In this episode: WhatsApp brings Picture-in-Picture to chats, China may be using Trojan Horses to Infiltrate US Companies, Facebook to release their own Voice Assistant soon, Instagram may hand Facebook all our location history, and more!
A PIP video window will open up when you click a shared link inside WhatsApp. So you can continue chatting and scrolling through texts while watching a video.
It isn’t a very compelling feature by any means, but it could come useful sometimes.
This was a report released by Bloomberg Businessweek:
In 2015, Amazon was evaluating a company called Elemental Technologies hoping to acquire them. They then hired a third-party company to check on their security as due diligence and found something really bizarre.
Hidden within Elemental Technologies server motherboards were little microchips not part of the original design. The hardware was supplied and installed by another company called Super Micro Computer Inc.
After 3 years of top secret probing, they found out that these little chips allowed attackers to create stealthy doorways into any network. Investigators found that these chips had been inserted at factories run by manufacturing subcontractors in China. China makes 75% of the world’s mobile phones and 90% of their PCs.
Upon the report’s release, both Apple and Amazon came out and denied the story was real. Cybersecurity experts, however, stated that this can very well happen and it would be very difficult to prevent.
This is the classic problem with State-Supported Businesses, where corporations may be involved in politics because the head of states says so.
This assistant will help dictate and send messages, initiate voice calls and create reminders. More ways for Facebook to steal information too!
Speaking of Facebook stealing our information, here’s one that will affect us all. They have been seen prototyping a new setting that allows it to share user location history with Facebook. This refers to our exact location even when we are not using the app.
As a response to Techcrunch, Facebook says that they are “just testing this and may not even roll it out to the public”.
CEO Evan Spiegel recently sent a 6500-word memo to employees, which was leaked to journalists. In the memo, he listed out all the major mistakes he made with Snapchat, and how he reacted too quickly to the environment forgetting what they initially set out to be. He said that the recent design change that sparked an outrage was a classic example of them losing their initial focus.
He also listed 2019 OKRs, which includes:
He also said he will start focusing on global markets instead of just the US.
Previously, only personal accounts are allowed to join Groups, but not anymore. Facebook expert Matt Navarra just pointed out a new settings feature on Facebook Group that allows Pages to join.
Having Pages participate in a community-like format of Group will expose it to possible abuse because the users can hide behind Page Names.
There so far isn’t any visible positive impact that comes from allowing Pages access to Groups, except in giving Pages a few new features after taking so much away from them
He replaces Sajith Sivanandan, who will be taking up new roles in Google India in payments, access and Next Billion Users.
Marc will be focusing on sales and development operations in Malaysia, and partnerships for Google’s products.
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