Turkey Charges Twitter With A Fine Of $51,000 For Terrorism Content

Twitter becomes a victim of charge of terrorist propaganda and has to pay a fine of $51,000 to Turkey
World known micro blogging giant faces a huge fine from Turkey’s communications regulators of $51,000 (150,000 Turkish liras) due to the failure of removing terrorist propaganda from its social media platform; however this is not the first time the business is dealing with a fine of such context. Publicizing and supporting content that provides justification to terrorism is unethical in its own way, the social media giant was unable to block such content and take action against it.

Twitter Inc.  now has to pay $51,000 of fine which has been filed by Turkey’s Information and Communication Technology Authority. The business has faced problem earlier with the authorities who have asked numerous times to open its offices in the country so that they can be able to take advantages of the company paying taxes and also for the refusal of removing the unethical content witnessed on its platform.

Even though the social media network has dealt with fine before, this is the first time it has faced a fine from Turkey, who has also blocked the organization social platform  before for being unable to follow court orders and not removing content that promotes terrorism.  Details regarding the nature of the offensive and unethical content have not been revealed by the authorities, and the business has refused to make any comment regarding the issue. It has faced problem earlier with Turkish authorities , Facebook and Twitter, both were blocked by Turkey this year in April because of a court order that prohibited users from sharing images and other content of a prosecutor who was held at gunpoint at that time, was going viral, however Facebook removed the content within the period of 24 hours.The social media advertising and entertainment company was also blocked by Turkey in March. 

Seckin said, “The government has step by step increased legal control over not only the internet but written press and TV, and for this purpose, we saw the adoption of several laws in 2014 that provided legal powers to do so, it’s difficult to draw the line.” Social and media freedom is definitely necessary but offensive and unethical content especially after the Paris attack regarding terrorism cannot be taken lightly and ignored. Actions by the right authorities have to be taken in order to function as a normal humane society.

Twitter stock closed at $24.92, after green by 0.32% on Monday December 14.

Coca Cola Pull Off Racist Ad From The Internet After Receiving Heavy Criticism

The carbonated beverage company has been accused of airing an advert that is very offensive for many people of Mexico.

Coca Cola aired an ad promoting its brand earlier last month and received heavy criticism from the audience who labeled it as ‘racist’. The ad shows a group of white people who are bringing the brand to an ‘indigenous village’ in Mexico. The ad further shows that these visitors from the city who are trying to introduce the brand into the village help these locals build a Christmas tree from wood and plastic coke bottles caps.

The main reason for the criticism that the ad received was because it showed that over 81.6% of the people living in Mexico are colonial and not unity. This campaign is known as “Open Your Heart” that has been brought forward to these villages.

Elvira Pablo, a native lawyer at a press conference held in Mexico stated that such an activity for mere publicity in clear terms promotes racism and discrimination. He added that such promotion is putting a form of label on the standard of life that we are living and furthermore putting a culture of consumerism there.

The advertisement was pulled off by the carbonated soda company on Tuesday after it was heavily promoted on YouTube and later trashed on social media. However the video can still be found on different web pages with various names.

In a statement a spokesman from Coca Cola told Eater, a food news website, that the company’s intention was never to promote such an insensitive act of discrimination and racism or even underestimate such native/ indigenous group. He added that the video that created such fire is now off the television and the internet and they have apologized for if they caused anyone trouble or hurt anyone’s feeling.

The video has falsely stated that over 81.6% of the people living in Mexico who are part of the indigenous group do not speak the language Spanish and feel left out about it although the source for this statistic has not been cited in the advertisement.

Furthermore, to send a response to the company’s comments on the matter, Alliance for Food Health made a video that include a number of Mexican people who are speaking in various languages and are talking about the carbonated drink’s influence on the community. One of these people stated that over 50 years ago the concept and cases of Diabetes type 2 was very rare but now that has changed drastically over the past few decades and has now become an epidemic.

Another person added his view to the video saying that since Diabetes type 2 is happening more frequently now, so the people of the community to stay united, tend to preserve their dignity and take care of their health and culture and to do so the people of Oaxaca, drink tea, clean water and tejare.

Google Accused of Collecting Student Data

The search engine giant has been accused for using student information to improve its experience.

On December 1, 2015, a non-profit privacy organization, The Electronic Frontier Foundation asked the Federal Trade Commission to conduct an investigation against Google’s education services. The non-profit organization believes that Google Apps which is merely for educational purposes saves and collects student’s data which is a violation of their privacy.

 According to the complaint that was lodged by EFF, the sync settings feature of Google’s web browser, Chrome saves the passwords, bookmarks and search history on to its servers. The company that runs under Alphabet, Inc. signed a Student Privacy Pledge earlier in 2015. Under the pledge signed by the Google, as well as 200 other companies, they made a row to now collect any information that the students provide apart for educational purposes.

On Wednesday however the search engine giant completely denied these accusations of tracking and storing student data in a public post. According to the director of Google Apps for Education, Jonathan Rochelle, the company is appreciating the effort that EFF has made and its concern but the company says that it is fairly confident that its tools comply with the terms and conditions and do not violate any privacy of any student.

The complaint also suggested that the search engine ‘collects, maintains and uses records’ of whatever information that is provided by the student whoever uses the Google Apps tool for educational purposes. This usually happens when the student is logged in on to their Google accounts and it usually does not matter which device they are on. Furthermore, it added that the information that the students put on the web, google uses that to enhance the customers experience along with finding better ways to conduct advertisements.

The website uses this data provided by the students to choose the best advertisements for them and post them onto other websites such as YouTube and Bloggers, which are not for educational purposes, to attract that specific target market.

According to Google News, the company stated to FoxNews.com, that their service is helping the students learn and keep their personal information private and secure. The EFF staff attorney Nate Cardozo stated that these minors who are using the educational services should not be tracked or used in anyway and if google wants to improve its advertisement experience and products then it needs to get the consent of their parents before using that information.

These Chromebooks are very popular at schools as some of them cost less than $300 and are very used for the students because it can be easily maintained by Google over the internet.

The social media giant is working on a number of objectives but might not be able to grow more than it has already achieved. Year 2015 has been an exceptionally good year for Facebook stock. The social media company is one of the companies who will be in the top gainers of the day on the trading session that will be held on Monday. Despite of the fact that many businesses, as per the S&P 500 index, had a disappointing year, it had been amongst the top and best performers of the year. The year to date stock performance of the social media giant’s stock is at 2% as per the S&P 500 rating but the social media’s stock itself has climbed 45%. Even in the fourth quarter, the performance of Facebook’s stock has been impressive. The stock of the company is up by more than 30% in the current year. The analysts think that it is the perfect time to sell the stock of the dominant social media network. Investorplace.com believes that Facebook is going to be around for a very long time and even its share price will not be going to zero any time soon but what the analysts believe now is that the social media’s stock is overpriced and overvalued. The trading of the stock if valued at more than 36 times forward while Wall Street is valuing it more than twice at 17.5 forward earnings. After the third quarter, Facebook stock went through its all-time high share price of $110. Since it hit the 52-week high of the share price, the stock of the social media website has been slightly slopping down. During the previous trading session, the stock price was called off at $105.45, which was quite close to its 50-day moving average of $102.78. In case the stock of the company manages to cross its downward slopping 50-day average, it will be bringing the shares even lower than they already are. In a financial thinking, the investors do need to look at the prospectus as to where the social media company will grow now. The social media giant already has over 1.5 billion daily active users even if this number increases a little bit it will not be able to bring growth to the company as it will entirely incremental. Furthermore, the less difference that will be made from more users will also be because this number will come from more remote areas. The new users now who will be joining Facebook will be from the less developed with less money in their pocket crowd which would mean less advertisers.

Facebook's App Indexing Might Also Help Google Inc

The social media giant is currently working on app-indexing, which is expected to help the search engine giant in a lot of ways. Facebook Inc is reportedly working towards adopting the app-indexing idea that tech rival Google Inc is famous for carrying out to make its search engine platform a more reliable one for the users. Only recently it was seen that the social media giant has decided to turn on the indexing tool to make its search results appear in a much better way on the search engine which is used by the a large number of its users. This step has been taken by the company to make the experience of searching improved on Android smart phones. The app-indexing tool helps the software company to direct users to particular apps, and the same will now be done for the Facebook app, which will be getting it more users than before. Previously, Google directed the users to the web page of the social media giant but since Facebook business is looking for Android users to start using the social media app more than before, this step will help bring more traffic to it. Analysts in the market are looking at this idea in a different light and believe that the giant could be carrying out this to slowly come in line with the search engine dominance that Alphabet holds in the industry. Recently, Facebook management also rolled out a massive indexing task to cover a huge 2 trillion social media posts made on its platform, and it was done to strike up better numbers where the monthly active users are concerned. Analysts believe that by using the indexing tool, the social media giant might be making things great for Google as well as for itself. The search engine company might also be in a much better position now that the media company is indexing apps too, and analysts have informed the industry that this will be helping the tech giant to get more app publishers towards its business. This situation for the tech giant Google has been deemed as a very positive one by the analysts, as this simply shows that the giant has managed to succeed in making app producers to start using the indexing tool, which it has reportedly been trying to do since 2014. The reason most of the companies were not taking up the option was basically because the process of app indexing has been recognized as one which is not comprehensive enough to be taken up without a backup plan, as it also takes more time to create an app than it does to develop one without indexing.

Facebook And Google Join Hands In Mobile App Search

Google and Facebook collaborate for Mobile app search.

Nothing is better when your core rival becomes your biggest ally. Alphabet Inc. is trying its best to bolster its search engine business particularly in the world of mobile apps. However, now things are different since Facebook Inc. has joined hands with the giant to push it to newer heights.

Facebook is the largest operator of social media across the globe. Recently the company allowed the search engine giant to index and crawl its mobile application as reported by a spokeswoman belonging to Google.

As per the agreement, the results that will be obtained via Google searches on the cellular devices will have the ability to showcase exclusive content from the application of Facebook encompassing the public profile data. These searches will show as “deep links” that will navigate the user to the part of the app which is relevant reported the spokeswoman.

This is a mirroring of how Google will index the information obtained from the Facebook profiles that are public over the Internet. Moreover, the company will also get access to the business platform of FB like Events, Groups and Pages.

Google has been restricted to display the shared content that is via private or logged in session. This clearly means that the tech giant can only get its hands on the public content and is catually restricted from going close to the secure content. In case the users want those searches then they will have to use Facebook’s search platform to achieve that data.

At this point of time, it is actually a major breakthrough since the cooperation by Google is a sign that the company is making ways to cope up with a massive challenge which is searching the insides of an app. Google, is the uncrowned king in the world of search engine on the web but it still faces immense difficulty when it comes to categorizing the data inside the app. It is important to get hands on this data as mobile users spend a great chunk on this platform.

Google now needs to motivate the app developers to peep inside their apps.

According to the Co-founder of Button- a mobile app discover startup, “In mobile their position as the online starting point is at risk.” He further added, “If people lose faith that they will find things they need by searching on Google, that’s bad for the company. Anything Google can do to maintain that position is good.”

So the alliance between the two tech giants is actually fruitful.

Facebook All Set To Make A Blockbuster Entry In The AI Sector

Facebook will soon introduce M to compete against Microsoft, Google, and Apple.

Facebook Inc. has finally entered the Artificial Intelligence (AI) market where it wants to compete against the big shots Microsoft, Google, and Apple that are currently not only leading but dominating the sector. Facebook is surely not the first unusual company which has entered this market. The uncrowned king of the Smartphone industry, Apple, came up with Siri at the launch of iPhone 4S back in 2011. Siri is smart enough to not only perform functions of reading, listening, and finding information from the internet but can also type out narrated messages and emails.

Furthermore, through Siri a user can make calls, search for contacts, and get answers to various questions. But, it is not a perfect AI product. Apple’s Siri lacks a lot of efficiency in finding relevant results as well as its listening is not good enough. Hence, searching and interpretation are the two weak points at the moment which the company is trying to improve. Whatsoever, Apple does have a competitive edge over its rivals, whether new entries or existing, because of the time span in the AI sector.

Apple currently rivals with Microsoft, Google, and now Facebook. All these companies have now ample time to analyze the strengths and weaknesses of Siri in order to incorporate the better things in their own offerings. A year later after Siri launch, Google came up with Google Now which is ‘an around the clock assistance that could help users have greater control over their device and information, compatible with both iOS and Android.’ Microsoft also introduced Cortana in 2014.

But Facebook will not be copying the ideas of already existing AI technologies which other companies offer. The social media giant’s AI technology is known as ‘M’ which is different in terms of functionality if compared to Siri or Cortana. According to a source, “it is designed to perform multiple tasks such as looking up items, purchasing and even delivering them to a specific person. M will also be able to make restaurant reservations and even travel arrangements for users, unlike its rivals.”

It is believed that the smartphone company would do better than its rivals in the market because of various reasons. One of the reasons is that the social media giant has a massive user base, nearly 2 billion or so. Hence, the high number of users will help the company to do wonders in the AI market.

Facebook Instagram Might Compete With Etsy

Facebook is trying its best to make advertisements and E-commerce effective on Instagram.

According to Apple Insider it has been reported that Instagram owned by Facebook Inc. has been trying its best to promote itself as a E-Commerce platform. The company is deicing ways through which they can engage the users to do more online shopping through the platform and also wishes to lure more advertisers. The company is performing various experiments where they are collaborating with companies like Apple Inc. to enrich features that bolster their advertisement domain. A range of new advertisements have amalgamated various features that allow Instagram users to swipe through the wide array of product offerings and advertisement to empower online shopping with 3 dimensional touch and also making payments via services like Apple Pay. According to a source that chose to remain anonymous, the experiment made the by company is simply a test that will allow them promote the platform for E-commerce. So by playing around with these new set of advertisements, it is assumed that the trend for making transactions through mobile device can also bolster since Instagram is keen about diverting its focus and grow big in terms of online shopping on its app since the Shop Now button has been added to the platform. Apple earlier launched the iPhone 6S in September 2015, that came up with distinct way to navigate using Force touch abilities. So now take into consideration that Instagram has decided to link this feature with its photo sharing platform, it clearly indicates that the company wishes to target the Apple iPhone 6s users. Moreover, they have also interlinked the Apple Pay services which will allow Apple suers to make payments directly on Instagram with ease. This also indicates that they want to make shopping easier and are focusing on Apple users. There is also a possibility that other company’s might join the list of POS services on the platform soon. Facebook users on Instagram might have to wait a bit since the company is still experimenting with the app but according to the speculations, the app might just link menus by restaurants to come on the News Feed of users. So gradually the company is devising ways to streamline monetary rewards from the platform. FB si the industry giant in terms of advertising and now they are trying new ways to come up with something unique that can actually give a tough time to services like Etsy. Facebook stock closed at $106.49 on Monday November 9.

Twitter, Inc. and Alphabet, Inc. To Get Head On Competition By Facebook Search Soon

The social media giant is coming to make it big again and take on its competitors with its Search Engine; having over 1.5 billion search every single day.

Facebook, Inc. is soon to have its own Search option; this Search option is directly to take on Twitter, Inc. and Google Search. Earlier last year during the earnings call of 2014, Mark Zuckerberg happened to mentioned what products the company will be working on for the coming year, along with mentioning Instagram Messenger, WhatsApp – the youngest chief executive officer happened to mentioned Search. On further questioning about this “Search”, Zuckerberg dodged the question at the time Most recent, this Chief Executive officer has started talking about this Search engine all over again. Earlier he told his investors about the Search mentioning that about 1.5 billion searches are being done on Facebook’s platform almost every day by the social media network’s users. Since the beginning of the year, the Search engine on Facebook has been revamped without the users even noticing it. Basically, once we search a name or organization every post that it has been used it starts to appear in the search, mostly the posts that the users might have missed on their news feed. This new feature is a direct hit on Twitter, Inc.’s and Google’s search engine and could be a treat to both the social media. This search is quite similar to desktop version of Twitter’s Moments but rather more personal than it. But it is safe to say that it is directly competing with Twitter’s search now and since, evidently, there is more user engagement on Facebook than there is on Twitter, it has become a formidable treat for the micro-blogging website. Furthermore, Facebook, Inc. might be taking Google market share as well. Since Google claims that most of the searches done by users are done on smartphones and since more time of a specific user is spent on Facebook while on its smartphone, it is likely that more percentage of people will start to prefer Facebook Search over Google. Although, on a personal note, it’s a long short for the social media website to take Google’s market as it has been embedded in almost every users brain to conduct searches on Google or whatever it is that they are looking for will be found on Google and nowhere else. But despite, only if users are able to feel that they can get the entire information that they are looking for on Search then only they might consider it over Google. After the launch of Facebook’s Articles, there is a chance that it might be able to take on Google’s market if it delivers a more pleasurable mobile experience than Google can. Additionally, the social media website has commented that at this point it does not plan on monetizing search but as per estimates by analysts if the social media company plans on doing so, from advertising the company will be able to make at least $5 billion, which is an opportunity it should not miss. This estimation has been done on the information that Mark stated that over 1.5 billion search on Facebook every-day. On the other hand, if not monetizing Search, the Social media giant is making good money from its valuable vertical search “Shopping”.

Facebook Improves Real Name Policy

Facebook will improve its real name policy by December.

Facebook Inc. recently announced that the work in progress is all set to make the improvise the “real name” policy sothat the users can have access to a smooth road for all the users that have been unjustly removed and abandoned from the service because of the company’s policy. In the start of December, the company will test the modified service. The modifications in policies were announced by the company on Friday in a letter that was published by a Facebook executive. This letter was in response to The Electronic Frontier Foundation, Human Rights Watch and American Civil Liberties union’s open letter. Alex Schultz, the vice president of product growth at the social media giant claimed that the users have lodged several complains since they have to deal with various difficulties when they are asked to prove their identities through their real name since the process for stating is very inconvenient. Particularly the Lesbian Bisexual Gay Transgender (LGBT) community criticized the policy since victims of domestic abuse along with other professionals that encompasses advocates are not comfortable to use their real name for security reasons. So now FB understands that this policy is not suitable for all users thus they are ready to tweak this policy in a way that aids the masses. They will changes so that the Facebook users do not have to face any hindrances. A letter has been acquired by BuzzFeed in which Mr. Alex Schultz stated, “We know the current process does not work for everyone. We are working on several improvements, with two goals in mind: First, we want to reduce the number of people who are asked to verify their name on Facebook, when they are already using the name people know them by. Second, we want to make it easier for people to confirm their name if necessary.” According to the letter, the modifications have been designed in a manner so that the users get more space so that they get context regarding their preferred choice of name. Moreover, they also cleared that the tech behemoth does not require the legal birth names but those names that through which they are generally referred by. Apart from this, the tech giant is expected to make it relatively difficult for users to report abuses and violations since they will be asked to provide more information for reporting. Users will have to justify why they want the action.

Facebook Rolls Out New Feature "Slideshows"

Humanitarian mission or self benefit? That is still a question Facebook users have not been able to answer, after the social media giant rolls out "Slideshows"

On Thursday, the social media giant rolled out a new product which will make video ads available to those people from emerging markets that have a hard time viewing them. This new product is called “Slideshows”. It is going to be a photo slideshow which will be created by a specific brand. The slideshow will work on all devices and levels of connectivity whether its 2g, 3g networks as such networks are widely used in Southeast Asia, India and South America. The purpose for the introduction of the new slideshow is that while the traditional video ad viewing is quite popular in the United States and loads on high level of speed there, in other emerging markets it takes a while to load. On a Facebook blog post it was stated that a slideshow takes five times shorter and smaller than the old-fashioned video ads. A slideshow is not merely a video but it is ‘video-like’ and definitely more entertaining and engaging. Facebook’s aim of launching “Slideshows” is that it has started to actively grow in emerging markets like India where internet connectivity is a long time issue. These places have weak WIFI and networks hence it become a difficult task for the user to load a 5 minute video. Facebook is looking to make more money from these emerging markets g that is way Zuckerberg has decided to launch the service in India. Mark Zuckerberg recently visited India to support and convince the nation to bring wireless internet to the masses through Facebook, Inc.’s Internet.org initiative. The CEO stated that at the conference, held in India, that it is a ‘moral responsibility to get the world connect – but ultimately it comes down to Facebook’s own benefit which will be that if internet is widely available to the masses that would mean more people will want to join Facebook and more companies will be attracted to advertise on the social media website. In the future the company has also planned to bring the same slideshow Facebook ad feature to Instagram. The service was launched in the Indian market on October 29, 2015. In other news, according to Tech Crunch, the company is rolling out another feature on the Facebook App through which users will be able to communicate with strangers in an easier way. This rollout is called “Message Requests”; this new request feature will be the replacement of “Other Messages”. Now the users will be able to view messages from other users that used to go directly in to the ‘other messages’ folder.

Facebook Modifies It Other Inbox Option

Facebook to come up with Message Requests on Messenger.

Facebook Inc. is now coming up with its Message Requests that will be available on the company’s instant messaging app “Messenger”. This option will completely replace the “Other” inbox option present on the website. The Vice President of Facebook, Mr. Dave Marcus took the opportunity to announce about the new feature in the company’s recent post. Message Requests for the Messenger app will enable all the users to message whoever they wish by simply using their actual name on the social media platform. So in case the users are actually discoverable on the platform then they will now have more access to who can actually approach them to start a conversation. So now that the company has come up with Message Requests, it is actually in good shape to completely discard the Other folder completely. The folder was not a very prominent feature of the messaging option since it was camouflaged in a corner on FB that could only be accessed while using the desktop version of social media. So far nobody could access the Other option while using Messenger. The idea why the tech giant has come up with this new option is that strangers can get a platform to contact anyone with an optimistic vision that this will assist in uniting long lost contacts and “estranged parents”. But the good thing is that Facebook users have the choice of ignoring or accepting the message requests anonymously. By accepting the request a message is sent particularly to the main folder for inboxes. However, under any circumstances Facebook has vowed to take care of the spam messages but all those requests that cannot go to the inbox will fall in the Messages Request option. To explain it simply, the messages that are obtained will be rerouted to the users inbox if the users become/are friends on Facebook or have each other’s contact related information on their device or if they have an open thread with the person. Similar to the existing friends on Facebook, users will be able to see the messages by strangers on the main inbox and then will also be notified regarding the messages once they have accepted the Message Request. According to Mr. Dave Marcus, this is actually a “a foundational development,” where the company is extremely devoted to increasing the connectivity amongst the people. So now soon we will encounter an updated Messenger and will be able to control the Message Request.

Facebook CEO Gives A Speech In Chinese

Mark Zuckerberg, the CEO of Facebook, gives his speech in Chinese language at a local university.

Mark Zuckerberg, CEO of Facebook Inc., enthralled the masses at the Chinese Tsinghua University recently when he gave his speech in Chinese completely. He spoke strongly about his and the company’s mission to transform the world. The chief executive officer became a member of the University’s board of economics and management in the previous year. Zuckerberg stated, "This was also my first real speech in any language sharing how I started thinking about Facebook's mission, what has kept me going through challenging times and what our mission means now looking ahead for our community of 1.5 billion people.” He further added, “The themes of believing in your mission, caring more deeply than anyone else and always looking ahead is relevant to anything you might build." In October 2014, the young CEO was successful in pleasing the crowd present at Tsinghua University where he conducted a question and answer session as well. The issue that aroused during that session was that the pronunciation of Mr. Zuckerberg was considered to be off slightly. Moreover, he also made one slip up that resulted in the social media moguls to states that the company has only eleven users. This time, he actually came up with his speech and improved largely. At TechCrunch – the popular tech website, Mr. Jon Russell stated that when the CEO spoke to the Chinese speakers, they were actually enthralled by the extensive vocabulary of the tech tycoon amid the fact that he took a relatively short span of time to learn. The only suggestion they had was that he could actually improve his tone since it needed some work. However, overall everyone agreed that the progress shown by the owner of the top social media platform is actually very impressive. Earlier in 2009, Facebook was banned in the region and is still banned to date. The CEO had initially shown interest in knowing more about China when he read “The Governance of China” by the President Xi Jinping. The book fascinated him so much that he asked all Facebook employees to read it. When he came to the University previously, he cleared that the company’s mission was to "connect the entire world", where he mentioned that company is keen about making harmonious relations with the authorities and masses at the People’s Republic of China. The future prospects seem extremely bright and he is willing to further extend the relationship with the Asian giant.

Facebook Launches Instant Articles On iOS

Facebook is all set to roll out Instant Articles for iOS users.

Facebook Inc.has recently announced that they are all set to reveal its Instant Articles for all the users of Apple iPhone that will be through the Facebook application. A lightning bolt will appear on the top right corner of the same stories present on the News Feed that signifies Instant Articles. So if a user taps on a story, it will automatically load ten times faster than other web based articles. This new feature by the company gives Facebook users a better experience in comparison to other mobile web based articles. Some features of Instant Articles comprise of features like automatic playing of videos that load at a faster pace, by tilting the phone the app starts to zoom in the pictures, also the ability to comment and like photos and videos individually. Photo galleries can now be viewed with ease by simply swiping along with pictures having geo tags that allow interactive maps to pop up. FB has been employed in a manner that the Instant Article service works smoothly in comparison to other similar services. According to Facebook, Instant Articles will provide a “more beautiful” experience than ordinary articles that tend to lag too. The Instant Articles have been tested on a small sample of individuals that were satisfied with the experiences thus the company gathered the courage to make it available for the masses. The company started to review the service earlier in June and since then the social media giant has been collaborating with various publishers. Facebook states further that the users tend to share the Instant Articles at a frequent pace with their loved one. However, this claim will only be termed true when a sample population that is adequate in number tries out this feature. A publicly released beta version of the application can be exploited by Android users that has been revealed this week but a complete version for Android will be launched later this year. Facebook has unveiled that thousand of Instant Articles have now been released by content developers. Users can gear up to access Instant Articles by big names of the publishing world like MTV, Daily Mail, The New York Times, Cosmopolitan, BuzzFeed, The Washington Post and National Geographic. More publishers are also listed that are likely come onboard when it comes to Instant Articles that encompass Hollywood Reporter, Fox Sports, NBA, The Weather Channel, Variety, Movie Pilot, MLB and Variety. This news is indeed a treat for readers on Facebook using Apple iOS.

Facebook Countering iOS Battery Draining Bug

Facebook is dealing with battery drainage bug on its IOS app.

Facebook Inc. is now working towards devising a fix since users have complained about battery draining while using the company’s app on Apple iPhone. So if while using the iPhone you thought that your battery was draining at a rampant pace then this might not be the case believes Matt Galligan who is the co-founder of Circa. Matt Galligan actually wrote a blog post which was loaded with screenshots. These screenshots showed how the Facebook app was utilizing the battery when it was running in the background irrespective of the fact that the refresh option has been disabled now. Facebook has now taken the issue into consideration reports the popular tech website TechCrunch. A statement has been released by the news platform where they have reassured about looking into the matter. As per the spokesperson belonging to FB, the company is optimistic about finding a way to the issue. However, they have not unveiled the approximate time span for the rectification. The issue can be resolved within a week or more depending on the complexity. Mr. Galligan in the blog post stated that the battery drain of iPhones on the app is merely ridiculous. As per his consensus, more than 15 percent of the battery drainage was due to the application though the refresh option has been disabled by the company. The issue is the case that the application does not properly go into sleep mode thus it actually stays active for almost twice the time the user actually spends using the application. As per TechCrunch, there were several bloggers who are not contented with this feature since the app is not complying with the instructions provided by Facebook users since ideally it should run in the background. The reason behind this calamity can possibly be the social media giant’s new feature which allows the videos to play on its own. If you have not disabled the auto-playing videos option in the settings then this is liable to happen. The feature also plays audio but that is performed in silent mode. So the extra power needed to run the videos can be the reason behind the battery drain. So Mr. Romain Dillet belonging to TechCrunch actually applied this theory and experimented by disabling the auto-playing videos along with the refresh option for the iOS app. It was noted that the application used 7% lesser battery for a day. However, when auto-playing was enabled results was the same so the results are merely uncertain. 

Facebook Faces Trouble In Europe Yet Again

The social media giant has again gotten in trouble, as the European law has disallowed all tech companies to use information of European users anywhere outside the region. Facebook Inc is one social media company which has repeatedly been experiencing a difficult time in the European region, mostly due to the privacy settings that are generally observed by the company but always turn out to be rather offensive for the giant. The most recent news suggests that the European authorities have shown massive disregard for all kinds privacy laws that are followed by Americans and have informed the company of its own set of principles that will followed in the region. Previously, a Safe Harbor was launched by the American government which allowed all the companies of the country to not only operate in Europe but also take user information from the country to theirs, which caused many complaints to rise from the state. However, a new program has been installed in the region which has not only dismissed the transfer of European information to the American region, but it has also dismissed all kinds of rules that they feel are taking away information of the users to the other country. All such activities are allowed to be stopped by the authorities at any time that proves to a threat to the people of the country. As for the social media company, analysts believe things are going to be a little more difficult now, since the rules have been tightened for companies like Facebook itself. Facebook business has also been deemed as a ‘data hungry’ company for which things have been made a little too difficult by the European authorities. Since the social media giant seems to be gaining most of its revenue through the ad generation business, which is mainly supported by the whole idea of selling personal user information in order to target the right audience with the right ads, according to their likes and dislikes. The social networking giant first got in trouble when an Austrian student turned against it and filed a complaint about how he did not agree with the kind of usage that was being carried out by all kinds of tech companies that belonged to the American country. He also said that it was clear that all such companies working in the region were surely not using the user information of the Europeans in the right manner and had a huge chance of being offensive to user sentiments, something that the media company does not really gives heed to. The same Austrian student has also demanded from the media firm to pay back all the users which it might have offended in the past.

Facebook Inc To Pace Up On Android

Facebook Android app to load faster amid slow connections.

Facebook Inc. the social media giant has yet again achieved another benchmark where they have now developed an open source “Network Connection Class” which is aimed to gauge the relative speed of the network connection. This initiative will help the company to improve its Android application so that the newsfeed can be loaded at a faster pace when the connection is sluggish. The idea behind this network solution is to keep the audiences involved in the new potential markets. So now users can enjoy the social media without being much bothered about slow Internet connection. Facebook users will be delighted to know that the company now supports images and photos in JPEG format that is commonly used by people. The good part about this format is that it loads using a relatively lower resolution where the Internet is slow. Initially if the network is slow, then the photo will not load at all but now the only compromise is a lower screen resolution of the image. Albeit the resolution will be lower, users will now not wait for the photos to be loaded slowly on an extremely annoying connection since the image can now be viewed while it is actually loading. Basically the Network Connection Class will actually gauge the speed of you Internet connection along with allowing you to evaluate the category or genre of stories that need to be published on your News Feed. In case you have a sluggish connection that is not able to download and play videos then the application will be smart enough to show more links, statuses than videos. So if the connection gets better over the passage of time then the app itself will start to display videos and photos. So the idea behind the Network Connection Class is to actually start prioritizing the stories that the user can view depending on his/her Internet connection speed. So this will actually cut down on the content that will take a lot of time to load and actually focus on that content that can be viewed easily. The idea behind coming up with such an update for the FB Android application is to empower the users who belong to the underdeveloped regions or in other remote areas where the Internet speed is sluggish. So this initiative will actually help the users belonging to the third world countries giving them the maximum access to the social media platform. This is a great initiative that will expand the websites reach to various places across the globe.

Facebook Devoted To Increase Internet Access in Africa

Facebook wishes to penetrate Internet to Africa.

Facebook Inc. is devoted to bringing Internet to those regions that do not access to this facility. The company initially came up with Internet.org with an aim to provide access to Internet to the masses and that even free of cost. The company’s latest target has been to penetrate this service to the African region and empowering the local users through the power of the Internet. In accordance to Facebook, the company is all keen to come up with a satellite that will be launched in Africa. FB partnered with the French firm Eutelsat Communications with an aim to bring the Internet to the massive parts of the sub-Saharan African region. The company has an aim to increase Internet access and that merely through smartphones since they are being sued readily across the globe. Facebook products and services will use the satellite to spread Internet.org platform so that it can make the service reach mobile users in Africa. As per reports, the service is currently in the pipeline and will be launched in the African market by 2016. AMOS-6 is the name of the new satellite that will be able to cover major chunks of the East, Southern African and East as reported by Mr. Mark Zuckerberg who is the chief executive officer of Facebook. The FB executives stated, "To connect people living in remote regions, traditional connectivity infrastructure is often difficult and inefficient, so we need to invent new technologies.” The Internet.org medium will offer the masses free Internet access by collaborating with the pared web services that deal with job listing, education, agriculture, healthcare etc. along with this, the company will have its own messaging and social media network service. The rate at which the number of people who have Internet access is declining at a rampant pace where almost half of the world’s population has not made its way to the online world as reported by the United Nations Broadband Commission the previous month. According to the data by the company, Facebook currently has almost 20 million people that use the social media platform in the Nigeria and Kenya which belongs to Africa. Majority of the people that use this service within the region are mobile users. The social media giant has established its first office in Johannesburg. Popular tech based website known as The Information previously claimed that the company has canceled its plans to establish a satellite to offer Internet in Africa.

Facebook Inc (FB) 3QFY15 Earnings Preview

The social media giant is expected to report a non GAAP EPS of $0.52.

Facebook Inc. turned out to have an earnings report that surprised the analysts in the market, as the social media giant beat all kinds of expectations by a massive difference. However, the media company has been facing some serious lows on the index lately, which is believed to be due to the general loss that is striking all the strong stocks. The upcoming earnings report of the giant is to be announced in the couple of weeks and analysts think that if the earnings turn out to be towards the positive side, it is possible that the investors in the firm also end up getting bullish about the activities being carried out in the present situation. The social media giant is all set to make its earnings call on November 4, and analysts think that the giant will be reporting some major growth rates that have taken place during the fiscal quarter. Investors have come around to be a little over the bullish side while looking at Facebook stock but the negativity that has been observed lately has been making them confused about where the media company is actually headed. Analysts in the stock market have given out an estimated EPS (non-GAAP) of $0.52 to be expected out of Facebook’s earnings whereas the total revenue for the quarter is to come around at $4.36 billion. The expectations have also risen by around 36% where the revenue is concerned and for the EPS, the rise in predicted value is seen to be at 21%. The increase in the expected revenue and EPS is massively supported by the high investments made by the giant in order to make the marketing of the social media site much better than before. Currently the social media platform enjoys monthly active users up to 1.51 billion and the rise for the upcoming quarter is expected to come around 1.52 billion which, according to analysts, is a slower growth is compared to the growth in the previous year’s same quarter. As for the daily active users, the numbers are expected to revolve around a number of 865 million for the third quarter of the year.