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Posts tagged "social"

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Google Search adds Notes tab and takes a small step toward social search
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Google is updating its search engine with new tools to help you personalize the experience by making it tailored specifically to you.

Among the three reveals, the most impressive, in our opinion, has to be the upcoming Notes feature. This tool will pull together different “tips and advice” on a topic from across the internet if a search result isn't particularly helpful. In a demonstration shown to us, a Google rep played the role of someone looking up instructions on how to make frosting for a birthday cake. Let's say the first search result wasn't what you were looking for. 

Selecting the Notes button below that result connects you to content uploaded by other people offering unique insight to your query. By giving users the opportunity to learn from other people's experiences, Google explained, you might find information better suited to your needs that an official source may fail to address. On the surface, it feels like the tech giant is launching a mini-social media platform on Search since the feature allows for a free-flowing exchange of information.

Google Search Notes

(Image credit: Google)

Be aware that Notes is a type of short-form content. There doesn’t appear to be enough room for long pieces of text. You won't be able to write, for instance, a 500-word recipe for frosting. These Notes need to be short and sweet. It's all about having people provide bite-sized tips on how to make something better such as suggesting adding a bit of lemon zest to a batch of frosting.

Guardrails and limitations

Google is aware that implementing such an update could expose Google Search to a bunch of bad actors coming in and uploading a bunch of inappropriate content. To combat this, it’s adding several guardrails. First, Google will be “using a combination of algorithmic protections and human review” to double-check what is uploaded. Second, the content in “each Note is ranked” according to a search result. The more relevant it is, the higher it’ll place. Finally, “anyone can report a note… for human review” if they run into any inappropriate content.

There are several limitations you need to be aware of. The search feature launches today, however, it will only be made available to users living in the US or India, plus they must be a part of the Search Labs program. Additionally, it will be exclusive to the mobile web version of Google Search as well as the official Google app. 

If you want to try this out, we have a guide teaching people how to try out Google software betas. The guide describes gaining access to the Search Engine Experience, but it's the same process.

Notes will start as an “experiment”. The company wants to see how well this feature will work on a grand scale. It’s unknown how long the trial will last or if it'll see an official release.

Follow your favs

The rest of the update isn’t as dynamic, but it’s still interesting. Over the coming weeks, Google will introduce a Follow tool to American users on mobile. It’ll help you stay up to date on topics you frequently look up by providing “new-to-you” information. Follow can deliver news articles on the latest events of your favorite sports team or specific fashion trends. 

In the image below, you'll see how Follow changes. The left screenshot displays a fairly generic feed with a few pictures, but over time, Google will deliver videos from content creators specializing in your interest once it learns what you like.

Google's new Follow tool

(Image credit: Google)

Finally, the Perspectives tab will roll out to Google Search on desktop to, as you can probably guess, people living in the United States. This tool lets you find content from various online communities like forums or social media platforms. Prior to this, it was exclusive to mobile devices.

As you can see, the US is getting the lion's share of this update. We asked a Google rep if there are plans for an international launch. All we were told is that they working on bringing the “features to locations”, but have nothing more to share at the moment.

We can see these tools becoming really useful helping you track great deals for tech during the holiday season. If you want our advice, check out TechRadar's list of the nine Black Friday deals we recommend buying now.

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Meta AI is coming to your social media apps – and I’ve already forgotten about ChatGPT
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Meta is going all out on artificial intelligence, first developing its own version of ChatGPT as well as implementing Instagram’s AI ‘personas’ to appeal to a younger audience. Now, the company has announced a new AI image generation and editing feature during Meta’s Connect event, which will be coming to Instagram soon. 

If you’re familiar with OpenAI’s ChatGPT or Google’s Bard, Meta AI will feel very familiar to you. The all-general purpose assistant can help with all sorts of planning and organizational tasks, and will now offer the ability to generate images via the prompt ‘/imagine’. 

You’ll also be able to show Meta AI on Instagram a photo you wish to post and ask it to apply a watercolour effect, make the image black and white and so on. Think of the Meta assistant as a more ‘social’ version of ChatGPT, baked right into your social media apps.

Alongside the assistant, the initial roster of 28 AI characters is beginning to roll out across the company’s messaging app. Most of these characters are based on celebrities like Kendall Jenner, Mr. Beast, Paris Hilton and my personal favourite, Snoop Dogg! You can chat with these ‘personas’ directly and finally ask Paris what lipgloss she uses. As you chat with the characters their profile image will animate based on the topic of conversation, which is pretty cool considering chatting with most AI chatbots is kind of… boring, at least from a visual standpoint.

ChatGPT may have started it, but Meta could finish it

It’s clear that Meta is taking AI integration very seriously, and I love to see it! By integrating its virtual assistant and AI tools into the apps billions of people use every day it’s guaranteed an existing user base, and in my opinion, shows that the company has taken the time to really understand why users would approach their product. 

Instead of just unleashing an assistant that will give you recipes and do your homework, it looks like Meta AI is tailored to suit everyday purposes and feels like a really clever way to implement the tool in people’s lives. The assistant is right there in the app if and when you need it, so you don’t have to leave the app to engage with the assistant.

Meta’s huge scale of potential users gives it a good chance of being the AI assistant people will use for the first time and could be the AI assistant people will end up using on a day-to-day basis. No extra app to download or account to make, and no swiping away from your conversation to get to what you need. I think Meta made a smart choice taking its time and has now come out the gate swinging – and I really do think ChatGPT creators OpenAI should be a little bit worried. 

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Twitter down: social media website and app aren’t working – again
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It feels like every other week that the internet breaks – you've guessed it (from the headline), Twitter is down.

The social media giant is unavailable to loads of users – trying to access the web page brings up the message “Something went wrong. Try reloading.”, and the app won't refresh with newer tweets.

Reports on downdetector.co.uk jumped up into the thousands within minutes of the outage – it's worth pointing out that, while the reports also rose on downdetector.com (in the US), they didn't rise by nearly as much.

It sounds like a limited issue, as lots of TechRadar team members haven't had an issue. Saying that the sheer number of Downdetector reports shows that something is up.

Not only is the main Twitter feed down, but other Twitter sites are down too, like its Help site.

We just wanted to post a funny joke, and now we've discovered that Twitter isn't working. We're investigating.

Judging by reports from Downdetector and TechRadar's US team, the outage is affecting far fewer people in the US than in the UK – it seems mainly a British problem. Well, we can add that to the list after Freddos costing more, Magnums getting smaller and the whole cost of living thing.

In the UK, DownDetector reports more than 4,000 reports in the last few minutes. That's a huge number given how many we normally see – even for the major outages that affect multiple websites, we usually see one or two thousand reports.

This outage has come less than six weeks after the last Twitter outage.

That was a smaller one, as the main Twitter feed would load, but Tweets wouldn't – so you could see them, but not click on them or interact with them. 

Now, you can't see anything – it's radio silence.

Usually when there's an internet outage, people turn to Twitter to look for answers. That's… a little harder now.

We looked at Facebook, but Twitter itself hasn't posted there for several months. Last time it did, it was a screenshot of a Tweet about cats. What is this, 2007?

Facebook is a bit more community-focused though, so it's harder to see what people in the wider world are saying.

Reddit to the rescue though:

is_twitter_down_for_anyone_else_in_uk from r/Twitter

There's no official comment, but there are people from around the world commenting to say that Reddit isn't working for them.

Unfortunately, because Reddit's support and news room sites are all hosted by the media giant itself, they're not working either.

We're seeing a growing number of reports of outages from the US, but TechRadar's team based there hasn't seen anything.

It's likely that a server in Europe is at fault, which is why it's so much more of an issue for our UK readers than our US ones.

But we're waiting to find out from Twitter to see what's going on.

Oppo Find X5 Pro

(Image credit: Future)

Reports are well over 4,000 at the moment.

For context, the baseline is 3. That's a big difference.

Oh wait – Twitter is back! (for me at least)

This suggests the end of the outage could be here – just in time for you to return to work after your lunch break. What bad luck.

DownDetector reports for Twitter problems are finally going down – it looks like the outage could really be over.

It's not a steep plummet of reports, which suggests some people are still finding problems with their desktop site or phone app, but this at least tells us that the initial problem is being solved.

We've been looking to see if Twitter itself has commented on the outage – so far we can't see anything from any of its official accounts.

Saying that, it's got about a billion of its own accounts for different regions, aspects of the site and more, so it's very possible that one of them has posted, and we just haven't found it yet.

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Cloud giant Blackbaud acquires social SaaS company Everfi for $750 million
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Cloud software giant Blackbaud has announced its intent to acquire “impact-as-a-service” company Everfi for $ 750 million. 

Based in Washington, DC, Everfi offers cloud-based online learning tools to private, public, and social sector organisations. Alongside this, Everfi works with a range of groups on corporate social responsibility (CSR) and environmental goals. 

The synergies between the two businesses are clear: Blackbaud, working with everyone from non-profits to K-12 schools to faith communities and arts organisations, gains another feather in its cap, one that will generate around $ 120 million in revenue during 2022, rising 20% over 2021, and reaches 45 million learners globally. 

Fiscally smart, socially good

The deal makes a lot of sense. Both companies offer each other extra reach and generate revenue that will help them grow symbiotically. 

“As companies continue to invest further in ESG and CSR programs to both give back and meet regulatory demands, they need a partner who can help connect their philanthropic goals to meaningful social impact opportunities,” said Blackbaud CEO Mike Gianoni. “Blackbaud and Everfi will work together to realize a shared vision of measurable social impact through world-class technology.” 

Under the terms, Blackbaud will pay $ 450 million in cash and a further $ 300 million in common stock. According to Crunchbase, Everfi has raised over $ 250 million. 

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This Microsoft Teams update will help enforce social distancing rules
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Keeping control of your Microsoft Teams meetings could soon get a lot easier thanks to a new update aimed at limiting participant numbers.

The video conferencing service has announced new meeting room capacity notifications for Microsoft Teams Rooms on Android, hopefully helping prevent virtual overcrowding.

The feature could also help in-office staff decide whether to move an in-person meeting online as concerns over Covid continue to rise.

Overcrowded

According to its entry on the Microsoft 365 roadmap, users will now see a notification on the front of room display alerting in-room meeting participants if the room is over-capacity.

This decision is based on the capacity defined in a room account, which for Android users of Microsoft Teams can be limited in order to cope with computing power and battery life.

Microsoft notes that only cameras that support people counting will support this feature.

When a panel is deployed outside a Teams Room that supports this feature, an alert will also be visible on the Teams panel, notifying people outside the room that it has reached capacity.

Microsoft introduced people counting to Teams in 2020 as more and more users flocked to the platform after being told to work from home. Currently, up to 1,000 people can chat and call in to a Microsoft Teams meeting, although this number rises to up to 20,000 for view-only and listen-only calls, such as presentations or webinars.

The new meeting room capacity notifications are set to roll out in February 2022, with all Microsoft Teams on Android users around the world able to experience it.

Users will need to ensure their devices are running some of the latest Android builds, after Microsoft recently revealed it will soon revoke support for versions of Teams running on older versions of the software. Support will be pulled for Teams on Android 5 on March 1, 2022, while Android 6 and 7 will retain support until July 1 and September 1, respectively.

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Sony is encouraging social distancing by gifting two free PS4 games
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Sony has some good news for all the gamers stuck in self-isolation this week: it’s giving away two of widely recognized and widely lauded PS4 games absolutely free.

The games up for grabs include Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection that rounds up the first three games in the series and remasters them for the PS4, as well as the PS4 port of Journey. 

According to a post on the PlayStation Blog, the games are part of the company’s new Play at Home Initiative that intends to help prevent the spread of Covid-19 and includes a generous $ 10 million fund for indie developers to help support them in this difficult time. 

The games will be available starting on April 15 at 8pm PST / 11pm EST and will be available through May 5, 2020 at 8pm PDT / 11pm EST. Once you redeem the games, Sony says, they are yours to keep and the post makes no mention of needing a PlayStation Plus membership to snag the games.

Unfortunately, Sony says these games might take longer to download than usual – as the company is complying with the governments' request to preserve internet bandwidth – but thankfully you have three weeks to jump on this deal.

Looking for other great PS4 games to buy this week? Check these out:

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Voxi SIM only deals: boosted data, unlimited social media and cheap prices
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Facebook, Whatsapp, Snapchat – they're all constant drains on your data, slowly pulling you to the inevitable 'you've run out of data' text from your provider. But Voxi and its latest SIM only deals have a solution to that.

Known for its ability to offer you unlimited access to social media and its persistent appearance in-between your Love Island watch sessions, Voxi is a strong option for anyone needing a new SIMO.

And right now seems like the best time to get one as it is currently offering boosted data on its two best plans. That means an additional 2GB or 5GB of data each month depending on which plan you choose.

And as another bonus, all Voxi's plans run for on 1-month rolling contracts so you can stay as long as you want or leave straight away. Of course, if you're not finding yourself scrolling through Instagram for hours or constantly checking Facebook, there are other SIM plans that may fit your needs more.

We've listed Voxi's data boosted deals and the best options from the rest of the market below for you to look through and compare.

Voxi's impressive SIM only deals:

What other SIM only deals are available?

While these offers are very attractive, there are a load of other SIM only deals you can go for. Three has been ruling the SIMO world for a while now with some excellent value offers. For the cheaper option, Three has a 8GB of data SIM for just £8 a month. Or go with its unlimited data offer costing just £18 a month. 

And it's worth taking a look at its closest competition – Smarty. You pay £15 a month for 50GB of data and get the benefits of a 1-month rolling contract. And, you can tether your devices so you can use your big data plan on your phone, tablet and computer.

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