Instagram reportedly testing a feature that suggests who you should unfollow

There are times when you follow people out of pity, but you don’t interact with. For example, there are times when you share your handle with people you have recently met, just to avoid the exchange of numbers. You don’t interact with these people much. Now, Instagram is reportedly testing a feature that might help you unfollow some of them. According to app researcher Jane Manchun Wong, Instagram is experimenting with a feature to let you group accounts and manage them easily

Wong took to Twitter to reveal that the social media app will show “least interacted with” and “most shown in feed” accounts. These automatic groups will be calculated over the course of 90 days. You can then go through the accounts you don’t interact with and unfollow them to clear them out of your list. Furthermore, this feature will help you segregate accounts based on interests such as fashion, sports, design and memes. You may find this feature similar to Twitter lists.

Instagram is testing to “group the accounts you follow to make them easier to manage”, such as: “Least Interacted With” and “Most Shown in Feed” which are counted in the last 90 days pic.twitter.com/REykEoMqu5

— Jane Manchun Wong (@wongmjane) October 19, 2019

Recently, Instagram rolled out its take on dark mode and also removed the “Following” tab - the one which was quite famous among the stalkers. The update was rolled out to iOS 13 and Android 10 users a couple of weeks ago. However, Instagram still does not have a standalone dark mode option within settings. 

Instagram also announced a new Snapchat-like messaging app for close friends recently. Users can use Threads to message people in their “close friends” list. However, it was rolled out in select countries and isn’t available widely.

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Reliance Jio leads 4G availability in India, Airtel still ahead with fastest download speeds: Opensignal report

The ever-interesting telecom wars keep taking an interesting turn with the telcos vying for a bigger chunk of the market. Opensignal tries to make sense of where each telco stands with its periodically released Mobile Network Experience Reports. The mobile analytics company has now published its October 2019 Mobile Network Experience report and the stats are quite interesting this time. As per the report, Jio is again ahead of the competition with 97.8 percent 4G availability, while Bharti Airtel is close behind with its availability at 89.2 percent. Idea takes the third spot with 77.4 percent 4G availability and Vodafone stands last with0 76.9 percent availability. 

The Opensignal report also takes video experience, download and upload speeds, latency and a new voice app experience into account. In terms of download speeds, Airtel takes the crown with 9.6Mbps download speeds and is followed by Vodafone and Idea with 7.9Mbps and 7.6Mbps download speeds respectively. Jio is surprisingly lagging on the fourth spot with download speeds of 6.7Mbps. Since BSNL is a 3G only network, it’s not surprising to see that the telco is on the fifth spot with speeds of 3.1Mbps. In terms of upload speeds, Idea takes the top spot with 3.2Mbps, while Vodafone is close behind at 3.1Mbps. Airtel and Jio take the third and fourth spot with 2.4 and 2.1Mbps respectively. BSNL takes the last spot with 0.9 Mbps speeds.

When it comes to latency on 4G networks, it looks like Jio reigns supreme yet again. Users on the Jio network were clocking response times of 54.2 milliseconds. Airtel were a close second by a margin of 3 milliseconds while Vodafone and Idea were left in the dust with scores of 64.2 and 74.5 milliseconds, respectively. And of course, good old BSNL is stuck in last place with a latency response time of 80.6 milliseconds. This result when looking at 3G and 4G latency scores by themselves, we can see that Airtel is the leader here with a score of 53.6 milliseconds. The thing is, Jio, being only a 4G only operator means that users on its network spent more time connected to faster and more responsive 4G networks, giving it the win.

In conclusion, it’s clear that the Indian market is just as impressive as others throughout the globe. Networks are responsive and have seen a ton of improvement since the early days. All we can do now, is look to the future and hope that this level of responsiveness from our telecom operators is steady. 

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Samsung Galaxy Fold gets Galaxy Note 10 camera features via a new OTA update

Samsung’s foldable smartphone is receiving an update currently in France and UAE but the update is expected to hit other regions too. The update brings camera features we saw on the Note 10 to the Galaxy Fold. The update which is software version F900FXXU1ASJ4 brings with it features like Night mode for selfies, Live focus video mode, AR Doodle, and Super steady recording in Hyperlapse mode. These features which launched with the Galaxy Note 10 are have made their way to the S10 family of devices via an update. 

The Galaxy Fold 10 is reportedly getting a new video editor which will let users stitch together multiple videos. It will also give users the ability to add captions to them. Besides the camera features the Galaxy Fold has also received the standard slew of fixes. 

If you picked up your Galaxy Fold in the UAE or France or are living there, then you can check if you have received the update by going to Settings, then Software Update and Download 

The Samsung Galaxy Fold launched in India at the beginning of October for Rs 1,64,999. The Galaxy Fold sports a 7.3-inch QXGA+ Dynamic AMOLED Display (4.2:3) Infinity Flex main display. It has a resolution of 2152x1536 pixels. On the outside, the cover display has a 4.6-inch HD+ Super AMOLED display. It has an aspect ratio of 21:9 and a resolution of 1680x720 pixels. The folding phone is powered by a 7nm 64-bit octa-core processor, paired with 12GB RAM and 512GB of storage. 

When it comes to the camera, the Samsung Galaxy Fold has a total of six cameras. It has a 16MP ultra-wide camera + a 12MP wide-angle camera with Super Dual Pixel + a 12MP telephoto camera. The phone has a 10MP selfie camera on the cover display, a dual front camera on the main display that consists of a 10MP shooter and an 8MP depth sensor. 

A 4380mAh dual battery powers the entire package. The Galaxy Fold supports fast charging as well, both wired and wireless.

Source

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Fresh Google Assistant, Amazon Alexa vulnerabilities exposed for allowing eavesdropping, phishing

Virtual assistant services have been called out in the past for weak links in their security and privacy policies. In May this year, Amazon was found retaining copies of users’ transcripts in its servers even after users deleted their interactions with Alexa. Now, however, a new report from Security Research Labs suggests that Google Assistant and Amazon Alexa possess vulnerabilities that can potentially allow online attackers to eavesdrop on the user and pose as the service provider (phishing as Google or Amazon). The vulnerabilities are detailed in a long article and explained in brief in a few short videos.

According to the two videos that talk about eavesdropping, one of the vulnerabilities opens the door for online attackers to listen in on the user after they have finished giving a command. Apparently, the vulnerability could give an attacker up to thirty seconds to eavesdrop on the user after the command is received. During this period, the user is unaware that the device is still listening to them. Any words uttered by the user during this period could be used against them without their knowledge in the future.

The two videos that cover the phishing vulnerability suggest an even more dangerous scenario where the user unknowingly discloses their password to the attacker. We see in the videos that the vulnerability, when exploited, informs the user that the device has a software update ready but needs the user’s account password to proceed. The device then listens for the user’s password and transmits it to the attacker, which could then be a key to the user’s credit card information.

While both vulnerabilities seem complicated to exploit, it’s not impossible for an attacker to get a smart speaker or smart display to ask for the user’s password. With the account password, it’s easy to obtain information like the user’s home and work address. The videos posted by Security Research Labs act as a reminder for all of us to never share one’s account password with anyone or anything, including the device itself. Google Assistant or Amazon Alexa will never ask its users to speak their account password openly.

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Worlds largest face recognition system coming to India next month, no regulation

India is all set to install the world’s largest facial recognition system to track and nab criminals in 20 days. India had asked IT companies across the world to send their proposals to the National Crime Record Bureau (NCRB) in New Delhi. The NCRB asked for the bids in July. The winner of the bids will be announced on November 8, and will provide the National Automated Facial Recognition System (AFRS) to the country. NCRB said, “This is an effort in the direction of modernizing the police force, information gathering, criminal identification, verification and its dissemination among various police organizations and units across the country.”

According to the 172-page document published by the NCRB, the system will match images from India’s growing network of CCTV cameras against a database of mug-shots of criminals, images collected by various government agencies including passport photos. It will allow the government to create a robust system for identifying criminals, missing children /persons, unidentified dead bodies and unknown traced children/persons all over the country. In the trial of four days, the Delhi Police identified almost 3,000 missing children.

The state police will be able to juxtapose the suspect with the hotlist of criminals with the help of the software. As of now, leading face recognition softwares in the world are Face Recognition and Face Detection by Lambda Labs, Amazon Rekognition,  Microsoft Face API; Google Cloud Vision and IBM Watson Visual Recognition, among others. 

In reference to the concerns of the misuse of technology, Pavan Duggal, one of the nation's top cyber law experts told IANS that the Information Technology Act, 2000 does not especially deal with misuse of this technology."The first casualty of the absence of a regulatory framework for facial recognition technology is people's right to privacy," said Duggal to IANS. There is no framework in India to regulate the storage of facial recognition data. 

Further, technology giants like Microsoft and Amazon also agree that the government is needed to regulate this technology. 

"Unless we act, we risk waking up five years from now to find that facial recognition services have spread in ways that exacerbate societal issues," warned Smith, Microsoft President, in a blog post. "The use of facial recognition technology by a government for mass surveillance can encroach on democratic freedoms," he said in December last year.

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PUBG 5.1 Update for PS4, Xbox One Brings Refreshed Miramar, Vending Machines, Ability to Throw Items

The PUBG 5.1 update for consoles brings a refreshed Miramar map and adds vending machines as well as the ability to throw items.

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Pokemon Go to soon get online multiplayer battles via Go Battle League

Pokemon Go may not be as popular as it was back when it was launched, but that hasn’t stopped developer, Niantic from constantly updating the game. Since launch, the developers have added new features like Raid battles as well as tons of new Pokemon including Legendaries like Mewtwo and Rayquaza. Now though, it looks like Niantic will finally bring online trainer battles in the form of Go Battle League, which is stated to be released in early 2020.

Pokemon Go already offers a form of PvP battles in Trainer Battles features that was released last year. However, Trainer Battles are more of a local affair, with long distance battles limited to friends with whom you have reached the level of Best or Ultra Friends. The Go Battle League promises to allow Trainers to battle others from all over the globe via an online matching system. Winning battles will allow them to rise in the ranks of the league. 

Details about this mode are still not clear. In its announcement post, Niantic notes that Go Battle League will encourage players get out and explore the world. How this will work is not yet known with the developer only stating that “Trainers will be able to walk in order to earn entry into the Go Battle League.” 

Niantic notes that it will share this more information about Go Battle League via a Dev Insights video, which it will share soon. Till then, players can participate in the Halloween event that is currently live in the game. The event tasks players will rescuing more Shadow Pokemon from Team Go Rocket, or get lucky and spot a Shiny Yamask in the wild. The in-game shop also features new Halloween-themed clothing for your in-game character. Besides this, more Dark and Ghost-type Pokemon will spawn in the wild, in eggs, and in raids. Further, many POkemon seen in the wild will wear costumes. You can check out more details about the event by clicking here.

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