Web design news

• Google Meet challenges Zoom with AI noise and lighting enhancements

  22-04-2020 23:09 via thenextweb.com
  
  Last week, Google told Reuters it would allow up to 16 participants to be visible in a single grid, replicating one of Zoom‘s most popular features. Though the feature was said to have begun rolling out then, the company appears to have begun a wider rollout today, an it is also introducing a few features to make Google Meet a better video calling experience. As noted before, the new grid layout supports up to 16 participants at once – previously, it was limited to four. To be clear
  
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• Zoom’s 5.0 update helps stop zoombombing and improves encryption

  22-04-2020 21:52 via thenextweb.com
  
  Zoom today launched its 5.0 update, adding some of the security updates the company has promised since the software shot up in popularity among the coronavirus pandemic. Among the biggest changes are support for stronger encryption,  enabling passwords by default, and a new hub for easy access to important security settings. With version 5.0, Zoom will now use the AES 256-bit GCM encryption standard. That will help your data be more difficult to access, though it’s still not the orig
  
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• Verizon gives customers 15GB of extra data for the month of May

  22-04-2020 21:48 via thenextweb.com
  
  Here’s a nice little surpise for Verizon customers: the company today announced it would be giving both regular customers and small businesses an extra 15GB of data for the period spanning May 1 through May 31. The freebie covers regular 4G LTE phone usage, hotpot usage, and Verizon’s ‘Jetpack’ dedicated hotspots. It’s not clear from the announcement whether customers with a fancy 5G phone should disable 5G for the additional benefit. I’d assume the phones wo
  
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• LAPD ditches predictive policing program accused of racial bias

  22-04-2020 19:13 via thenextweb.com
  
  The Los Angeles Police Department is dumping a controversial predictive policing program that forecasts where property crimes will happen. The PredPol system has been accused of magnifying racial bias, but the LAPD said its ditching it to cut costs amid the coronavirus pandemic. “That is a hard decision,” said Police Chief Michel Moore, according to the LA Times. “It’s a strategy we used, but the cost projections of hundreds of thousands of dollars to spend on that
  
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• Fortnite finally on the Google Play Store as Epic loses year-long standoff

  22-04-2020 19:03 via thenextweb.com
  
  Epic Games is finally putting its smash hit game Fortnite on the Google Play Store after over a year of resistance, while proclaiming to the world at large how angry it is about having to do so. But on the bright side, you can now download Fortnite from Google Play. When it launched Fortnite on mobile back in 2018, Epic said it would only offer the game directly from its own website. According to CEO Tim Sweeney, the company doesn’t approve of Google taking 3
  
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• After Tiger King, Netflix seeks $1 billion loan to make more original content

  22-04-2020 18:25 via thenextweb.com
  
  Netflix clearly doesn’t want the coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic to get between you and your stories: The streaming giant plans to raise around $1 billion in debt to fund new content, Reuters reports. The Los Gatos-based streaming monster reportedly said it would use the money to finance original content and make acquisitions where necessary. The outlet noted Netflix currently owes around $15 billion. [Read: How to avoid accidental skips with Netflix’s new ‘screen lock&rs
  
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• This CSS library makes it easy to build Windows 98-inspired UIs

  22-04-2020 16:49 via thenextweb.com
  
  Windows 98 was my very first exposure to PCs, but by the time I got my own it had already been replaced by its successor, Windows XP. At the time, I thoroughly dreaded the 98 aesthetic. I found XP’s vivid color scheme and rounded corners infinitely more appealing. XP’s design seemed more modern to my eyeballs back then. But with time, I’ve come to develop a keen appreciation for the 98 aesthetic. I’m not the only one: Up to this day, people are still paying homage t
  
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• AI study of Twitter bots reveals boredom is what separates us from machines

  22-04-2020 15:52 via thenextweb.com
  
  Our horrible attention spans distinguish us from bots, according to a new study of human and fake accounts on Twitter. Researchers from the University of Southern California made the discovery after analyzing activity patterns in two Twitter datasets. The first was a set of posts about the 2017 French presidential election. The second was a collection of tweets by bots and human accounts that had already been hand-labeled. They chose these two datasets because they comp
  
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• Daily Distraction: Is Tiger King even a documentary? Dunno, but these are FREE!

  22-04-2020 14:36 via thenextweb.com
  
  If you haven’t been living under a rock for the past month, you might’ve heard about or watched Netflix‘s super-hit Tiger King documentary. The eight episodes of this documentary were crazy, and as per the streaming service, it has been watched over 64 million times within the first four weeks of its release. If you didn’t like documentaries before watching Tiger King, you might now believe that they can be as fun as movies. If you liked watching documentaries alrea
  
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• Facebook’s political targeting machine should be cracked open by the DSA

  22-04-2020 14:02 via thenextweb.com
  
  Europe is about to overhaul its 20-year-old eCommerce Directive and it is a once-in-a-decade chance to correct the power imbalance between platforms and users. As part of this update the Digital Services Act must address political microtargeting (PMT).    PMT has the alarming power to derail democracy, and should not be left in the hands of private companies. In fact, in practice in the EU, there is only one company running the show: Facebook.   According to self-assessment
  
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• This planetary system’s perfect rhythm tells us a lot about how it came to be

  22-04-2020 13:43 via thenextweb.com
  
  A planetary system of six exoplanets in near-perfect synchronization gives astronomers a hint at how such groupings could evolve. Over a period of seven years, astronomers have observed the star HD 158259 — invisible to the naked eye — discovering six planets in orbit around it in near-perfect synchronization. The extrasolar planets (exoplanets) consist of one ‘Super-Earth’ and five ‘Mini-Neptunes’ with exceptionally regular spacing and timing. Their regiment
  
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• De Blasio’s social distancing tipline flooded with dick pics and Karen memes

  22-04-2020 13:22 via thenextweb.com
  
  Some people on the internet aren’t particularly fond of New York City Mayor Bill de Blasio’s tip line for coronavirus social distancing violations — and that’s putting it lightly. The line been flooded with harsh complaints and indecent messages, including dick pics, middle fingers, as well as Hitler and Karen memes, the NY Post reports. There were also tons of links to news coverage claiming the NYC mayor was hitting the gym despite social distancing warnings. Some of t
  
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• Foolproof tips to communicate better with your remote workforce

  22-04-2020 11:57 via thenextweb.com
  
  It’s 2020 and the coronavirus pandemic has ground the world to a halt. Your workforce — once office based — is now fully remote and you find yourself spending more time speaking to your employees and colleagues online. You’re thankful for technology. It allows you to keep your business running, and interact with your workers and customers. [Read: 4 things all managers should avoid doing during the coronavirus pandemic] But — and this is a big but — you&r
  
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• Popular trading app lost $88 million because its users bought too much oil

  22-04-2020 11:27 via thenextweb.com
  
  US crude oil prices crashed below zero for the first time in history earlier this week, taking much of the world by surprise — including trading platform Interactive Brokers (IB), which has been forced to cover $88 million worth of its customers’ losses because they were holding too many barrels. A number of IB users had bought oil contracts on margin, the firm explained in a press release, a term for investing with borrowed money. [Read: Coronavirus leads to global decrea
  
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• Satoshi Nakaboto: ‘Tesla is now worth as much as Bitcoin’

  22-04-2020 11:08 via thenextweb.com
  
  Our robot colleague Satoshi Nakaboto writes about Bitcoin every fucking day. Welcome to another edition of Bitcoin Today, where I, Satoshi Nakaboto, tell you what’s been going on with Bitcoin in the past 24 hours. As Kierkegaard used to say: There’s only one way to go from here! Bitcoin price We closed the day, April 21 2020, at a price of $6,880. That’s a minor 0 percent increase in 24 hours, or $0. It was the lowest closing price in five days. We’re still 65 perce
  
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• Vivaldi browser introduces ad and tracker blocker on desktop and mobile

  22-04-2020 11:06 via thenextweb.com
  
  Vivaldi browser, the brainchild of Opera co-founder Jon von Tetzchner, has introduced ad and tracker blockers in both mobile and desktop versions. Along with this, the company also released the first stable version on Android — seven months after launching the beta. The tracking blocker is powered by DuckDuckGo’s Tracker Radar, a tool released by the privacy-focused search engine last month to keep trackers at bay. Both ad and tracker blockers are turned off by defaul
  
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• General Motors shutters its Maven ride-sharing division 4 years after launch

  22-04-2020 09:52 via thenextweb.com
  
  American multinational automaker General Motors is shutting down its car sharing platform, Maven, after struggling to gain a foothold in the market. As first reported by the Verge, the company sent and email to customers stating that Maven vehicles for public use will no longer be available, effective immediately: After critically looking at our business, the industry, and what’s going on with COVID-19, we have made the tough but necessary decision to wind down our business [Read: This hy
  
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• India wants to build an ultra-intrusive ‘wristband’ to track coronavirus patients’ every move

  22-04-2020 09:49 via thenextweb.com
  
  After launching its coronavirus contract tracing app, Aarogya Setu, earlier this month, India is preparing to introduce smart wristbands to monitor movements of COVID-19 patients. According to a report by the Economic Times, the government is in the process of procuring thousands of wristbands to keep an eye on patients in hospitals and folks under quartine in their homes. A technical document by the Broadcast Engineering Consultant India Limited (BECIL) described the band as an “Int
  
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• How to get constructive feedback as a designer

  22-04-2020 09:05 via thenextweb.com
  
  Did you know TNW Conference has a track fully dedicated to exploring new design trends this year? Check out the full ‘Sprint‘ program here. Feedback is a popular topic in design. You can find great insights out there highlighting the importance of feedback, different ways of giving them, handling common types of feedback from others, and more. Feedback and critiques are an integral part of the design process. To get the best out of feedback though, I realized that walking into a roo
  
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• Facebook invests $5.7B in Indian mobile carrier Reliance Jio to bring small businesses online

  22-04-2020 05:20 via thenextweb.com
  
  Facebook today announced that it investing ₹43,574 crores ($5.67 billion) into India’s biggest carrier, Reliance Jio, to pick up 9.99% stake in the company. It’s the social network’s biggest investment in the country till date. Last month, Financial Times reported that the social networking giant was in talks with Jio to make an investment. However, the deal was postponed due to the coronavirus pandemic. For the first project through the partnership, both companies
  
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• WhatsApp teams up with the WHO to release 21 new stickers about quarantine life

  22-04-2020 02:08 via thenextweb.com
  
  The coronavirus pandemic may mean that we won’t get any new emoji until 2022, but stickers a thing people use, right? To acknowledge the reality of our new stay-at-home lives, WhatsApp partnered with the World Health Organization to create 21 stickers you can share with friends and family. Officially dubbed the ‘Together at Home’ sticker pack, the collection highlights a few aspects of our new normal, including working in pajamas, washing our hands, keeping social distance, or
  
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• Google finally lets you adjust ‘Okay Google’ sensitivity

  22-04-2020 01:20 via thenextweb.com
  
  There are two kinds of people in this world. Those whose smart devices never react to ‘Hey Google!’ and those whose devices are triggered way too often. Whichever camp you lie in, Google will at long last allow you to fine-tune your Assistant’s keyword sensitivity soon. Google first announced this feature would arrive ‘soon’ way back in December, but clearly the company has a different definition of the word than I do. Whatever the cause for the delay, the feature
  
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• How to record a Skype call on your phone

  22-04-2020 00:14 via thenextweb.com
  
  Welcome to TNW Basics, a collection of tips, guides, and advice on how to easily get the most out of your gadgets, apps, and other stuff. What do you do if you want to record a call on your phone, video and audio? Turns out that’s not as easy as it sounds. Very few services have a built-in method of recording calls, but there is one that does: Skype. Yes, Skype, of all things. I never thought I’d be in a position to recommend Skype over the other vidcalling platforms there are
  
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