EU. Now, the new policies will be rolled out in the EU as well as in the UK. The situation is made dire given privacy concerns. With further talks between the parties involved, the new technology could be used to help more people who need it across the world.
The Trump administration issued an ultimatum to ByteDance to make TikTok a wholly American company or risk a ban on November 12, 2020. While an initial ban had been suspended via a court decision, results in the US elections looks set to affect the final decision on the video-sharing app’s future. Will TikTok lose its American license, or will the popular app find a new breath of life given Donal Trump is about to leave office?
The US TikTok ban inches closer by the day. The Trump administration wants to ban the viral app from America unless it concedes ownership of its American business. To remain in business, ByteDance would have to sell its US operations to an American business by the November 12, 2020. The new owners would have no ties to any foreign business. So far, Oracle, Walmart, and existing US investors in the ByteDance company. This new entity will be in charge of data of American users.
But as the days tick by, ByteDance has complained about how slow and unresponsive the Trump administration has been to their work towards complying with the new order. According to new report, TikTok has not received a response from the US government for two months.
“In the nearly two months since the president gave his preliminary approval to our proposal to satisfy those concerns, we have offered detailed solutions to finalise that agreement but have received no substantive feedback on our extensive data privacy and security framework,” TikTok is reported as saying.
In the interim, TikTok has filed a a court petition at the US Appeals Court to protect the interests of its US employees. TikTok is looking for an interim injunction on the impending ban. They also want a 30-day extension for negotiations to continue about the sale of its assets to American investors.
With Joe Biden looking set to take over the White House, TikTok is hoping that there would be a different approach from the US government. An extension period approved by court could give it enough time to lobby the Biden administration to stay the ban or, perhaps, change the terms of the agreement to keep part of ByteDance’s Chinese ownership in the deal.
Mobile Techer 