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Reason for joy for WhatsApp users: Messenger is finally introducing a practical chat feature

WhatsApp gets a new update: In the future, you will be able to start a chat with your own cell phone number on the messenger via the contact list. Find out the details here.
With WhatsApp for Android Beta 2.22.24.11, WhatsApp now gives beta testers the option of opening the chat with their own phone number directly in the contact list. You can now send a message to yourself very quickly.
New chat feature on WhatsApp: These are the details
In addition, there are more details about sending messages to the chat with one's phone number:

As mentioned in the previous article about self-messaging improvements, your chat and the messages you send to yourself are finally showing up on all connected devices, and have been for quite some time.
    Some iOS beta users might also get this feature today. There may be an announcement when it rolls out to more iOS beta testers where you can find more details.

It is not yet clear when the feature will finally be introduced for all users. With WhatsApp, however, this can sometimes happen very quickly.

Ubisoft partners with Riot for chat control

Ubisoft and Riot Games have started a collaboration to create better technology to combat toxic behavior in games.
Toxic behavior is a common problem in video games. There are always hostilities, especially via chat and voice chat. Although they affect everyone in games, they are particularly aimed at women and minorities. That doesn't exactly make everyone in the gaming community feel comfortable.
Ubisoft and Riot Games have now started a technological cooperation that aims to create a solution to this problem: "Zero Harm in Comms" is the name of the initiative. Their goal is to encourage the creation of AI technology to help stop toxic behavior in games.
Aimed for a solution for the entire industry
To this end, the two companies want to create a database for the entire industry that will enable companies to train moderating AI systems to identify toxic users and preventively stop their behavior.
The diverse range of games by the two developers should make it possible to collect and catalog a large number of examples of disruptive behavior in a wide variety of contexts.
Ubisoft and Riot Games want to make the results of the research project, which is still in the initial phase, available across the industry and thus set a new standard for the industry.
Another initiative by Riot Games to promote diversity in gaming, the Game Changers series in "Valorant", is currently culminating at an offline event in Berlin.

Twitter locks out employees until Monday
The offices were closed and the electronic access cards deactivated. Some now fear that Twitter no longer has enough professionals "to keep the site running."

Elon Musk's ultimatum to the remaining Twitter employees expired on Thursday at 5 p.m. EST. They should declare their willingness to work a lot of overtime at high work intensity or leave the company and receive three months' salary as severance pay. Musk explained in the corresponding email that Twitter must be "extremely hardcore" in the future.

On Friday it was initially unclear what the consequences would be for Twitter and Musk. US media reported that "hundreds" refused to stay with the company under such conditions. A Fortune reporter even estimated that up to 75 percent of employees wanted to quit. However, she could not prove the number.
The first reports that Twitter's offices were closed after the ultimatum expired and access cards were deactivated are now considered confirmed. Among other things, the BBC shows the appropriate notification to the remaining staff. It states: "With immediate effect we are temporarily closing our offices and access with electronic cards will be suspended. Offices will reopen on Monday November 21st.«

Current Twitter trends: #Twitterdown and #RIPTwitter

A reason for the closure is not given, the message only contains the note that one should continue to comply with company guidelines and not share confidential information on social media, with the media or otherwise. The text concludes with the sentence "We look forward to working with you on Twitter's exciting future."

The question of the hour is whether Twitter has a future. On the network itself, hashtags like #Twitterdown and #RIPTwitter are in the list of so-called trends. For some ex-tweeters (that's what Twitter employees call themselves) there are simply too many leaving for the site to survive. Melissa Ingle, one of those already fired, told Technology Review that there was "not enough technical expertise left to keep the site running." Without major changes, she doesn't know how Twitter would get through the month.

Meta, Amazon, Uber, Twitter… Tech laid off 120,000 employees in 2022

We are witnessing a real bloodletting. Since the start of the year, 828 tech companies have laid off more than 120,000 people, according to the Layoffs.fyi site, which aggregates data from the American press. Its counter has been packed with the new wave of social plans announced in recent days at Meta, Amazon and Twitter.

After hiring a lot during the pandemic – a flourishing period when their products and services had become essential to their confined customers – the big technology companies are disillusioned. In addition to the post-Covid economic fallout, they are suffering from the slowdown in the advertising market, often at the heart of their business model. And at the end of the chain, it is the employees who are affected.

Meta (Facebook): elimination of 11,000 jobs

Mark Zuckerberg, the founding CEO of Facebook's parent company, announced on November 9 that he was going to lay off 11,000 employees worldwide, or around 13% of his payroll. Eighteen years after its creation, this is the first time that the group styling Facebook, Messenger, WhatsApp and Instagram - 3 billion users in total - has launched such a social plan.

Twitter: half of the 7,500 employees thanked

After six months of a very hectic acquisition (which cost him $44 billion), Elon Musk finally took control of Twitter earlier this month. Barely within the walls, the boss of SpaceX and Tesla bluntly pushed out "about half" of Twitter employees, or about 3,700 people. Some teams have been almost entirely sacked: this is the case for communication, marketing and two teams responsible for respecting human rights and diversity on the platform.

The measure confirms the change in corporate culture that Elon Musk seeks to stimulate. This advocates in particular a vision of freedom of expression, requiring the relaxation of the moderation rules for the content of the platform, as well as a new approach to management, which has caused a cascade of additional departures. The new boss is also looking to save money: to finance the takeover of the social network – in already fragile health – the billionaire entrepreneur has heavily indebted the company, to the tune of 13 billion dollars.

Amazon: 10,000 layoffs planned

After several days of rumors about a social plan, Amazon has just confirmed that it intends to cut its workforce to deal with the economic crisis. According to several American newspapers, the platform and its various branches will lay off around 10,000 employees. This would represent just under 1% of the current payroll of the group, which had 1.54 million employees worldwide at the end of September.

YouTube Shorts lets you use up to a minute of licensed music in your videos

Currently, creators of clips on YouTube Shorts can use copyrighted music tracks up to 15 seconds in length. Alphabet's short-form platform now allows commercial music to be used in 60-second increments, at best, depending on agreements with record labels.

Short-form content creators on YouTube Shorts will be happy to hear that Google has relaxed its rules regarding the use of licensed music. The company announced yesterday that creators will soon be able to sample portions of licensed music up to 60 seconds in length in their videos. Remember that before September 2022, videographers did not have the right to exploit commercial music at all. The rights holders were intractable and had come to automate requests for withdrawal for copyright infringement.

YouTube tempers its announcement, stating that the majority of tracks are usable with this new rule. Licensing agreements differ between record labels, so the chosen background track may only be usable for 15 or 30 seconds. If you create clips on YouTube Shorts and you have any doubts about the usage rights of a song, use Audio Picker, the tool offered directly in the new YouTube interface on Android and iOS.

On YouTube Shorts, a lot of songs will be usable for 60 seconds, but not all of them
Remember that if you create videos, on YouTube as on YouTube Short, using audio content protected by copyright, these can, generally as a last resort, be deleted. You may even receive a copyright strike. And after three warnings, the ax falls: your account and all associated channels may be closed, all content uploaded to your account is removed and you can no longer create a channel.

The YouTube application for television is getting a new visual and sound design

Google has provided the YouTube TV app with a new animated (and sounded) splash screen. The goal is to make it recognizable and memorable, much like Netflix's.
YouTube is one of Google's flagship services. The Mountain View firm continues to make changes. For the best, when it comes to chasing charlatans with credibility stickers, for example. If you have a connected television and have recently updated YouTube TV, you may have noticed a change in the logo of the video-sharing application: it animates when it starts. A chime that switches to the sound design of another well-known streaming platform.

YouTube: watching videos in 4K could soon become paid

Although instantly recognizable, the YouTube logo was static. It therefore had no distinctive sound. Andrew Lebov, designer in the artistic department of YouTube, goes into detail on the design of the new splash screen of the application, and on the sound creation in particular. He states on the company's blog that "the initial idea behind the intro sound was to have something lively, attractive and easily recognizable, so that as soon as you hear it — even far from your TV or your device — you know something is about to appear on YouTube".
With its new visual and sound design, YouTube wants to be instantly recognizable

But what exactly is YouTube trying to communicate? To achieve its ends, Google called on Antfood, a company specializing in sound design. Through their collaboration, they managed to determine that the new jingle must be memorable, identifiable and flexible enough to be used on any type of device in different contexts. The result of their common reflection and their work gave the following chime.

Facebook employees hacked into accounts for bribes

Some of the employees were security agents who work for a subcontractor but had access to an internal company tool.
The fault was gaping and the pirates rushed into it. The Wall Street Journal reveals that Meta - parent company of Facebook and Instagram - fired more than "two dozen employees and contractors last year", facing corruption charges. Clearly, these employees would have accepted bribes of several thousand dollars to allow hackers to appropriate Facebook or Instagram accounts.
For an employee of the group, nothing could be simpler. If the company doesn't have customer service to help with account recovery, they have an internal tool that makes it easy to recover a lost password or reactivate a suspended account.
Called "Oops" for "Online Operations", this service is usually the last step to achieve this, after failing to use the automatic tools. It is theoretically intended for celebrities, Meta partners or people around Mark Zuckerberg. Confidential, it is nevertheless increasingly used: from 22,000 times in 2017 to 50,000 times in 2020.
Parallel business
Concretely, a Meta employee or even a subcontractor transmits an email address of an account being reset to a support team which is responsible for restarting it and transmitting a new password. Nothing complicated.
A gaping security flaw within Meta which has seen the development of a parallel business. Against several thousand dollars, an entrepreneur specialized in the reactivation of suspended accounts, thanks to in-house help.

Instagram finally improves its interface on desktop, for an experience worthy of the name on computer.

After finally allowing publication last year, Instagram continues to evolve the desktop version of its web application. The latest update introduces a refreshed user interface that includes the ability to take full advantage of large desktop screens, rather than being stuck on a bigger version of the mobile app, as TechCrunch reports. Instagram finally improves its desktop interface Instagram manager Adam Mosseri announced the update alongside the rollout of the recently revealed posts publishing scheduler.

"We know that many users use the web to do a lot of very different things and we want to provide as good a browser experience as possible," he explained in a video. “So the interface is now cleaner, faster and easier to use, it has been thought out and designed to take full advantage of large screens.” For a worthy computer experience As you can see below, the Home, Search, Explore, Messages and Notifications menus are now moved to the side and these become simple icons depending on the screen size. Stories are displayed at the top, while your profile, suggestions, and more are on the right. When you select an entry from the menu, the left menu bar remains, making navigation faster and easier. This new interface makes Instagram easier to use on the web, but there's still no sign of a dedicated iPad app, as 9to5Mac points out. A few months ago, Adam Mosseri declared that the iPad was “not important enough” to make a dedicated app a priority at Instagram. At least now you can use the web version for a better experience on your Apple tablet.

Fraudulent sites promoted by Instagram accounts with several hundred thousand subscribers

Whether in their Stories or their description, accounts, some of which exceed 300,000 subscribers, highlight misleading e-commerce sites, such as sneakerline.fr or shilder.com.

"It's a crazy thing !" On an Instagram story published at the end of October and since disappeared, an account followed by more than 384,000 subscribers promotes the sneakerline.fr site. Air Jordans at 1440 € which go to 115 € during the validation of the basket because of a "bug": the story is tempting. Only problem: the company behind this site does not exist.

At first glance, the sneakerline.fr site looks perfectly legitimate. Polished home page, promises of free delivery and secure payment, "authentic" products... and even a "Legal notice" page. But, first surprising element, the text affirms that the company is registered with the RCS number 527 403 572... which does not exist at the time of writing this article, according to the Infogreffe.com site which lists the companies recorded. And no results either if you search for the name "sneakerline".

The site is filled with these questionable elements: the telephone number referenced as contact ("+331440670") is incomplete. The "Our concept" page has been completely copied and pasted from a real shoe sales site, wethenew.com. Contacted by email, the site managers have not yet responded.

At the time of writing this article, the site link still appears in the biography of the Instagram account @_dieuofficiel, which only reuses the contents of the humorous Twitter account @_dieuoff. Contacted, the owner of the original Twitter account assures Tech&Co that he has no connection with this Instagram account, and that his real Instagram account is also @_dieuoff. He denounces the accounts that have been using his content for several years now, and explains that he considered legal proceedings against several of them, before giving up.

YouTube: Google's platform now has its "tudum"

When starting YouTube, you may have noticed a small change. The platform has a new startup sound and there is an explanation for this change. Launching YouTube just last night on my TV, I noticed that a little something had changed. Google's popular video platform has gotten a new startup animation and sound. Unlike recent changes made by the firm, this novelty does not change the user experience. The new sound only lasts a handful of seconds and you can hear it here (see below) or by experiencing it yourself on your devices. Note that animation and sound are not yet available to all users. Google confirms you can already hear it if you're using YouTube on a TV. The site The Verge specifies that the change is also active on the application for PlayStation 5, but not yet on the version dedicated to Apple TV. The new startup sound is reminiscent of Netflix's classic "tudum," allowing YouTube to be easily recognized at launch. How YouTube came up with this sound? Google provides explanations On his blog, the Mountain View firm returned in more detail to his decision. If the startup sound is a detail for you, it is not for Google, which designed this sound in partnership with the Antfood studio. The American giant says it wanted to have "something lively, attractive and easily recognizable". Even if you're away from your TV or device, you should know that you're about to land on YouTube, says Google.

Google Maps: the new local features are here

We updated this article on 11/18/2022, when some local features announced by Google during Search On are finally available.
Live View, for example, allows users to search in augmented reality. They can use their camera to find local establishments nearby. For now, the novelty is available in Paris, London, New York, Los Angeles, San Francisco and Tokyo.
Do you want to eat a truffle pizza tonight? Good news, all you have to do is type “truffle pizza near me” and Google will redirect you to restaurants that serve this dish nearby. Visual search with Google Lens is also available. For the moment, this other novelty can only be used in the United States. To learn more about these and other features coming soon, you can read the rest of the article below. Change is (still) now on Google Maps. Google has just announced 3 new promising features for its application.
"Live view", "Neighborhood vibe" and "Immersive view" will soon complete the app's already full range of options. Much more than a simple GPS designed to manage daily journeys, it has become essential for local businesses. Hence the interest of optimizing your Google My Business listings to boost your local SEO and web-to-store traffic at the same time. In short, let's take stock of the 3 new features that will arrive in the coming months.
"Live view" to launch augmented reality searches Augmented reality on Google Maps? It's not really new. The app has been integrating this feature since 2019. With "Live view", Google goes even further. From now on, Maps will no longer just display the route to follow in augmented reality. Users will also be able to launch searches in AR (“Augmented Reality”). Here is the example given by Google: “Let’s imagine that you go to the market and you need to withdraw some money. Thanks to Live view, all you have to do is raise your phone and search for “cash dispenser” to instantly see the cash dispensers around you”.

Although Mark Zuckerberg's metaverse is struggling to take off, it is still a priority for Meta, Facebook's parent company. Recently, the group announced the layoff of 11,000 employees, along with a plan to cut expenses. Nevertheless, the metaverse, along with augmented reality and virtual reality products, is among the company's priority projects.
In its strategy to democratize the metaverse, Meta regularly organizes virtual events. In October, for example, Meta hosted (and funded, according to Variety) a virtual haunted house experience, produced by Eli Roth and featuring actress Vanessa Hudgens. Another experience, based on the horror movie Nope, was hosted by Meta's platform, Horizon World.And soon, users of Mark Zuckerberg's company metaverse will be able to attend a one-of-a-kind concert, the kind of concert you wouldn't attend in the real world. Indeed, this is a concert by one of the greatest rappers, Notorious B.I.G., who died 25 years ago.
“Notorious B.I.G. IS BACK. His music, his flow, his influence are unmatched. See it like you've never seen it before," reads the event announcement on the rapper's Facebook page.

All messaging apps should have the new Google Chat to avoid disturbances

The next update to Google Chat will add more customization capabilities to the status, including the ability to control when we don't want to be disturbed.

There is nothing worse than doing something and suddenly receiving a message that requires our attention; Many apps, like Google Chat, allow you to change your status to "Do Not Disturb," but you have to remember to change it every time.

Today, Google has announced a novelty that will allow us to activate the "Do Not Disturb" status automatically and without having to be constantly aware of it.

Do Not Disturb Mode in Google Chat

With the next update, Google Chat will allow us to program the Do Not Disturb mode, so that it activates itself at the times we have chosen. In this way, we don't have to do anything and the app will automatically notify our contacts that we don't want them to bother us, and it will silence the notifications in case they speak to us.

Currently, Google Chat already allows us to limit the amount of time that we do not want to be disturbed. If we click on the option to change the status and choose "Do not disturb", we can choose between 30 minutes and 24 hours, or impose a specific date and time. But that is only useful if we want to be undisturbed from now on, what if, for example, we don't want to be disturbed from tomorrow at 1:00 p.m.? That's where the new feature comes in.

The new Do Not Disturb option for Google Chat We can create several records of times when we do not want to be disturbed, as well as choose the days of the week. For example, it can be very useful to put it from Monday to Friday at lunchtime, so that notifications don't distract us; Or we may be interested in it for the weekends, and thus escape all the work messages. The chances are much greater than before.

The new function will reach both the Google Chat app for Android, as well as the web version, and for all users with a Google account; on this occasion, it will not be limited to users with professional or company accounts.

This is a feature that all messaging apps should implement. Much has been said about the need to disconnect from our mobile, to stop spending all day waiting for notifications, and a function like this will help a lot to stop receiving messages when we don't want to.