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Twitter has brought Spaces to the browser, both on the desktop as well as mobile.
Spaces is Twitter’s Clubhouse competitor, the popular invitation-only, audio-based, social media platform. Twitter began testing Spaces in November 2020, before officially launching it in early May 2021.
The company is now bringing Spaces to desktop and mobile browsers.
Huawei is preparing to release its HarmonyOS for smartphones, in an effort to end its dependence on Google.
The Trump administration banned Huawei, restricting its access to Google’s Android updates, as well as Google’s apps. As a result, the company has had to look for alternatives, such as striking a deal with TomTom to replace Google Maps.
While Huawei had been working on HarmonyOS before it was banned, being cut off from Google’s services raised the stakes even more. Since Android is open source, Huawei is using Android as the basis for HarmonyOS.
Huawei is now planning on releasing HarmonyOS on June 2, although it remains to be seen if it will impress or disappoint. It doesn’t bode well for the company that early information indicated HarmonyOS was based on Android 10, whereas Google is already working on Android 12.
Activision has released a report on its efforts to fight toxicity in its Call of Duty franchise, as online platforms grapple with the issue.
Like virtually all online platforms, gaming has struggled with toxic, abusive individuals, who engage in hate speech, bullying and harassment. Many gaming companies are taking measures to stop such behavior, with mixed results.
Activision is working to address the issues, and released a report detailing what measures it has already taken.
Banned over 350,000 accounts for racist names or toxic behavior based on player-submitted reports and an extensive review of our player-name database
Deployed new in-game filters to catch potentially offensive user-names, clan tags or profiles
Implemented new technology to filter potentially offensive text chat
Implemented filters across 11 languages
The company says there’s still much work to be done, but it will continue to address the issues.
“We know we have a long way to go to reach our goals,” the company continues. “This is just the start. Addressing this is an ongoing commitment that we will not waiver from. We look forward to making progress on this front and coming together with you to share in the fun and joy of playing together.”
Following days of speculation and rumor, Amazon has entered an agreement to purchase MGM for $8.45 billion.
Rumors first broke last week that Amazon was looking to purchase MGM to help boost its content for its Amazon Prime streaming service. Additional details confirmed the likely price was in the $9 billion range.
The two companies have officially announced they have entered an agreement for Amazon to purchase MGM for $8.45 billion.
“MGM has a vast catalog with more than 4,000 films—12 Angry Men, Basic Instinct, Creed, James Bond, Legally Blonde, Moonstruck, Poltergeist, Raging Bull, Robocop, Rocky, Silence of the Lambs, Stargate, Thelma & Louise, Tomb Raider, The Magnificent Seven, The Pink Panther, The Thomas Crown Affair, and many other icons—as well as 17,000 TV shows—including Fargo, The Handmaid’s Tale, and Vikings—that have collectively won more than 180 Academy Awards and 100 Emmys,” said Mike Hopkins, Senior Vice President of Prime Video and Amazon Studios. “The real financial value behind this deal is the treasure trove of IP in the deep catalog that we plan to reimagine and develop together with MGM’s talented team. It’s very exciting and provides so many opportunities for high-quality storytelling.”
“It has been an honor to have been a part of the incredible transformation of Metro Goldwyn Mayer. To get here took immensely talented people with a true belief in one vision. On behalf of the Board, I would like to thank the MGM team who have helped us arrive at this historic day,” said Kevin Ulrich, Chairman of the Board of Directors of MGM. “I am very proud that MGM’s Lion, which has long evoked the Golden Age of Hollywood, will continue its storied history, and the idea born from the creation of United Artists lives on in a way the founders originally intended, driven by the talent and their vision. The opportunity to align MGM’s storied history with Amazon is an inspiring combination.”
Amazon emphasized its commitment to preserving MGM’s long history of great storytelling, and its intention to help the studio keep doing just that.
On the heels of announcing Internet Explorer’s imminent demise, Microsoft says Edge is the “best performing browser on Windows 10.”
Microsoft announced Internet Explorer’s end of life date a week ago, and now the company is reassuring users the future is bright for its replacement, Microsoft Edge. In fact, thanks to its Chromium foundation and Microsoft’s hard work, the browser is now the browser to beat on Windows 10.
There are two features contributing to Edge’s increased performance: Startup boost and sleeping tabs.
Startup boost offloads core Microsoft Edge processes to the background, enabling the browser to start faster.
Sleeping tabs is designed to boost performance when using multiple tabs. When switching to a new tab, the feature will immediately put any ads in background tabs to sleep, thereby conserving energy and boosting the overall performance of Edge and Windows.
Users will see these benefits with the release of version 91 later this week.
A new job posting on Apple’s website indicates the company is looking to expand its Apple Pay services to include cryptocurrencies.
Apple has developed a strong portfolio of payment and finance services, with its Apple Card, Wallet and Apple Pay options. According to a new job posting, for a “Business Development Manager,” Apple may be looking expand those services to include cryptocurrency.
We are looking for a candidate who is comfortable with ambiguity, enjoys thinking about edge cases and asking “what is an alternative way of doing this”, and is a strong verbal and written communicator with a high level of integrity, energy, and sense of urgency to “make things happen”.
Most telling was one of the listed Key Qualifications:
5+ years experience working in or with alternative payment providers, such as digital wallets, BNPL, Fast Payments, cryptocurrency and etc..
As companies like PayPal and Visa increasingly support crypto, it’s not surprising Apple would be looking for a way to incorporate it in its financial apps.
301 redirects are essential when you’re redesigning your website and don’t want to lose the search engine traffic that you currently enjoy.
The unfortunate thing about a 301 redirect is that it sounds so extremely geeky and off-putting to the average business owner that they’re scared away. That’s too bad, because it is a critical tool in search engine optimization. So, to that end, I’m going to attempt explain the benefits of 301s in the least geeky way possible.
Search Engines and Trust
There are a lot of variables in why one site ranks higher than another site at Google and other search engines. One is how long the site (and a given page) has been in existence, and another is how many incoming links a page has. All things being equal (which they never are), older pages rank higher than newer pages and pages with more inbound links rank higher than ones with fewer inbound links.
Breaking that Trust
Often, when rebuilding a site, you end up changing the URLs–or addresses–of your web pages. Maybe it’s because you’re reorganizing your site, or maybe it’s because you’re redeveloping your site on a content management system like WordPress, Drupal or Joomla. In either case, the new URLs don’t have the trust that the old URLs do, even if a lot of the content is the same.
It’s like moving to a new town. You may have been the greatest manager/plumber/accountant in your old town, but that doesn’t mean anything in the new town. You haven’t changed; you still have an excellent bedside manner or mad sales skills, but you’re starting from scratch in this new town.
When you take your established content, uproot it and replant it somewhere else on your site, you are resetting the clock on when that content was created and breaking all of the inbound links that pointed to it.
Reestablishing that Trust
There are many ways to tell the search engines that you’ve moved your content, but the most search engine friendly way is the 301 redirect. By setting up 301 redirects for your content, you show search engines where your content has moved from, and your inbound links will now direct to your new pages.
How you setup your 301s may depend on the type of host you have. If you have no idea what I’m talking about, it’s time to talk to your web developer and get them involved.
If you want your web developer to create redirects for you, I recommend writing up a guide for him or her to show where the old pages should be redirected. Here’s a guide for you to use, where the first item is the old page and the second item is where you want the traffic to flow:
• old/old.html -> new/new.php
• van-halen/david-lee-roth.html -> van-halen/sammy-hagar.html
• wonka/gene-wilder.php ->wonka/johnny-depp.php
The easiest approach is to use a plugin like the WordPress Redirection plugin to setup 301 redirects.
If you do feel comfortable playing around with 301 redirects, .htaccess and other files on your server, there are plenty of resources online:
• How to Redirect a Web Page Using a 301 Redirect
• 301 Redirect – How to Create Redirects
• How to Set Up Redirects Using .htaccess
These are just a few of the top results.
Final Thoughts
301 redirects are also great when you are changing from one domain to another (never a great idea, but sometimes a necessary evil.) Even with a 301 redirect, you should expect a dip during a major overhaul of your website. However, my own experience has been that the numbers get back to normal in about a month or three and then you see increases after that.
Google Chrome has catapulted in popularity since its debut, and now has more than 3 billion users worldwide.
Internet Explorer was once the most popular browser, with Mozilla’s Firefox second. Once Google entered the fray with Chrome, the entire market was turned upside-down, and Chrome quickly become the most popular browser.
Recent research by AtlasVPN, however, puts Chromes market share at a whopping 3,258,256,887 users, or 41% of the population.
“The key reason for such browser popularity is the fact that it has been created by the tech giant Google,” writes AtlasVPN’s Anton P. “In addition, many people praise it for various customizable options and speed compared to other browsers.”
Safari comes in second, with 944,576,100 users, thanks largely to its base of iOS/iPadOS devices, as well as the Mac . Firefox comes in third place with 181,435,430 users. Microsoft Edge, Samsung Internet and Opera round out the top six with 171,327,607, 166,779,086 and 112,196,840 respectively.
Valve, the maker of the popular Steam gaming platform, is reportedly looking to release its own Switch-style gaming device.
Valve is a household name in gaming circles, thanks to its Steam platform. Steam is a popular cross-platform game distribution service that includes some of the most popular titles in existence.
The company is looking to expand beyond game distribution, with a foray into hardware, according to Ars Technica. The new device is code-named “SteamPal,” and appears to have a touchscreen and feature a wider profile than the Nintendo Switch. It’s believed the extra width will be used for an array of gaming controls.
There’s no concrete information on price, but Ars believes the device is built with Linux in mind. This will hopefully help keep the cost down, as Valve will be able to avoid the licensing fees associated with Windows.
While nothing is certain, it’s believed the device may make its debut later this year, as long as the supply chain and current semiconductor shortage can support it.
Vimeo has gone public, with today being its first day as a publicly traded company.
Vimeo parent IAC announced in December it was spinning the streaming platform off as a fully independent, public company. A month later, Vimeo raised $300 million, bringing its valuation to $5.7 billion, as it prepared to go public.
The day has finally arrived, with Vimeo now a public company.
“Today Vimeo was listed as a public company,” CEO Anjali Sud wrote on the company blog. “This has been a 16-year labor of love: sparked by a few inspired minds, nurtured by patient investors, and kindled by over a thousand passionate humans who have built, pivoted, innovated, and scaled.
“We’ve gone through a lot of change over the years. But what has never changed is our belief in the power of video. We put creators first, and put the power of professional-quality video in the hands of millions. We built an innovative software platform, a wildly creative community, and a strong and resilient business. I don’t think I’ll ever feel more proud of a group of people as I do today.”
Sud sees a world of possibilities post-pandemic, including reimagining virtual events. As one of the leading video platforms, and YouTube’s main competitor, Vimeo seems well-positioned for future growth.