1:50 PM

Did you know The new Dublin centre will be a regional hub for Google experts, which will be helpful to confront the online harmful content

Giant tech companies like Google, Facebook, Twitter have always a threat of harmful content. Just like in the recent month Facebook had the allegations of spreading harmful content that has the harassment material. Criminals especially use these kinds of a platform for online criminal activities. If you are curious about why people use mostly such platform, the answer to this question is simple, these platforms have more traffic. Every single person living in a house use such a platform for their work, simply these platforms have become part of their routine work. Google has billions of users every month. Most people use these platforms for spreading false news.

Especially, during the COVID-19 pandemic, Google had allegations of spreading false news about the coronavirus vaccine. Not only this, Google had faced some criticism about the dispersion of harmful content through its platform. Google security had faced many problems to tackle harmful and fake content. As everybody knows that Google is the biggest search engine in the world with billions of contents, it is very difficult to account for the nature of every single piece of content. Still, Google is trying its best to prevent fake news and false information.

Thousand of people rely on Google source, this will put the integrity of Google in danger if found that a user has got fake news from the world’s largest search engine. Google has opened a new Dublin center to tackle such harmful and fake content. This center will have the experts working day and night to prevent the spread of harmful content. The Alphabet Unit was criticized a lot for not taking any strong regulatory action. The European Union consisting of 27 countries has taken some strong actions against this giant tech company to review their security policies and check their content, because on one side they have the trust of people and spreading the harmful content that will influence people more, on the other side these giant rivals are putting the survivals of small rivals in danger by not taking the responsibility. According to the statement of EU, Google should immediately remove the harmful content from their platform.

These projected rules and regulations will be implemented in the next two years. Google is also criticized for using the google tools to track iPhone users, therefore, people think that Google is disturbing their privacy. The safety engineer of Google will have the content responsibility in Google’s European headquarter in Dublin. The Dublin center will be a place where the experts of Google will share their work with the policymakers, researchers, and regulators. That will build more trust of people in Google.

1:36 PM

Did you know A Recent Telegram Update Allows Users To Export And Import Chats From WhatsApp

Telegram is introducing a new feature, allowing its growing userbase on iOS products to import chats from their WhatsApp accounts (and from other social media messaging apps as well).

To say that WhatsApp has had a horrible past month or so would be highly understanding the issues plaguing our previously favorite social media communication app. Ever since the announcement of a change to the Terms of Service policy that allowed the app to share user information with Facebook, people have been quick to make their displeasure heard. With a general air of mistrust surrounding Facebook, considering how the social network has been subjected to an FTC lawsuit as well as criticism regarding its unintentional role in the US Capitol riot, users expressed paranoia regarding any amount of personal information being willingly handed over.

And thus, a massive exodus was overseen where WhatsApp's userbase quickly jumped ship and looked for other prospects. Two social media apps that quickly caught the public’s e were Signal and Telegram, both of which are also platforms for communication via messages and whatnot. The former was actively suggested by tech billionaire Elon Musk in a short tweet. Both these companies subsequently received a sharp increase in users, with Telegram growing by 25 million users in 72 hours, bringing its community to a cumulative 500 million.

Adding insult to injury for WhatsApp is the fact that Telegram's developers are unabashedly taking advantage of the former’s weakness. In the app's 7.4 iOS build, which was quickly taken off the market and is expected to launch a bit later, users have the option to export chats from WhatsApp, Line, KakaoTalks, and a few others. This relies on WhatsApp's Export Chat feature, found under Settings, Chats, then Chat History. Once extracted, typically in the shape of a ZIP file, the iOS Sheet Share will allow Telegram to utilize the chat and then let users manually select the new chat in which the messages will be integrated.


 Honestly, Telegram's active facilitation of users looking to easily and seamlessly migrate from one platform to another isn’t exactly a nefarious practice. WhatsApp itself enables the transferring of messages via the aforementioned ZIP files, thus making this new update fair game. Its timing, however, is definitely of note and can be referred to as a very calculating move by Telegram's developers, or a mildly amusing if not unfortunate stroke of luck for them (which coincidentally spells misfortune for WhatsApp).

1:30 PM

Did you know Facebook’s Gearing Up To Butt Heads With Apple Over iOS 14 Feature Via A Lawsuit

According to an article by The Information, Facebook is preparing to launch a lawsuit against Apple regarding the iOS 14 Tracking and Transparency features.

The tense situation between Facebook and Apple has come to a head, as both companies refuse to cave to the other’s demands. Full disclosure before delving into the rest of the article: this author, for reasons which will be made clear down the line, actively believes Facebook to be in the wrong regarding this spat, and is appalled by the company’s actions. Having established this personal bias, accompanied with a promise to attempt practicing impartiality, let us begin.

Facebook’s issues with Apple began when the iPhone wizards unveiled their latest operating software, entitled iOS 14. Amongst a myriad of functional tweaks and upgrades, a new feature caught everyone’s attention. The App Tracking/Transparency tool, to be specific. In one swipe, Apple was giving its users complete autonomy in selecting what sort of information applications demanded from them and, accordingly, what sort of information they wanted to share. Neatly dividing harvested information into categories representing personal details, locations, etcetera, Apple’s massive community of users would have full control over their online persona, in a day and time ruled by online exchanges both social and monetary. This definitely seems like the right step for the company to take.

Facebook has, however, been of a separate mindset. Immediately after the announcement, the social network shot back, discussing the harmful repercussions such actions would have on much smaller, independent developers that relied on targeted advertisements to make revenue. Since user information siphoned for the purposes of these advertisements isn’t inherently personal or threatening, Facebook argued that allowing users such control would only serve to damage revenue streams for developers that need them. Apple itself had, in the meantime, given Devs on their Apple Store until 2021 to start working on their policies in order to share information about user data usage. While this author had promised to remain impartial in writing this, it should also be noted that Facebook’s targeted ad streams make up more than 80% of their revenue, as highlighted by a Q4 2020 finance report published by the company itself. This is further accentuated by the fact that large corporations such as Facebook are the reason targeted ads retain such online importance, forcing indie Devs to rely on them for monetization.

At any rate, at the end of the day neither company is willing to call it quits. Facebook has been particularly vehement in its opposition, taking out full-page ads in popular newspapers decrying Apple’s motivations. While the social media platform did briefly take a reprieve and email its businesses asking them to begrudgingly acquiesce with Apple’s policy remarks, it seems that ultimately Facebook ends to drag this quarrel to a bitter end. And hey, if anyone’s familiar with lawsuits, it’s the Social Network! Ask Eduardo Saverin or, more recently, the FTC.

1:27 PM

You know Google Play Is Now Allowing Gambling Games and Apps in Fifteen More Countries

Google, is now allowing real money gambling games on its app, as first spotted by 9to5Google. For the longest time the gambling games were only restricted to four countries that are Brazil, France, Ireland and United Kingdom.

According to a recent report, Google announced its new policy of Real-Money Gambling, Games, and Contests policy and said that it has added fifteen more countries to the list making it a total of nineteen now. The countries include Australia, Belgium, Canada, Colombia, Denmark, Finland, Germany, Japan, Mexico, New Zealand, Norway, Romania, Spain, Sweden, and the United States.

The policy is expected to go live on March 1st, 2021 and since that day developers will be able to issue online casino games, lotteries, sports betting, and daily fantasy sports games in the above-mentioned nineteen countries. Each country will have its own set of rules, limitations and policies on which type of gambling will be legal in their countries. The restrictions vary from country to country and some countries will only allow gambling when it is directly under the government control while some countries like UK allow it, despite this. Countries like the United States having many States and the policies may differ from State to State. The developers who will be working towards issuing a game in the specific country will have to go through understanding the legal formalities and laws about online gambling in the specific country.

You must be thinking allowing gambling games can be dangerous, so how will the safety be ensured and what benefit would the users and the Tech Giant get from this?

Well, Google will not be allowing just any developer to come and upload their app game on the Play Store. The developers will have to go through the process of filling up an application form and ensuring that they are licensed to run a gambling game in the country where their app will be sold. Apart from this, Google will make sure that all gambling games are age specific so that it is not accessible to the underage category and no harm is done.

To answer why Google is allowing these games to come on the app and what benefit will the user and tech giant gain. Well, Google was never in favor in gaming apps like these on their store but since they were already accessible to Apple users through App Store and Google after seeing that people are downloading these games through unauthorized websites realized that it is extremely dangerous and hence allowed that they will permit these games under strict restrictions for its users.

So if you are a developer willing to develop a gambling app for these countries, look through the information and make sure to fill the application process.

 

Photo: John Nacion/STAR MAX/IPx

1:20 PM

Did you know Google Docs introduced a new feature that will notify when someone is offline and will also mention the date and time of their availability

Google is always on the go into updating and introducing new features for their users. Google Docs, by Google is a free web based word processor in which one can create and edit documents and share them with anyone across platforms from any device having an internet connection.

Google Workspace launched in 2006 as Google Apps and rebranded as G-Suite in 2016, has a bunch of tools for productivity and collaboration. It consists of software developed by Google for its users. G-Suite is used by people who have hours long of work and need quick and accessible tools right in front to save time. What’s also included with Google Workplace or G-Suite is Google docs, email, chat, meet, calendar, drive and many more tools helpful for work purposes.

With most of the people now working from home, G-suite served as something very useful to many people. Out of the many things it has to offer, Google Docs on G-suite has introduced a new clever feature which will alert you when you’ve tagged a colleague who is offline at that moment. With the situation of the on-going pandemic, many people might need to take time off from work or quarantine themselves; it might get a little hard to get the message across of the non-availability among colleagues. This feature will help other colleagues get notified. Google Docs that allows several people to work on the same document will also be mentioning the date and time of the user’s availability.

To mark yourself offline, you would just have to select the ‘out of office’ option on Google calendar and the rest will be figured out by Google docs. When someone will mention the person who has marked itself offline on their Google calendar, the Docs will show a banner letting it known that the person is not available and also the date and time of their availability. If several people mark themselves as offline, the banner will list every one’s name and their date of availability as well. This allows you to save time and not rely on someone who is offline.

This feature will for sure prove to be useful for people as every other feature that Google has come up with till now. This update has already been in use for G-Suite users and will be available for everyone worldwide by the end of February.

1:16 PM

Did you know The Information About Electric Vehicle Charging Stops Has Just Become Better On Google Maps For Android Automotive

Currently, the Android Automotive stands compatible with two cars and while both of them, by chance, are electric, the company has planned to improve the navigation of EV charging stations in the built-in Google Maps app before they roll it out to introduce the dashboard experience in more vehicles very soon.

Keeping an eye on the charging stations is about to be an integral part of every traveling plan considering the limited range of current electric cars and how the availability of stations can help a consumer decide if they really want to take such a trip or not.

Hence, for the similar matter, you will now be able to look out for available chargers on the Maps app in which Google will note the speed and network.

On the other hand, if you are planning to go on a trip that may require two or more recharge stops, then Google will first point out the stations for you and then also showcase the charging levels along in order to “minimize the total duration of the trip.” The whole process is based on the new routing algorithms that Google has been able to make with the help of the graph theory that takes care of both the driving and charging time.

So, overall, Google has now also eyed for a solution that will work for all the vehicles which will get Automotive in times to come.

With this setup in place, the solution will also be able to show you the characteristics of each EV which includes weight, maximum battery level, plug type, etc. Besides that, through the algorithm, you would also know which edges are compatible with the EV under consideration.

Moving beyond that, Google will also let you take care of the battery consumption, by providing you the detailed road information (length, elevation, and slope) and this whole routing won’t take more than 10 seconds.

Last but not the least, through the new feature which has been showcased today, you will also know what payment methods a particular station would accept in the current 12 European countries.

You can try out the improvements right away. 

1:11 PM

Did you know Twitter recently announced about its new newsletter startup acquisition and has already begun working on it

Twitter is a platform where people express themselves freely. They share their content with the world and start meaningful conversations. Twitter earlier this week announced about the acquisition of its new startup that is called Revue. Revue will serve as a platform and opportunity for writers or anyone for that matter to create and get paid for their newsletters, and that too for free! Revue is there to make it easy for anyone who would like to start and publish their own newsletters. It will give the audience something new to see on twitter and to read about the many different opinions on anything going on in the world

This new unison between Twitter and Revue would highly boost Twitter’s platform and will for sure engage more followers as usual. This could and probably will give the company countless advantages in the newsletters market that is already on a much competitive road. With Twitter’s already huge platform also taking up on newsletters, it is for sure to take the whole industry by storm.

Twitter not only announced about Revue earlier this week but it has also started working on it to bring it as soon on the table as possible. Jane Manchun Wong, a tech blogger who also uncovers features that are yet to be launched by apps also uncovered that twitter has already begun with the newsletters settings and is planning to merge it in with the rest of the options on the side bar navigation with other options on it like Twitter Ads, Bookmarks, Moments etc. She also revealed some of the early testing that showed that twitter will also put forward Revue benefits which will include composition, scheduling of the newsletters and then earning money from paid followers. All of this proves just as how much Revue into the Twitter platform will become a means for users to reach their goals. If someone would hop onto twitter right now they will just see a ‘find out more’ options that will take the users to the Revue website.

Twitter is also to drop a new bomb soon. It is planning to release a new audio product called Twitter Spaces that will also attract more newsletter subscribers through audio chats in Spaces.

This unison of Revue and Twitter is for sure to give writers a fresh new start and the opportunity to explore with their writing talents. Revue will prove to be fresh home for its writers and for other writers and authors to meet and connect with each other.

1:07 PM

Did you know Mark Zuckerberg Answers Tough Questions Related to Facebook's Privacy Scandals in An Internal Meeting

In the first week of January, WhatsApp users received a pop notification on the app notifying them about a new policy. The policy said that the WhatsApp data of the users will now be shared with the Parent company that is Facebook. This created a havoc among the users, and they started feeling a breach in privacy and many switched to other competitive messaging apps like Signal. Signal jumped from 20 million to 40 million users in a month.

To answer this and other questions that have been recently arising related to Facebook’s other privacy scandals, Mark Zuckerberg came forward in a company-wise weekly Question and Answer sessions that is quite internal but whose audio was obtained by Big Technology.

In the meeting, one employee raised a question that the Facebook’s brand has become toxic for its users and what efforts will the company take to improve the brand. The questions were followed by why is Facebook stuck in an endless loop of scandals.

On which Zuckerberg first addressed the issue related to the Whatsapp Privacy. He said that they understand that the general public is quite sensitive about their data and do not like how their data is connected between two different socials. The havoc stirred up after the notification that Facebook was building a tool for businesses to host their chats with them. People got genuinely curious and interested in the new update and the employees said the public was angry at Facebook because it promised that their WhatsApp data would not be shared with the said company, however failed to do so, followed by questions like why and how the data will be used by Facebook. Zuckerberg said that if the public is worried about if the Facebook headquarters can read their messages then the answer is no because the chats are end to end encrypted. However, the advertisers can use Whatsapp numbers of those who interact with them to build a larger audience on Facebook. Whether or not this was safe practice was not mentioned. The main question of the employee was not actually related to WhatsApp but people’s uneasiness with Facebook.

Mark Zuckerberg, said that when people find something negative about Facebook’s associated brand they directly blame it towards the main Facebook Brand but if they find something good and positive, it is somehow associated with the satellite brands like WhatsApp or Instagram which is not fair because all of that also comes under Facebook. Facebook is working towards making all the main as well as the satellite apps according to user preference and also is linking all the satellites app with a “by Facebook” message. The two focus of the talk on this topic were that the company’s main brand that is Facebook can be raised up by other satellites apps while the other argument notified that the main app can only benefit when people use it. The CEO and Owner on this said that like when in the initial days of Covid people switched towards Facebook and the company benefitted a lot. However, the main question that why is Facebook stuck in a cycle of privacy issues and what will it do to overcome it was totally sidelined.

The employees however know that the real reason Facebook is facing reputational issues is because of the ad system. Facebook shares user data to link people up with ads and brands of their preference. People are tired of their data being used and are looking for alternatives. However, they come back to the original choice of use after a few days and WhatsApp gaining back its users just after a few days of the new privacy notification going around says a lot about it.

 Photo: Elijah Nouvelage / REUTERS

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1:04 PM

Did you know DuckDuckGo Enables Its Initiative of Global Privacy Control On All Its Mobile Apps

DuckDuckGo in collaboration with other organizations joined a privacy focused initiative called Global Privacy Control (GPC).

If you are not aware what this is, worry not. Well, DuckDuckGo is a search engine just like Google and Edge comparatively not so popular, but do you know it does not sell your data to others and maintain user privacy as it does not even store data in the first place. Well, it became the founding member of GPC to ensure that the users get their rights of internet tracking and maintaining their data privacy.

After a great response on this initiative, they are taking a step further. It was recently announced by DuckDuckGo that their mobile applications for both Android and iOS will have a GPC enabled by default as well as for the Browser Extensions of Google, Edge, Firefox, etc.

The purpose of GPC is to stop websites in sharing your information and data to others without your consent and even though DuckDuckGo alone does provide anti tracking features, but some companies still sell and use your data to their benefits which the said company thinks is wrong. Hence, DuckDuckGo created this GPC which makes the matter more legalized in situations like these. If you enable the GPC on your devices or browsers, they will send a message to the website you are surfing through that you do not allow it to share or use your data in any way and hence your privacy is maintained.

If you want your data privacy maintained and you are willing to try the DuckDuckGo app, this feature will be available on versions 7.61.11 or newer on iOS and version 5.73.0 or newer on Android. The DuckDuckGo Privacy Essential Extension for Chrome, Firefox, Edge can also be installed on the desktop or if you already have it, you can update it to the version 2021.1.8 or later.

Many major publications are impressed by this feature and have promised to implement the GPC, which includes The Washington Post and Automattic (makers of WordPress) while the New York Times have already taken the steps.

This is a great step taken by them. Considering how important the user privacy is, it should be under the user that whether or not they want to share their information. DuckDuckGo is increasing its popularity among the general public, day after day. It recently crossed the barrier for 100 million daily searches for the first time ever. Even though it is comparatively a lot less than its competitive search engines, the future of DuckDuckGo looks bright and it has a long way to go.

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1:00 PM

Did you know United States Outpaced by South Korea, UAE, Japan, and others in 5G Speeds

With the world ready to fully embrace the phenomenon that is 5G, it turns out that the US has quite the work still left to do. As of now, the 5G download speeds in the US aren’t on par with the speeds in other countries. Moreover, with the official rollout of the iPhone 12, it gets easier to showcase how the US is lacking when it comes to the 5G speeds.

As per the information available on Ookla SpeedTest, iPhone 12’s 5G data measured across 15 cities around the world tells us that New York City managed to secure the 14th spot in download speeds with 97.33Mbps. While it edged out Singapore’s download speed of 93.62Mbps, NYC’s download speed was way less than Seoul’s (#1) 472.28Mbps, Dubai’s 338.53Mbps, and Riyadh’s 319.25Mbps. Sydney and Helsinki ended up taking the 4th and 5th spots respectively.

While its download speed wasn’t up to the mark, New York City managed to make it to the top 10 in upload speeds by boasting 27.47Mbps. In the said category, NYC beat Sydney, Honk Kong, Madrid, London, Singapore, and Rome.

Considering what many countries have done with their 5G infrastructure already, it's high time that the US ups its game as well.

Throughout South Korea, around 100,000 5G base stations are installed, resulting in Seoul leading the speed charts. Moreover, the European cities’ impressive speed data highlights how solid the 5G infrastructure has become in the continent.

One of the reasons why the US hasn’t been able to topple the competition in 5G download speeds is that numerous countries have committed mid-band allocations. On the other hand, the US is still focused on dedicating the required airwaves for countrywide coverage.

Even though high-range mmWave 5G is capable of boosting speeds in certain situations, the only way to guarantee consistent quality is by relying on dedicated mid-range coverage. 

2:46 AM

You know Whatsapp brings more security on logging into any account on desktop by enabling biometric authentication

Biometric authentication is used as a form of identification and to gain permission over the person’s account that matches with the fingerprints or any other biometric means installed by that person. It can be fingerprints, face id, voice etc. Biometric authentication is becoming much popular day by day. Many phones use face ID or fingerprints to unlock phones. This is also used by banks for security and on ATM machines for withdrawing money.

Whatsapp, the American messaging app owned by Facebook having more than 2 billion users has been in news for quite some time. At the beginning of this year Whatsapp received much heat from people all around but it soon recovered from that. It has now another feature available for its users. The many benefits Whatsapp brought to us by allowing the app to be logged in to desktop by QR code authentication, now brings more security to it. Whatsapp has enabled a biometric system for logging in to your account from desktop. If you have the biometric feature on your phone, you would unlock the app with it in order to log in with it on the desktop. The feature can be used by fingerprints, face id or even iris scan. This feature will be available by default on iOS devices having iOS 14 with either touch id or face id and on android devices that have the same features installed.

Whatsapp says that by bringing this feature, it is just making sure that if someone would have access to a phone, they won’t be able to log in to its Whatsapp on the desktop and look into the messages and media without biometric verification. Users will have to link their account with biometric installation in order to provide more security to their accounts. Those users who don’t have biometric authentication installed or for some reason haven’t enabled it on their devices will log in to their Whatsapp account on the desktop as usual.

This however not at all means that Whatsapp and Facebook would be getting their users fingerprints or can use and follow up on their data or by any means looking up on their face id. The privacy of the user will be protected no matter what. This update is introduced just to provide extra security to the user’s account.

Whatsapp has announced that this new feature will be available to be in use in the coming weeks or so on suited devices.

2:41 AM

Did you know New Twitter Report Looks Into The Tweets Data From Successful Brands To Present A List of Customer Care Trends

Sprinklr, the Software as a Service (SaaS) customer experience management platform has recently published a report in collaboration with Twitter, highlighting the best customer care trends and habits that brands must pertain to for an optimal outcome in 2021.

The report, published by Twitter with insights and analysis by Sprinklr, took into account an approximate half a billion tweets across 1,226 different handles on the social media platform in order to gauge what practices best resonated with a brand’s core audience. Titled “From AM to DM: Twitter customer care in a 24/7 world”, the report is available to download from Twitter’s partners webpage. Let’s see what these companies have to say about brand handling across the new year.

Attending a customer’s wants and needs is a must, as any number of managers could swear by. However, Sprinklr goes as far as to quantify this statement, highlighting that top brands on Twitter were noted to reply 8 times more than the normal brand average, and 3 times faster as well. This, the study notes, would further lead to mentions and, accordingly, public attention on the platform since customers realize that these brands will address their queries and value their opinions. It obviously isn’t possible to address every query, especially for newer startups with a smaller workforce, but attempting one’s best is never a bad idea.

78% of successful brands also actively took ownership of customer complaints. This is an important step. While wallowing in the grief that comes with mistakes is not at all unnecessary, since everyone slips up every now and then, owning up to those mistakes builds trust with one’s customers and only leads to further loyalty. Considering, of course, that these mistakes don’t in and of themselves become a staple of the brand. Proper customer care also requires that brands better themselves with each blow.

Brands that have a properly developed customer care system on Twitter also had 6 times the number of followers as compared to ones that are still struggling to leave a mark. Establishing a sense of humanity, as opposed to a bot giving out generic answers, is imperative to that very system. A highly renowned example is Wendy’s Twitter account. Rather than being a dormant account that tweets out promotions, the social media team behind it has turned the handle into an actively engaging mascot, indulging not only in customer complaints but also a fun amount of ribbing the competition.

80% of well-established financial companies on Twitter had a separate account dedicated to customer care. While one would assume that smaller brands don’t have the manpower to function like this, the division of accounts will only make addressing customer tweets all the easier, as users self-segregate themselves. The extra account will also add to a brand’s image of caring for its customer base, at least enough to dedicate and manage an entire space for their concerns.

2:35 AM

Did you know Apple Breaks Previous Records and Makes 111.4 Billion Dollars in its Quarterly Revenue

Even though Apple was a month late in issuing its new iPhone range than its normal time due to the delay in manufacturing because of the ongoing Pandemic, people still had huge hopes from the new iPhone 12 line up and many suspected it would bring big changes in the company’s finances and they were not disappointed.

While Wall Street estimated the earned revenue to be 103 billion dollars on average but things turned out different. The new iPhone 12 line up was introduced in October and since then in its first quarter which spanned from October to December Apple has managed to earn a revenue of 111.4 billion dollars which marked 20 percent more growth year over year and the highest for the company to ever record. The earnings per revenue is 1.68 dollars while Wall Street estimated it being only 1.41 dollars.

In all fairness though, all the products introduced by Apple have doubled over this quarter and things look good for the company. The demand for 5G phones pent up and sales in the Greater China Region rose up to 21.3 billion dollars compared to the 13.6 billion dollars quarterly every year on average. The sale for iPads reached 8.4 billion dollars compared to the 6 billion dollars the company made this time last year. Mac growth was fairly great and the company reported an increase of 8.68 billion dollars of revenue in its computers. Even though iPhone 12 and 12 pro brought the most expansion in revenue there is no denying that the previous iPhones sale was stronger than expected last year that is 2020 and the company reported 65.6 billion in iPhone revenue alone in the past three months which is the highest for Apple’s smartphone and what the company has been pulling in the previous few years. Revenue in Apple’s services business also shot through the roof making 15.8 billion dollars than the regular 12.7 billion this time last year. The Apple wearables revenue reached 12.97 billion dollars while analyst had expected a reach of 11.84 billion dollars only.

Apple has showed a rather impressive performance with the introduction of its iPhone 12 and 12 pro line up as well as the increase in the revenue of the formerly existing products. Apple must be soaring in the clouds with all the increase in revenue and the profits. This year looks good for Apple but the question is will they be able to maintain this consistency with all their coming manufacturing and products or is this a one-time thing. 


2:26 AM

You know Facebook permanently stop recommending political groups to its users? Zuckerberg says this is a crucial act taken by the company to hold the temperature down

According to the latest reports on Wednesday, the CEO of Facebook Mark Zuckerberg is reported to have said that the company will completely and permanently stop suggesting political and civic groups to its users. The firm publicly announced that this policy will be implemented all over the world. Additionally, the CEO also mentioned that preferably users might come across the political content on their news feed rarely. The reason stated for this was to avoid any kind of controversy and encourage peace over the platform.

Facebook decided to pause these recommendations in October for U.S users, due to the 2020 elections. However, it couldn’t help, and the firm faced enough criticism and hatred from the liberal lawmakers for promoting misleading and violent messages over the platform, so this compelled the company to decide to stop this all over the world- permanently. While talking in the meeting on Wednesday; Mark Zuckerberg mentioned that the company hopes that this decision will cool down the political situation over the platform to a great extent.

The CEO informed that the company has received tremendous feedbacks suggesting that they discourage seeing political content on their News Feed. Who knew that the situation could get this worse; that the giant technology companies will face immense political scrutiny for a huge uprising revolt at the Capitol. Last week, several Democrats were seen to warn the social media companies including Facebook, to regulate and keep a check on what they show on their platforms- is free of controversy.

The Chairman and Chief Executive Officer wrote an official letter to Mark Zuckerberg and were furious while mentioning that no other social media platform has promoted dangerous conspiracy theories than Facebook. Additionally, they completely held Facebook accountable for inflaming anti-governmental grievances to such an extent that no other platform could do so to such an extent.

The last week Facebook officially announced that it is consulting its experts for gaining the best opinion for whether to stand for the former president; Trump’s suspension.

Also, after his supporters attacked the U.S capital on the 6th of January; both the platforms owned by Mark Zuckerberg: Instagram and Facebook suspended Trump. This also led him to face the second impeachment. Facebook has still given the responsibility of this decision in the hands of its independent oversight board that decides what content is to be removed and uploaded on the platform. The Vice president of global affairs at Facebook; Nick Clegg mentioned in the blog at that time that the decision they have made is on point, and suitable according to the situation. To let you know: members of the oversight board are from all over the world and include a former Danish Prime minister and a Noble peace lecturer, human right activists, jurists as well as journalists. 

Photo: Arnd Wiegmann / Reuters

2:22 AM

Did you know Apple Crosses 1 Billion Active iPhones with Install Bases Reaching New Mile Stones for the First Time Ever

Billions is just literally becoming Apple’s second name. While the company has always done great in terms of its sales and working of devices, but the cards this year for Apple are turning out to be in more positive favors, with its activity rates reaching for the skies.

From its first quarterly in October till December iPhone sales crossed over 100 billion dollars in revenue, that is the highest it has ever made in history and now Tim Cook the CEO in one of his interviews revealed that the status of active iPhones in the world has crossed 100 billion after the launch of the newly introduced iPhone 12 line. iPhone 12 is surely coming out to be lucky for Apple.

The CEO released that the company had 900 million active iPhones in 2019 and since then had an average of 1.5 billion average active installed bases, but this year proved to be different and the Apple iPhone devices managed to reach an active rate of 1.65 billion devices, which is the highest ever recorded.

One of the reasons for such a drastic and positive increase in the active user rate that Tim Cook gave apart from the iPhone devices being user friendly, easy to use, and having a long term commitment was the growth opportunity Apple has seen in China. The CEO in his interview with Reuter revealed that even though Apple’s other products do work well in terms of sale in China, they have had the two out of three bestselling smartphones in Urban China which included both people switching from the competing Android devices to iPhones as well as the already iPhone users switching and upgrading to the latest versions. The upgraders were the most impactful in making iPhones set an all-time record in China. Apart from this Apple has provided a bundle subscription packages for its iPhone and other Apple devices users, which includes Apple Music and iCloud both under the same subscription fee under Apple One.

While the sale rate and activity rate Apple is making this year with people switching from Android devices to Apple and Apple users upgrading their devices is impressive in itself, but the company believes that this could have been better if it was not for the pandemic. The pandemic brought with itself closure to many Apple Stores around the globe and hence a decrease in the sales. What are your thoughts on this?

2:19 AM

Did you know The Coming Year Looks Hard for Facebook and Mark Zuckerberg Thinks it is Because of Apple

While 2020 proved to be good year for Facebook in terms of growth, 2021 looks uncertain for a whole lot of reasons.

The last quarter of the previous year was great in terms of revenue as well as user strength growth for Facebook. It gained a lot of new users during the pandemic because practically everyone was under lockdown and many switched towards social media as a means of entertainment.

The first reason for the expected uncertainty is Apple’s new privacy policy. Apple has ordered all apps on App Store to come clean with what data they will be taking from the user and a pop up will appear to the user notifying them about their data and asking for consent that whether or not they want the app to make use of their data. Considering majority of the brands and developers use this data for linking user preferred advertisements with the user and a large sum of Facebook’s revenue comes from the advertisement it allows brand to do on its app. This will be a huge loss for Facebook as it is expected that majority of people will deny that consent, but Facebook has no say other than accepting this policy or else they will be blocked from the App Store.

Mark Zuckerberg is not happy with this policy and in a conference said that Apple is only thinking about itself and not others. It also claimed it is also one of Apple’s mean motive that they have their own competitive interests and is using its own platform to interfere with how the rival apps work.

Meanwhile, Apple denies all this saying that all they want is to be transparent with their users. According to them it is the users right to know which of their data is being processed and have a say whether they want their data to be shared or not which is true and makes a lot of sense.

Apart from this reason, people in the States and Canada are switching to different apps as a means to their entertainment probably TikTok which has become the fastest growing app in 2020. The user strength which was increasing near to a crawl prior to pandemic has stopped drastically in those regions. According to analyst the coming year looks hard for Facebook.

Brendan Smialowski / Getty Images

2:16 AM

Did you know Google to Make Its Own Tool and Stop Using Apple Tools For User Tracking for Advertisements

Google has other plans once Apple starts implementing the user consent on their IDFA.

Apple has been providing its app with a unique identifier called IDFA which helps brands and developers in linking the same users across multiple apps making it easier for the brands and developers to know which ad should be liked with which user as the user preference is known, but now Apple is changing its ways.

Apple decided to come clear with its users as the company thinks that user privacy is very important and it should be on the users to decide whether and which information they want to let the apps have. Therefore, Apple has decided to finally add a pop up which will appear when you open the app first time after this rule goes live, and will show a message indicating which data is being used by the app and will ask for consent from the user that whether or not they want this data to be shared.

While Facebook and some other applications thinks that the pop up will discourage the users and many will opt in denial of data sharing which will widely affect the advertisement on their app, but still Facebook has agreed to Apple’s demand. According to Facebook, Apple has said they will ban the Facebook app from App Store if this is not followed and considering a large population of the world are Apple users it will still greatly affect the brands that are dependent on their app, hence they opted in favor of agreement. Though Facebook has agreed, but Google has other plans.

The applications of Google present on Apple devices that are logged in have an alternative to the IDFA, but the company did not fail to tell that due to IDFA not being present developers who rely on their advertisement software will experience weaker results. The Tech Giant said that the alternative software is still under production and may take some time. Google said that developers and clients can use their software without the consent and permission of user if they want while if they want user consent they can enable that option.

Apple did say that applications which are not using IDFA still should have user consent if they show and display ads based on the data they take from other companies and applications on which Google replied that their iPhone apps will stop using and collecting data from third parties so that user privacy can be maintained and advertisements can be personalized.


 Photo: Volkan basar via Getty Images

12:04 PM

Did you know Instagram is introducing a business dashboard for professional accounts to centralize all their business tools in one place

Instagram has recently announced that soon, the feature of a professional business dashboard will be available for accounts that use Instagram for business purposes, and for influencers who use their accounts for professional reasons.

A dashboard is supposed to be one place, or it is considered as an information management tool that tracks different metrics of business growth or its decline, some other crucial data points that help the business owners assess the situation of their business and what changes need to be made to make it more profitable. A business dashboard basically contains all the necessary and relevant insights that can help business owners in a lot of ways.

Instagram is a photo and video-sharing app, but in recent years, it has become really popular amongst people who use it for the promotion of their brands, businesses, services, or products. Instagram also has launched various new tools and features to help people gain maximum profit through monetization and the proper showcasing of their products via the platform.

Amidst the coronavirus pandemic 2020, the whole world suffered financially, but the impact on the small and medium-sized businesses was huge. So, in those times, to help their businesses survive the pandemic, many people resorted to marketing and advertising through Instagram. This increased the popularity of the platform a lot more than before the pandemic.

People not only have a chance to display their products on their Instagram business accounts, but many people also turned into Instagram stars. These are influencers who have a massive fan following for some reason, whether they are a celebrity or they present things on their profile in an interesting and catchy way. Now, due to the financial restraints amidst the pandemic, many big brands also had to cut down the cost of their advertisement budgets, and this, in turn, became a blessing for these influencers. Brands started hiring these popular faces for the marketing of their products. This helped in a lot of cost reduction, and it also made these influencers superstars on social platforms.

Now, with the new feature of having a business dashboard on their profiles, content creators, marketers, etc. will be able to see shortcuts for brand partnerships and some other ways to earn profits. A shop owner or a restaurant owner will be able to track the progress of their ads, add shopping features, or check various other business analytics. The dashboard will also lead the users to useful tutorials and articles. 

11:51 AM

You know Dark Theme Comes to Google’s My Activity Setting Page

Dark themes have become really popular in the world of tech because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up allowing people to avoid some of the negative effects that can come with staring at their screens for extended periods of time which can lead to a lower than usual sleep quality. While a lot of apps have been rolling these kinds of themes out for people to use, we haven’t really seen it outside of social media and the like.

Google’s websites haven’t really offered any kind of dark mode, or rather this was the case until dark mode somewhat randomly popped up on the My Activity page, as per 9to5Google, that you can use to find your search history as well as other aspects of your online activity data that Google ends up storing for a wide variety of reasons. This page is also meant to give you more control over this data, essentially allowing you to pick and choose what you would let Google use and you can delete any entries in this list that you might not want Google to have such as anything containing sensitive information that you don’t want getting compromised.

The way that this data is organized is important to take into account. You can choose between a bundle view or a list view, but bear in mind that the quantity of data is rather massive so you might want to use date or relevance filters to get to the data that truly matters to you in a big way. The fact that dark theme has been incorporated into this site means that Google might be taking it a bit more seriously, or it could be part of a wider redesign that Google frequently tends to take part in.

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11:47 AM

Did you know CEO Susan Wojcicki Shares Fascinating Insights, Highlighting YouTube’s 2020 Lessons, And Mapping The Search Engine's 2021 Direction

YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki recently wrote an open letter, published to the YouTube blog, establishing what the company had gleaned from 2020, and what it hoped to work towards in 2021.

The letter starts out, as almost any blog post from a major company in 2021 will, addressing the COVID-19 pandemic and its effects on the world, particularly pertaining to YouTube’s userbase. Harkening back to other tragedies such as the BLM movement, and the Australian & Californian wildfires, Wojcicki remains optimistic that YouTube was a uniting factor for people to come under and temporarily forget the world’s problems with. Utilizing the virtual social media space, stars such as Miley Cyrus and The Roots came together for the Save our Stages initiative, raising $1.8 million to help fund independent ventures. YouTube even saw a 25% increase in watch time, with gaming itself accounting for over 100 billion hours of that content.

In a time of uncertainty and hardship, Wojcicki’s letter emphasizes the importance of taking care of your own. The YouTube Partner Program, for fresh channels looking to monetize their content more effectively, saw a more than double increase in accounts as opposed to 2019. YouTube and its extensive list of content creators contributed over $16 billion in GDP to the US government, and £1.4 billion to the UK GDP, as noted by Oxford Economics. The open letter even highlights the moving tale of Brandon Reed, a single father struggling to make ends meet, who learned animation from YouTube, made it into the Partner Program, and is overseeing smooth sailings with over 250 million views from his animation gigs on the platform.

Credit: NurPhoto via Getty Images

Other points of note from the open letter pertained to YouTube’s future policies and responsibilities, as well as the success of its short-form video features, Shorts. Addressing the former first, the company vows to uphold a strong stance regarding the dissemination of accurate information. Particularly mentioning the COVID-19 vaccinations, content will be geared towards interviews with medical professionals, as well as videos and infomercials from the likes of the WHO. Racial tolerance will also be an active working point for YouTube in 2021, as developers work on better attuned algorithms to identify hate speech. Along with this, content from the #YouTubeBlackVoices fund as well as Originals during Black History Month will work towards much-needed discourse and narratives from the very voices that the USA sadly failed in 2020.

YouTube Shorts also seems to be doing rather well for itself. Beta testing of the feature, which is a rather obvious competitor to the Gen Z favorite TikTok, has already begun in India, an already popular and burgeoning market for YouTube. Shorts are also receiving a whopping 3.5 billion views per day, although it should be noted that this number is self reported and users should probably wait on more telling statistics from outside sources as well.

All in all, YouTube seems to have a clear and confident outlook towards the future. All this author is happy about is that the platform decided to forego Rewind 2020. 


 


11:40 AM

Did you know Immunity Passport Apps Revealed to Have Multiple Security Risks and Ethical Violations

It seems like the coronavirus pandemic has been raging for many years, but the truth of the situation is that it has barely even been a year since the virus first started becoming prominent all around the world. While the period of time during which this virus has prevented us from living our normal day to day lives is starting to seem like it will never end, the vaccine is just around the corner and this has led to a rather unique phenomenon in terms of the tech industry and the like.

Now that people are starting to get vaccinated, immunity passport apps have started to come up. These apps claim that they can provide users with the ability to use their newfound immunity to the coronavirus to travel wherever it is that they might need to go. This makes them a rather tantalizing prospect for people that feel trapped in their current situation, but with all of that having been said and now out of the way it is important to note that research has revealed a number of flaws in these apps that might make them less than safe to use on a regular basis. 

The major security flaw that researchers have found in these apps have to do with the fact that they have been rushed to completion. App developers wanted to make sure that their apps would be available in time, and this has led to a serious lack of privacy features. The information that these apps are dealing with is extremely sensitive, arguably the most sensitive data that anyone could ever possess since it details the medical history of the people that it pertains to.

What’s more is that the user policies of these apps can often be highly suspect as well. Apps that use contact tracing to figure out where coronavirus outbreaks are originating have been criticized in the past since the data they provided were used by law enforcement agencies and the like. Whatever the truth may be, it’s pretty clear that these apps have a long way to go before people can start thinking of them as being truly trustworthy. It will be difficult to place any significant degree of trust in them until these issues are resolved, and this new breed of apps will have to contend with the requirements that people have when it comes to their privacy.

11:36 AM

Did you know Twitter Acquires a Newsletter Company Called Revue and Plans to Expand it

Twitter on Tuesday announced that it has teamed up with a newsletter platform for writers and publishers called Revue. Revue is a software which allows writers and publishers free and paid newsletter. The free version lets writers send newsletter up to fifty people while on the paid version the limit of email is up to forty thousand people.

Twitter has big plans for the collaboration and bring about some changes in the software. It will be in full control of the team and plans on further expansion once everything is legally sorted out. Twitter says that it will introduce new features which will make the software way easier to use for the users. Apart from this Twitter will allow people to sign up for newsletter from people they already follow on Twitter and will add new settings which will allow users to host meetings with their subscribers on Twitter. On this Twitter also said that writers can expect some sort of paid compensation depending on how many twitter users they convert to subscribers.

Some other changes that Twitter is bringing about is that the transaction fee of Revue was 6 percent from the paid newsletter revenues and Twitter has decided to cut short it to 5 percent. It will also expand the working team and will make the Revue team responsible for the discovery, reading, and conversational experiences which are centered around the long form content on Twitter in the future.

It also plans on expanding there supercharge revues offering by helping writers grow their paid subscribers list and said they will continue to support writers with other forms of revue down the line.

While we do not know for how much the deal was finalized for acquiring Revue we do know that it was not a lot comparatively to how other companies are bought because the 5-year-old Dutch company has only 5 employees and has raised only three hundred and eighteen thousand dollars.

Twitter encourages all writers, publishers, curators, journalists and all form of creators to join the platform. Twitter claims to help Revue in growing and claims that Revue will remain and independent brand while Twitter will only invest in it but everything will work within Twitter very smoothly.

This is the first step Twitter's first step into building out long-form content experiences on Twitter, and its first foray into subscription revenue.

11:32 AM

Did you know Nick Clegg: Facebook should be treated as something different, not as a publisher

The Vice President for Global Affairs and Communications at Facebook since 2018, Nick Clegg, recently made comments on Facebook on the Telegraph which is the national British newspaper in London. Nick Clegg has said that Facebook should be treated as something different and not as a publisher.

It has come to notice that Facebook rolled out a new tab that will showcase news content according to the preferences of the 51 million UK users of Facebook. Each user has also been given the feature to personalize the news as they please and pick only those areas of news in which they are interested in. This includes Facebook hiring paid publishers for their content and it will also be paying journalists to pick out stories and articles of interest that will be expected to appear on the news tab every day to keep the users entertained. The news section will deliver a variety of news from different categories such as entertainment, health, beauty, business and local news. Nick thinks that this move is a big step for Facebook’s reach towards journalism.

There hasn’t been much liking for Facebook’s this particular move. Facebook has partnered up with some of the most famous publishers like the Daily Mail, Telegraph and the Financial Times. This has however started the discussion of whether huge social media platforms like such should be treated like publishers or not. Nick claims that there will be no such thing as one front page headliners but different front page headlines of all the news according to the individual’s personalized taste. He also says that Facebook has the power and it actually does use it for concealing content that may be considered as a step too much and also plays a role in removing anything that can harm its platform and its users, but this statement was not given much heed to and especially when the former Lib Dem leader said that Facebook is actually failing in destroying any such thing which may be harmful to its users.

The British politician also the former secretary of state for education Nicky Morgan says that in her view Facebook is a publisher if they unlock such features.

Damian Green, a member of the Digital and Culture Media and Short Committee says that even though Facebook might say that it is not a publisher but with this plan it might be considered as one in every way.

Not everyone has opposed to it, there are some experts who have agreed with Clegg's views.


 Credit: AFP via Getty Images

11:28 AM

Did you know How Does Facebook’s AI Determine A User’s News Feed?

While Artificial intelligence (AI) is definitely entering a revolutionary period for the technology, with companies extensively focusing on incorporating it into their products and day-to-day activities, the technology itself has been around for a while now. In lieu of that, let’s take a look at a major implementation of AI that still holds current day importance. Particularly, let’s discuss Facebook’s News Feed and how algorithms deliver relevant information to users.

Facebook’s News Feed feature has been a hallmark of both the platform itself, as well as a cornerstone of social media in general. The idea of truly creating a social forum online by featuring content and updates from your friends and close ones was, if not original, incredibly well executed by the platform and to this day continues to be a staple of most social media apps. As Facebook progressed into the billion dollar empire it currently is, the company made changes to news feed where it would now also feature posts from publications and content creators, giving users more bang for their online buck. But how does Facebook choose what piece of content goes to whom? Well, the social network’s tech webpage recently shed some light onto the matter.

The post, penned by Akos Lada, Meihong Wang, and Tak Yan from Facebook’s team, explains that it’s a matter of the AI predicting what people will enjoy beforehand. Using the example of a fictional user named Juan, the post provides a fictional scenario. Since Juan logged in last night, a friend posted a dog picture, another friend posted a video of them running, a Page he liked posted about viewing the Milky Way at night, and a group he’s part of put out a fun cooking recipe. Accordingly, if Juan likes the video as opposed to the dog photo, the Facebook AI will give that a higher predictive score, making it more likely to appear. Then again, things aren’t always so clean cut. Juan may enjoy the Milky Way post more than the running video, or prefer the dog photo over the recipes. There are also multiple other ways of showing interest in a post, such as commenting, tagging friends, or sharing it forward. That is where multiple machine learning models are integrated.

A big challenge is not only accurately predicting the multiple factors that go into curating one’s News Feed, but also making that process efficient to cater to Facebook’s 2 billion users. Accordingly, this is what the AI does. First, it collects all posts that have been shared with Juan by friends, pages, and groups. Secondly, it curates fresher posts that may not have been shared with him yet, but have still received a high predictive score. Then, all of these posts are run parallel to each other into the multiple machines, thus working on a base score. Finally, certain scores pertaining to contextual diversity and personalization are added, producing a final score that either pushes the story forward, or ranks it behind others.

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11:23 AM

Did you know Good News for Android user, you can now translate any language offline through Google Lens app

Google has made it very simple and easy for everybody to understand any language by making its translation through the Google Lens app. You can also scan a word or a phrase or take a picture, then you can select a language of which you want to translate

However, you need an internet connection to translate anything on Google Lens app. But the Google has been working since last year to solve this problem by making its translation offline through a visual search option. You will be able to take the picture of any phrase or scan any word or phrase, then perform an offline translation. As per 9to5G, Google is rolling out an offline translation option on Android. You can simply select the language you mostly use, then download such language. Then open the Translate filter and make a pairing below the Google Lens.

Google will check first the storage of your device and then the storage of an offline language file. If, your device has the storage space left it will start downloading it. After the download is finished, a checkmark will be shown on your screen after the completion of the downloading. You can also remove or delete the downloaded file by using the remove option.

Google has provided such a lens that is able to translate a word or a phrase even before you have taken the picture. You can see the results live to reserve the context that is translated. The below sheet will be given that will check the offline translation and of any feature which is not available yet on the app. Google has also provided an option to copy the translated text file, but still, Google has not made an option to select an individual line you want to copy or paste. It is possible that this feature will be available soon on an Android device but, it’s not available yet.

This offline feature will be much useful while traveling, when your device is not connected to the internet. Google has made a test on this app and found some flaws. However, Google said that these issues are connected with the incorrect recognition of the text.

You can have the offline translation feature by updating the Google Lens app through the Play store.

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11:20 AM

Did you know Google is planning to release a simplified version of Android called Microdroid

Google is on an effort to improve security and virtualization on Android hardware. For these purposes, Google is set to release Microdroid, published in the development directory by an engineer at Google, Jiyong Park. Microdroid will basically be a newer lighter version of Android system image. Generic system image or GSI is a system with arrangements adjusted for Android devices along with the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) code. Google aims for Microdroid to run systems in a virtual machine. In short, Google’s main goal is to develop something that is like android but with better virtualization and security for individual android apps. Microdroid will also be able to communicate with the underlying hosts of Android for better working.

The virtualization module in the Linux kernel which is the Kernel-based Virtual Machine (KVM) is being worked upon by Google for it to be brought into Android devices powered by ARM64 SoCs which will also ensure to lay another protective blanket of security for example it will help with DRM applications (direct rights management). This code can run through any virtual machine with the same level as the Android operating system. Microdroid is planned to run alongside with the Kernel Virtualization Project (KVM).

Jake Edge, a freelance journalist, says that bringing the KVM support in Android will not benefit the third part code running at Armv8’s highly beneficial levels. Third party codes are basically compiled codes from third party software that can be run instead in a virtual machine. Google is planning to design the simplified version of the mobile system android i.e. the Microdroid, on the basis of this code. Google is also planning to run virtual machines with Microdroid alongside witth android and for this it might be possible that this would be linked with the release of the new Type-1 Hypervisor in the Snapdragon 888.

Google wants to adjust the OS of Chrome which runs Linux apps on Chrome’s OS in Android to ensure that the virtual machines work together in order. A new APEX package called ‘Virtualization’ will also be released with the crosvm with bringing the KVM project for ARM64 for Android’s Linux kernel.

It is believed that performance is sure to improve if Microdroid is developed with a much better virtualization than Android. This will prove to be a simplified version of Android hence all of its components will be at the minimum as well.


 H/T: XDA.

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