Movies, Music, Video Games, Social Networks and Lifestyle News And Reviews
Product reviews and news of digital entertainment products and services in movies, music, video games, game streaming, social networks and lifestyle products.
In a filing with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC), Twitter disclosed that around 23 million of its monthly active users are actually bots, or programs that automatically post updates "without any discernible additional user-initiated action." That works out to about 8.5 percent of of the microblogging service's total monthly active users. This is an important metric for advertisers to consider because those automated programs aren't going to generate any sales from ads. They do, however, serve different purposes -- some are nefarious, such as spamming nonsense that nobody cares to read, while others can be useful, such as websites automatically posting interesting content...
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Technology journalists and fans of electronic gadgets suffered a gut punch on Sunday, as it came to light that Evan Blass will no longer post leaked photos of unreleased products. If you're wondering, "Evan who?," then perhaps you better know him by his Twitter handle @evleaks. Blass built a reputation for himself through his evleaks handle by consistently getting his hands on press photos long before they were officially released. You can hear the collective sighs from Samsung, LG, Microsoft, and every other company that's ever been on the receiving end of a leaked press photo. "All good things must come to an end. Thank you for an amazing two years. [RETIREMENT]," Evan Bass, aka @evleaks, posted...
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Facebook warned us this past spring that it would soon be getting rid of the ability to message others through its primary mobile app, and now, it updates us to let us know that the feature is really on its deathbed. Transition to Facebook Messenger, or else. Since Facebook's launch, the service has become a lot more than just a news feed. There are many who now make use of the service to keep in direct contact with others, even preferring to go that route rather than to stick to email. It's for reasons like that why Facebook so badly wanted to separate the messaging component from the main app, and in turn create a dedicated app. For some, having to navigate through the main app first isn't...
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Silicon Valley is suddenly awakened to the fact that workplace diversity is a thing, one in which technology firms as a whole are somewhat lacking. Several companies have vowed to do a better job at building a diverse workplace, including Twitter, the latest firm to come forward with statistics in an industry that typically keeps such data out of the public eye. As with several tech firms, Twitter's workforce is dominated by white males. Overall, 7 out of 10 employees are male, and when it comes to technical jobs, the percentage of males jumps to 90 percent, meaning just 1 in 10 technical employees are female. Source: Twitter Leadership roles are just as lopsided, with 79 percent of the positions...
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Whether you’re disgusted by the prospect of Facebook owning an exciting grassroots-type product like the Oculus Rift or believe, like John Carmack and Michael Abrash, that combining Facebook’ big moneybags with Oculus’ know-how will make possible all the promise of VR technology, Facebook’s blockbuster deal to acquire Oculus VR is now complete. Several months in the making, the $2 billion deal which included $400 million in cash has cleared all regulatory and practical hurdles. In a joint statement, Facebook and Oculus said, “We’re looking forward to an exciting future together, building the next computing platform and reimagining the way people communicate.”...
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When NVIDIA first announced that it would create a workstation-class remote virtualization system that enabled full GPU acceleration with latency-free streaming I was more than a little skeptical. Not only did it seem like a solution in search of a problem, the bandwidth requirements and technical heavy-lifting to support professional PC users seemed too steep to surmount in a few short years. Then, this week, NVIDIA announced that it would offer a free 24-hour test drive of NVIDIA GRID to anyone who wanted to see what the technology could do. We took the company up on its offer and what we've seen is damned impressive. Understanding NVIDIA GRID NVIDIA's GRID is a virtual GPU technology that...
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One of the biggest downsides of social media is that there's way too much information to take in. It's made worse when some people like to post a lot more than the usual person. There are some people I follow on Facebook or Twitter that can post upwards of 10 - 20 times a day. That's hard to deal with sometimes, when there's only so much time in the day, and I have many more updates to look through. Well, understanding that you might not want to see updates from certain people or entities even if you "Follow" them, Twitter has unveiled a feature called "Mute". It couldn't be more simple: Simply mute an account, and you will no longer see their updates in your main feed. This feature currently...
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Sometimes when a company rolls out a new feature, it’s such an obviously good idea that everyone wants that you barely even have to talk about it further. Such is the case with a new Twitter feature spotted in the wild that lets you “mute” annoying Tweeters. Simply put, you can mute someone on Twitter to avoid seeing their tweets (and retweets) from cluttering up your feed. Sure, you could just not follow a given person, but there are IRL social rules that often stick you with someone whose tweets you don’t want to see. You know how it goes. The muting feature appears to be for mobile iOS and Android clients, and the hilarious example cited in the wild is of Donald Trump....
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As Twitter looks to become a viable platform for mobile advertisers much like Facebook, there have been a series of changes to the service leading up to that goal, both behind the scenes and on the surface. Today's update falls into the latter category -- the recently introduced web profile experience is rolling out to all users worldwide today. Twitter first announced the revamped profile option earlier this month. Taking a Google-like approach, Twitter slow rolled the availability of its new profile features to users. Satisfied with what it's seen, the microblogging service is now ready to let everyone build a better, flashier profile page. Comparisons to Facebook can't be avoided. Not only...
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Twitter has kicked its week off by acquiring an up-and-coming Android app, called Cover. As a lock-screen app, we're not quite sure what Twitter plans on doing to exploit its full potential, but given the fact that the app has 26,000 ratings on the Play Store for an average of 4.4/5.0 stars, we're sure there are many fans hoping that it's not going to go downhill. Better Twitter than Facebook though, right? Cover's claim-to-fame is that it allows you to quickly "peek" into open apps, and switch between them quickly. It's contextual-based, so the more you use an app, the more likely it is to appear on your lock screen. If you happen to use a certain app more in the evening than any other...
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That's not the sky you see falling on Wall Street, just Twitter's stock price. Investors hit the panic button after Twitter reported its fourth quarter and fiscal year 2013 financial results. Twitter's revenue in the fourth quarter was $243 million, up 116 percent year-over-year, though it's the user growth that spooked investors into selling off their stock. The microblogging service averaged 241 million users in the fourth quarter of 2013, an increase of just 3.8 percent sequentially. It's the lowest quarter-on-quarter growth rate since the company began disclosing such data, Reuters reports. Image Source: Flickr (Anthony Quintano) As a result, shares of Twitters dropped 25 percent, hammering...
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It makes total sense that Twitter would offer a way to share information about and buy products from within the service, so it’s actually not surprising to hear that a Twitter e-commerce solution is in the works. Re/code.net reports that in addition to nearly finalizing a deal with payment services company Stripe, the social network is flirting with integrating Fancy.com’s online shopping tools. The site found an open, non-password protected area of Fancy.com’s site that contained a mockup of what the product would look like. According to Re/code’s sources, Twitter is also fielding overtures from another potential e-commerce partner. Click to enlarge (Credit: Re/code.net)...
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Michael Sippey, vice president of product at Twitter, has spent most of his professional career working at startups, none bigger than the microblogging site that lets you post your thoughts 140 characters at a time. Previous to joining Twitter in 2012, Sippey helped grow a blog platform called Six Apart and then Say Media, a media company born out of a merger between Six Apart and VideoEgg. What will he do next? We're about to find out. Sippey announced in a blog post that the time has come to "move on," though it won't happen abruptly. For the time being, Sippy has stepped into a advisory role at Twitter where he'll help with product strategy, give input on upcoming projects, and assist with...
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With Twitter's stock price surging to new highs, now is a good time to focus on the mobile experience, which is where users are flocking to these days. That's not lost on Twitter, which just updated its app for Android and iOS devices to include the ability to share and view photos via direct message (DM) on your phone or tablet devices. Those same photos can also be viewed on the desktop on Twitter's website. There's also a new tab in the navigation bar on the bottom of the screen to whisk users to the messaging service with a single tap rather than first having to open up the "Me" screen, as was the case before this latest update. Messaging is becoming an important component in today's top...
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