Tag: users

WhatsApp to clearly outline how its privacy updates will affect EU users

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London: Meta-owned WhatsApp has committed to being more transparent on changes to its terms of service in the European Union.
The European Commission said in a statement that the company will make it easier for users to reject updates when they disagree with them, and will clearly explain when such rejection leads the user to no longer be able to use WhatsApp’s services.
Also, WhatsApp confirmed that users’ personal data are not shared with third-parties or other Meta companies — including Facebook — for advertising purposes.
“I welcome WhatsApp’s commitments to changing its practices to comply with EU rules, actively informing users of any changes to their contract, and respecting their choices instead of asking them each time they open the app,” said Didier Reynders, Commissioner for Justice.
“Consumers have a right to understand what they agree to and what that choice entails concretely, so that they can decide whether they want to continue using the platform,” Reynders said in a statement late on Monday.
The Consumer Protection Cooperation Network (CPC) will actively monitor how WhatsApp implements these commitments when making any future updates to its policies and, where necessary, enforce compliance – including by the possibility of imposing fines.
A recent European Commission study showed that many companies use “dark patterns”, for example making it more difficult to unsubscribe from a service than to subscribe to it.
The CPC Network first sent a letter to WhatsApp in January 2022, following an alert by the European Consumer Organisation (BEUC) and eight of its member associations on alleged unfair practices in the context of WhatsApp’s updates to their terms of service and privacy policy.

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#WhatsApp #outline #privacy #updates #affect #users
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 7, 2023
Google Pixel Watch bug impacting users’ alarms

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San Francisco: Some Google Pixel Watch users have reported that their alarms have been going off late because of a bug.
Taking to Reddit, several users complained about the bug, reports Gizmochina.
While one user said that their alarm for 7 p.m., set as a reminder to give their son milk, had been going off late for the last few days.
Another said that their alarm had gone off a few minutes before or after the set time.
It is expected a recent update might have caused the issue.
However, it is still unclear what is the reason causing the issue, but there might be a possibility that the watch is in a deep sleep mode before the alarm goes off, making it difficult to rouse it on time.
Google will likely address the bug in the next few days and will roll out an update to the Pixel watches to solve the issue, the report said.

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#Google #Pixel #Watch #bug #impacting #users #alarms
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 6, 2023
WhatsApp may let users ‘mute calls’ from unknown numbers

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San Francisco: Meta-owned WhatsApp is reportedly developing a new feature, “silence unknown callers”, which will allow users to mute calls from unknown numbers while still showing them in the calls list and notification centre.
According to WABetaInfo, the new feature is currently under development on WhatsApp beta for Android.
This feature will also include several advantages, such as reducing interruptions and potentially avoiding spam calls.
Users will find the toggle located in the app settings, and once enabled, calls from unknown numbers will get silenced, but they will still be shown in the calls list and notification centre, said the report.
Meanwhile, WhatsApp is rolling out a new “Split view” feature for tablets, which will allow users to see and use two different sections of the application side by side at the same time, on Android beta.
Usually, the chat view takes up the entire screen when users open a chat on the tablet version of the application and then users have to go back to the chat list again if they want to open a different conversation.
With the new feature, the chat list will always be visible when opening a chat.

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#WhatsApp #users #mute #calls #unknown #numbers
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 6, 2023
Twitter to soon let users post 10K character tweets

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San Francisco: Twitter CEO Elon Musk on Monday said that the micro-blogging platform will “soon” extend “longform tweets” to 10,000 characters.
When YouTuberA@ThePrimeagen, who posts videos related to coding, asked Musk, “the dev community and I were wondering if you could add code blocks to tweets?”
Musk replied: “As an attachment? How many chars? We are extending longform tweets to 10k soon.”
Several users expressed their thoughts on Twitter CEO’s post.
While one user said, “You’re a crazy man lmao,” another commented, “!! Wow! That’s really good news. Actual microblogging!”
Last month, the company had announced that Blue subscribers in the US can post long tweets of up to 4,000 characters on the platform.
Only Blue subscribers can post longer tweets, but non-subscribers can read, reply, retweet and quote tweet to them.
Earlier, tweets were limited to only 280 characters, which still applies to non-subscribers.

Meanwhile, Musk had said that the micro-blogging platform is “spinning up subscriptions” so that users can “charge” their followers for specific content.
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#Twitter #users #post #10K #character #tweets
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 6, 2023
Social media users who share more news care less about accuracy: Study

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New York: People who share news items extensively on social media often tend to discern less over their accuracy, according to a study.
Researchers at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) conducted an experiment to understand a core tension between the impulse to share news and to think about whether it is true.
The results showed that even considering whether or not to share news items on social media reduces people’s ability to tell truths from falsehoods.
The study involved asking more than 3,000 people to assess whether various news headlines were accurate.
But if participants were first asked whether they would share that content, they were 35 per cent worse at telling truths from falsehoods. Participants were also 18 per cent less successful at discerning truth when asked about sharing right after evaluating them.
“Just asking people whether they want to share things makes them more likely to believe headlines they wouldn’t otherwise have believed, and less likely to believe headlines they would have believed,” David Rand, Professor at the MIT Sloan School of Management said.
“Thinking about sharing just mixes them up,” he added.
While people’s willingness to share news content and their ability to judge it accurately can both be bolstered separately, the study suggests the two things do not positively reinforce each other when considered at the same time.

“The second you ask people about accuracy, you’re prompting them, and the second you ask about sharing, you’re prompting them,” Ziv Epstein, a doctoral student in the Human Dynamics group at the MIT Media Lab said.
“If you ask about sharing and accuracy at the same time, it can undermine people’s capacity for truth discernment.”
The paper will be published in the journal Science Advances.
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#Social #media #users #share #news #care #accuracy #Study
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 4, 2023
Users can now change behaviour of AI Bing chatbot

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San Francisco, March 3 (IANS) Tech giant Microsoft has added a new feature to its artificial intelligence (AI)-powered Bing chatbot that allows users to choose different tones for responses.
Users can choose between three options for the chatbot’s responses — precise, balanced and creative.
The creative mode provides responses that are “original and imaginative”, whereas the precise mode gives “accuracy and relevancy for more factual and concise answers”, reports The Verge.
The tech giant has set the Bing chatbot’s default mode to balanced, which it thinks will strike the right balance between accuracy and creativity.
These new chat modes are currently rolling out to all Bing AI users, and about 90 per cent of users should already be seeing them.
According to Mikhail Parakhin, the head of web services at Microsoft, the update includes a “significant reduction in cases where Bing refuses to reply for no apparent reason”.
Last month, the company had said that it was also going to test an additional option that would allow users to choose the tone of the chat from more precise, to balanced and more creative.
“The goal is to give you more control on the type of chat behaviour to best meet your needs,” it added.

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#Users #change #behaviour #Bing #chatbot
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

March 3, 2023
Indian government issues ‘high risk’ warning for Google Chrome users- Check Details Here

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New Delhi, Mar, 02: The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has revealed that multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Google Chrome.
Google Chrome is the most used internet browser across the globe with a massive market share. The Google backed web browsers is significantly ahead from its competitors when it comes to users. Not just desktop, even smartphone users rely on Google Chrome for day to day browsing and tasks. As most of the things are moving online, our reliability on web browsers is more than ever. We are now forced to share more and more of our personal information including banking details, date of birth, location and others. To keep the users safe, Google rolls out security updates for Chrome browser from time to time. Although tech companies recommend users to run the latest version of their browser, a few users opt to run the older for ease of use but it’s worth noting that older versions of browsers are easier to exploit. A few such vulnerabilities have been spotted in the Google Chrome browser and the Indian government has issued a warning for users of Chrome browser version prior to 110.0.5481.177.
The Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) under the Ministry of Electronics and Information Technology has revealed that multiple vulnerabilities have been reported in Google Chrome which could be exploited by an attacker to execute arbitrary code and gain access to sensitive information on the targeted system.
According to CERT-In, the vulnerability exists in Google Chrome due to Use after free in Prompts, Web Payments API, SwiftShader, Vulkan, Video and WebRTC; Heap buffer overflow in Video & Integer overflow in PDF. A remote attacker could exploit these vulnerabilities by persuading a victim to visit a specially crafted web page. Successful exploitation of these vulnerabilities could allow an attacker to execute arbitrary code and gain access to sensitive information on the targeted system.
To avoid any swindling, users should apply appropriate patches as mentioned by Google.
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#Indian #government #issues #high #risk #warning #Google #Chrome #users #Check #Details
( With inputs from : roshankashmir.net )

March 2, 2023
WhatsApp now lets users report status updates on iOS beta

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San Francisco: Meta-owned messaging platform WhatsApp is reportedly rolling out a new feature, which will allow users to report status updates, on iOS beta.
The beta testers will see a new “Report” option in the status updates, reports WABetaInfo.
With the new feature, users can report any status update that might violate the Terms of Service, which will then be sent to the moderation team.
Also, the feature makes sure that the messages, media, location sharing, calls and status updates are all protected by end-to-end encryption on all devices.
This means that the content of the messages and private calls will remain inaccessible to anyone, including WhatsApp, Meta or any third-party proxy provider.
The new feature is useful as it will make the platform safe and secure for all users.
The ability to report status updates is available to some beta testers after installing the latest beta version of the application, and it is expected to roll out to more users over the coming days, the report said.
Last month, WhatsApp was reportedly working on this feature for Android beta.

Meanwhile, earlier this month, the messaging platform had announced that it was rolling out new features coming to its status, including ‘Voice Status’, ‘Status Reactions’ and much more.
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#WhatsApp #lets #users #report #status #updates #iOS #beta
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 24, 2023
YouTube Music now let users create customise radio stations

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San Francisco: Google is rolling out a new feature to music streaming service ‘YouTube Music’, which will allow users to create their own custom stations based on specific artists.
Users can access the new “Radio Builder” feature by navigating to the “Your music tuner” section of the YouTube Music homepage in the iOS or Android application, reports The Verge.
Users can choose up to 30 artists when creating a custom station, and can also specify whether they want to hear music just from those artists or from artists that are similar to those they have chosen.
Also, users can instruct it to play songs they know, songs they haven’t heard before, or a combination of the two while adding filters to allow users to tune the mix.
According to Google spokesperson Paul Pennington, all users can access the feature, whether they are a paying subscriber or a free user, the report said.
Last December, it was reported that the company was testing this feature.
Meanwhile, earlier this month, the music streaming platform had reportedly rolled out the redesign of the “album view” for Android and iOS.

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#YouTube #Music #users #create #customise #radio #stations
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 22, 2023
Twitter to limit SMS two-factor authentication to Blue users

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San Francisco; Micro-blogging platform Twitter has announced that it will no longer allow non-Twitter Blue users to use text messages as a two-factor authentication (2FA) method, after March 20.
Also, users will now not be able to enroll in the text message/SMS method of 2FA unless they are Blue subscribers, the company said in a blogpost.
After March 20, non-Blue accounts with text message 2FA still enabled “will have it disabled.”
Currently, the platform offers three methods of 2FA – text message, authentication app and security key.
The company further mentioned that it “encourages” non-Blue users to “consider using an authentication app or security key method instead.”
“These methods require you to have physical possession of the authentication method and are a great way to ensure your account is secure,” it added.
Meanwhile, last week, Twitter had confirmed that it will charge Rs 650 per month for its Blue service with verification on the web and Rs 900 on Android and iOS mobile devices in India.
In December last year, the micro-blogging platform relaunched its Blue subscription service with verification, costing $8 for Android users and $11 for iPhone owners per month globally.

Moreover, Blue subscribers in the U.S. can create long tweets of up to 4,000 characters.
Blue users will also see 50 per cent fewer ads in their home timeline.
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#Twitter #limit #SMS #twofactor #authentication #Blue #users
( With inputs from www.siasat.com )

February 18, 2023