Software & Apps - Page 41

People who use Google Chrome on their iPhones can now use the web browser to add web apps to their Home Screen for the first time. The new web app support comes after Google updated the company's Chrome app to add support for adding web apps.

Those who already have Google Chrome installed on their iPhones can now download the update. It's a free download and those who have automatic updates enabled might already have the new version of Chrome installed.

Adding web apps to your Home Screen is something that is made possible thanks to an iOS 16.4 update that adds support for this new feature. That means that Chrome users will need to have updated their iPhones to iOS 16.4 or later in order to be able to take advantage of this feature.

Windows 11 has an 'update and shut down' option, as you're doubtless aware, but apparently this isn't working as it should - and the same is true on Windows 10.

Windows Latest stumbled on this rather odd problem, and explains that instead of downloading and installing the update, then shutting down the PC, as this option should do - completing the upgrade the next time you turn on the machine - it's rebooting immediately instead.

Of course, the reason you select 'update and shut down' is because you're leaving your PC (most likely), and while you're happy to exit the room and let the system perform the installation, you want it to turn off afterwards, as you're not coming back.

Kanye West's former Twitter account, now X account, has been reinstated after being banned for seven months for "incitement to violence".

The banning of West came after the rapper posted several tweets that were deemed antisemitic by many as they contained depictions of a Nazi swastika blended with the Star of David. Additionally, at the time Kanye West, now called Ye, recently appeared on the Alex Jones' InfoWars and said "I see good things about Hitler, also. Every human being has value that they brought to the table, especially Hitler." Elon Musk, which at the time just recently took over what was Twitter said he tried to tell Ye not to break the platforms terms of service by violating the "incitement to violence" rule.

Musk said, "I tried my best. Despite that, he again violated our rule against incitement to violence. Account will be suspended." Ye tweeted an image of Musk being watered, which many attributed to being the reason why Ye's account was banned. However, Musk replied, "Just clarifying that his account is being suspended for incitement to violence, no an unflattering pick of me being hosed by Ari. Frankly, I found those pics to be helpful motivation to lose weight."

It's been in testing for some time now but YouTube is finally starting to roll out its Multiview service, although there is a good chance that you won't actually be able to use it.

Multiview on YouTube TV is something that has been in testing for months and it's now starting to roll out for those who are subscribed to the WNBA Primetime Channel. The subscription gives people access to streaming via the YouTube interface, with the new Multiview implementation giving people the chance to watch up to four games at the same time.

However, the Multiview offering will only be available on smart TVs as well as via streaming sticks like the Amazon Fire devices and, of course, Chromecast. However, there will be no launch of Multiview support for those watching on the web or the mobile apps and it isn't clear if that is something that is going to change at any point.

The world has now said goodbye to Twitter as Elon Musk, who purchased the company for $44 billion last October, announced on his personal account that the company is now X.

Within the days following the announcement from Musk, many changes hit the social media platform, such as a fresh new logo, and the acquisition of the official X Twitter handle. X formally Twitter didn't hold the @X Twitter handle following the announcement from Musk, which resulted in the company contacting the Holder of the @X handle, informing him that the handle was about to be transferred back to the company.

Gene X. Hwang, the co-founder of event photo company Orange Photography, was in possession of the Twitter handles for 16 years and said to Mashable that Elon Musk did not contact him about changing it. Additionally, Hwang said that X is his middle name which is why he chose it as his original Twitter handle. According to reports, Hwang said that he received an email from Twitter informing him that they would be taking his handle away while simultaneously the company offered to replace the handle with an available alternative.

Meta-owned threads took the world by storm when the social network launched not that long ago. Amid ongoing frustration with Elon Musk's Twitter and confusion over competitors like Mastodon, Threads launched and quickly acquired 100 million users. But how many are still hanging around a little while later?

According to Meta, not all that many. In fact, more than half of those 100 million users are no longer active on the platform although CEO Mark Zuckerberg doesn't seem all that worried about the revelation.

Reuters reports that Zuckerberg dropped the bombshell during an employee call that was heard by the outlet. During that call, Zuckerberg said that retention on the platform was actually better than executives had expected, although it wasn't perfect. He went on to say that it would ideally have been "awesome" if all of those 100 million people had stuck around. Or "even half of them," he said, suggesting that more than 50 million Threads users are no longer actively using the social network.

Elon Musk continues his rebrand of Twitter to X with a new iPhone, and iPad software update that changes the app's icon and name to the new one. That means that those who update to the new version will no longer see that familiar Twitter icon and will instead see a nondescript white X on a black background instead.

The gradual removal of all things Twitter has been going on for a few days now and the Android app already went through the same revamp earlier this week. But it's taken time for Twitter to get its iOS and iPadOS apps ready for download - likely due to the time it takes Apple's App Store review teams to check the new updates before their release.

While the new rebrand doesn't necessarily change anything about the app in practical terms, it does continue the rebrand that Musk has been hankering after for a while now. Twitter Blue subscribers (X Blue?) also get access to custom versions of that white-on-black icon, should they want to get a little more color in their lives.

Twitter owner Elon Musk says that he is going to switch the social network to dark mode, ditching the familiar light mode look that has been around since its inception. However, Musk did at least relent on initial plans to make that the only option - light mode will now remain available for those who want it.

That doesn't mean that Musk hasn't killed something off as part of the switch, though. The current option to use a "Dim" mode is being removed. That mode was similar to dark mode but wasn't quite as dark - it used a dark blue background instead of the black of dark mode proper.

Musk said that a lot of people had asked for light mode to stick around, so it does appear that he is listening to feedback here. Reading text in dark mode in brighter conditions can be surprisingly difficult at times which is why many apps can automatically switch between light and dark mode when the system does - and people can configure their phones to invoke different modes at different times of the day.

Reddit has announced that it is now testing a new way for people to identify when an account is legitimate and verified, potentially helping to prevent the spread of misinformation and scams.

The new 'Official' label will offer a visual indicator on specific accounts. And the number of accounts that will get that label is extremely small right now. In fact, Reddit says that the number of accounts that are currently testing the label is a small double-digit number. That suggests that the chances of you coming across one could be very small indeed.

Reddit says that the only profiles that now have the 'Official' label are those that belong to organizations with whom the company already has existing relationships. Those accounts are also apparently keen to engage with redditors and communities on the platform, so there's no doubt that some cherry-picking has gone on here.

WhatsApp has announced that it is now rolling out a new feature that will make it easier for people to send short video messages to each other. Users can already send short audio clips, but this new feature adds video to the mix for the first time.

The new feature, aptly called instant video messages, allows people to quickly record and then share short videos directly in the main chat window.

Each video can be 60 seconds long at most which does ensure that people won't be sending long videos to each other. This instant video message feature is clearly designed for those times when taking a photo of something just won't cut it, and a video becomes the best medium for explaining something.

Adobe just brought another AI feature to Photoshop, a smart new capability called 'generative expand' which is now in beta.

This follows the arrival of 'generative fill' and as the name suggests, the new Firefly-based capability taps the power of AI to expand an image.

You can see a demo of how it works in the video in the above tweet. If you have a small image, and you want to make it a larger canvas, you can simply define a new expanded boundary for the image, and Photoshop will literally fill in the blanks.

Threads, Meta's direct competitor to X, formerly known as Twitter, has rolled out a new update that features what everyone on the app has been asking for since the day it became available.

Instagram, Meta's subsidiary company, rolled out a new update that includes the highly anticipated Following tab, which acts exactly the same way as the Following tab on Twitter - a place for users only to see content that is published by accounts that they follow.

This feature has been highly requested by all Threads users since the app's release, as the main For You feed was riddled with content that was from accounts the individual wasn't following, mixed with content from accounts they were following. This mixed approach resulted in users having to sift through the For You feed to look for content published by their followed accounts. Those days are now over.

If you're a subscriber to Spotify in one of its various Premium guises you're going to have to pay more the next time your billing period comes around. That's after the Swedish music streamer increased the price of all of its Premium subscriptions in a host of countries.

Spotify announced the change in a press release in which it confirmed that it will be emailing customers starting right now, warning them of the increase in price. Those who don't want to pay it can of course cancel their subscription and existing users will get a one-month grace period before the new price becomes effective.

Under the new prices, the Spotify Premium Individual plan will sell for $10.99 per month while Premium Duo will increase to $14.99. Premium Family will cost $16.99 while Premium Student will cost $5.99.

Elon Musk, the owner of Twitter, has announced that the iconic blue bird is about to fly away from the platform as the company ushers in a fresh rebranding to the letter X.

The news came from none other than Musk himself, who took to his personal Twitter account to announce a soft launch of the platform rebranding to the letter X. Musk is already changed his personal profile picture to what will be Twitter's official logo, indicating the first monumental step forward towards the Musk's overall goal of converting Twitter into "the everything app."

Musk posted to his Twitter account a request for designs on the new logo, saying that if a good enough design is posted, it will go live worldwide today. For those that don't know, Musk acquired Twitter for $44 billion in October of last year. Since then, the Tesla and SpaceX CEO has made several big changes to the platform, some of which have been met with healthy criticism while others were met with major support.

Amazon has been pushing its biometric authentication system since 2019, and now the company has showcased its one palm payment system will be coming to Whole Foods by the end of the year.

The newly announced expansion will be the first of its kind as the contactless biometric payment processor called Amazon One will be introducing the new technology to more than 500 Whole Foods stores across the US by the end of 2023.

For those that are looking to use the new technology, Amazon has announced that it will be rolling out its sign-up either online or at the site of first purchase using the system. If you are signing up at a Whole Foods, the technology will scan your palm when you hold it over the device.

Australia's Office of National Intelligence has awarded a $600,000 AUD grant to a Melbourne-based startup focused on the merging of artificial intelligence and human brain cells.

The Melbourne-based startup called Cortical Labs successfully demonstrated last year that a cluster of approximately 800,000 brain cells within a petri dish is able to play a game of Pong. This scientific achievement attracted significant attention, resulting in the US $404,745 grant. According to a recent press release, the team is looking to grow human brain cells onto silicon chips, which would then be taught to perform goal-directed tasks.

According to the researchers that are working on the project, this new technology has the capabilities in the future of surpassing the performance of purely silicon-based hardware. Notably, the outcomes of successfully creating such a technology would have massive implications across multiple fields of technology, science, culture, robotics, and more.

Music fans who use Spotify to listen to their favorite artists are about to start paying more if they also happen to live in the United States, according to a new report.

The Wall Street Journal reports that Spotify intends to increase the price of its monthly subscription in the United States by $1, following similar price hikes by other companies in the music-streaming space.

The move will mean that people who currently pay $9.99 per month for Spotify will see their bills increase to $10.99 instead. It isn't clear when the change will happen but the Wall Street Journal suggests that it might happen as soon as next month. As for the rest of the world, Spotify is thought to be ready to increase the price of its plans in the coming months.

Meta-owned instant messaging platform WhatsApp is testing a new change that will prove to be a big improvement for people of regularly start a new coup call with multiple participants.

According to a new report by the WhatsApp beta watchers at WABetaInfo, WhatsApp's latest iOS beta includes support for starting group calls with more people than ever.

Currently, group calls can have up to 32 people involved at once but they can only be started with seven or fewer at the beginning. From there, additional participants can be added as required. However, with the latest version of WhatsApp made available to iOS-using beta testers, that's changed.

Telegram is a hugely popular and encrypted instant messaging service used the world over and it's now rolling out a new feature that brings stories to the platform for the first time.

Telegram said that it was working on stories a while ago and CEO Pavel Durov said that users would e able to use the new feature in July. Now that we're getting towards the end of the month the feature is now finally available, but not for everyone.

That's because the implementation of stories that Telegram has added to its instant messaging service requires that users be subscribed to Telegram Premium in order to use it. That means that users will have to pay around $4.99 per month to get in on stories, although you'll obviously also get all of the other Premium features rolled in as well.

Reddit has seized control back of a subreddit that was still continuing to protest the company's recent changes to its API.

For those that are out of the loop with the Reddit drama, a few months ago, the company announced that it was changing its policy and will start to charge for use of its API. These changes came after the company realized its data was being used to train potentially lucrative machine-learning models, such as OpenAI's ChatGPT, or other large language models of a similar kind.

However, these API changes mean that third-party developers, such as the Apollo app, would have to pay exorbitant fees to continue running. Many of which cannot afford to do, forcing their permanent closure. Thousands of subreddits protested these changes by going offline as many of moderators/users enjoy third-party apps/tools to make their Reddit experience better.