Meta rolls out parental supervision tools on Instagram

Facebook owner Meta Platforms Inc will allow parents to track how much time their children are spending on Instagram and will soon roll out parental supervision features on Quest virtual reality headsets, the company said.

The new parental controls are part of Meta's promise to protect children using its social media apps, after a whistleblower leaked internal documents that showed the company was aware that Instagram caused body image problems for some teenage girls.

The uproar resulting from the leaked documents led to Adam Mosseri, head of Instagram, testifying before Congress in December, where he was grilled about children's safety online. 

The Instagram supervision tools will be available in the United States beginning Wednesday and will roll out globally over the coming months, Meta said.

Parents will be able to view what accounts their children follow and can set time limits for how long their kids spend on the app.

In May, Meta will launch a dashboard that includes supervision tools for its Quest headsets and will automatically block teens from downloading age-inappropriate apps on Quest.

Parental supervision on both Instagram and Quest will require consent from teens, Meta said in a blog post.

The company added it plans to eventually allow parents to oversee their kids' activities across all of Meta's services from one central place.

-reuters

South Korea fines Google $177 million for blocking Android customization

SEOUL - South Korea's antitrust regulator has fined Alphabet Inc's Google 207 billion won ($176.64 million) for blocking customized versions of its Android operating system (OS), in the US technology giant's second setback in less than a month.

The Korea Fair Trade Commission (KFTC) on Tuesday said terms with device makers amounted to abuse of Google's dominant market position that restricted competition in the mobile OS market.

Google in a statement said it intends to appeal. It said the ruling ignores benefits offered by Android's compatibility with other programs and undermines advantages enjoyed by consumers.

The fine comes on the day an amendment to South Korea's Telecommunications Business Act - popularly dubbed the "anti-Google law" - came into effect.

The law now bans app store operators such as Google from requiring software developers use their payment systems - a requirement which effectively stopped developers from charging commission on in-app purchases.

KFTC said Google hampered competition by making device producers abide by an "anti-fragmentation agreement (AFA)" when signing key contracts with it regarding app store licenses.

Under the AFA, manufacturers could not equip their handsets with modified versions of Android, known as "Android forks". That has helped Google cement its market dominance in the mobile OS market, the KFTC said.

The regulator said the fine could be the ninth-biggest it has ever imposed.

In 2013, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd launched a smartwatch with a customized OS, but switched to a different OS after Google regarded the move as an AFA violation, KFTC said.

Samsung Electronics declined to comment.

-reuters

US to ban TikTok downloads, WeChat use

WASHINGTON - The United States on Friday ordered a ban on downloads of popular Chinese-owned video app TikTok and use of the messaging and payment platform WeChat, saying they threaten national security.

The move, to be implemented Sunday, comes amid rising US-China tensions and efforts by the Trump administration to engineer a sale of TikTok to American investors.

"The Chinese Communist Party has demonstrated the means and motives to use these apps to threaten the national security, foreign policy, and the economy of the US," Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross said in a statement.

The initiative would ban WeChat, an app with massive use among Chinese speakers, and TikTok from the online marketplaces operated by Apple and Google.

But while WeChat will effectively be shut down from Sunday in the US, existing TikTok user will be able to continue using the app until Nov. 12 -- when it would also face a full ban on its US operations.

But the Commerce Department said if national security concerns over TikTok were resolved before then, the order may be lifted.

TikTok's brand of brief, quirky videos made on users' cellphones has become hugely popular, especially among young people.

The plan follows through on a threat by President Donald Trump, who has claimed Chinese tech operations may be used for spying, and it ramps up the pressure on TikTok parent ByteDance to conclude a deal to sell all or part of TikTok to allay US security concerns.

A deal which appeared to be taking shape would allow Silicon Valley giant Oracle to become the tech partner for TikTok, but some US lawmakers have objected to allowing ByteDance to keep a stake.

The ban on WeChat, owned by Chinese giant Tencent, has the potential for disrupting the widely used social media and financial application.

US officials said in a recent court filing they would not target those using WeChat for ordinary personal communications.

Agence France-Presse

Winamp 6 for mobile to launch in 2019

Winamp, the MP3 player of the late 1990s, will get a new version and aggregation features in 2019.

Possibly one of the most recognizable icons of the late 1990s’ computing era, Winamp became the go-to program for playing MP3 from a personal computer. The music player became a constant in the ever changing and growing PC platform and reached a user base of 60 million by 2001.


Because of its reputation and loyal community of users, Radionomy, the company that bought Winamp in 2014, continued development of the music player and confirmed an all-new version 6 mobile app to come out in 2019, reports TechCrunch


Winamp 6 will work as a neutral one-player-for-all where users can listen to their personal music collection while also plugging in to streaming services like Audible, Google Music library, Podcasts and Spotify playlists.

“What I see today is you have to jump from one player to another player or aggregator if you want to listen to a radio station, to a podcast player if you want to listen to a podcast — this, to me, is not the final experience,” said Radionomy CEO Alexandre Saboundjian.

Originally developed by the company Nullsoft, development continued for the desktop version of Winamp until it reached Winamp 5.5 in 2007. After this, updates stopped until Winamp 5.666 came out in 2013 and was billed as the last update from Nullsoft/AOL.

Meanwhile, a mobile version of Winamp came out in 2010 for Android. A year later, Winamp for Mac OS called Winamp for Mac Sync Beta was released.

On Sept. 16, 2018, a Winamp 5.8 version was leaked online. The leaked beta version bore the build date of Oct. 26, 2016. An official version is expected to come out by Oct. 18 which won’t be much different from the leaked beta version. It will still have all the fixes to allow the app to function properly in Windows 10.

Until Winamp 6 comes out in 2019 with its promised features, loyal fans may check on the website’s trademark Llama periodically for updates. Alfred Bayle/JB

source: technology.inquirer.net

FB Messenger allows mentions and reactions, adds ‘dislike’ button

New functions are being rolled out to Facebook Messenger, including reactions to messages and photos sent via the app, and the ability to bring users into conversations with mentions. The idea is to make group chats more fun and more intuitive.

Facebook Messenger’s new “reactions” let users acknowledge and react to messages (text, image, video) with emotions symbolized by emojis. In fact, the idea comes straight from the Facebook social network, where users can already react to status updates and posts with a “like” or a “heart,” for example.

One key difference is that the Messenger reactions include a thumbs-down, or “dislike” button, still not available on the social network despite widespread demand.

In principle, the reactions work in exactly the same way as those available via the Apple Messages app. Notifications alert users when someone reacts to one of their messages.

Facebook has also introduced “mentions” to Messenger, allowing users to mention others in conversations by typing the symbol @ followed by the name of the person, who will then receive a notification. They can then join the conversation by answering the message.

Mentions and reactions are currently being rolled out to Facebook Messenger. JB

source: technology.inquirer.net