Social Items

Snapchat, the notorious photo messaging application, allow users to take photos, record videos, add text and drawings, and send them to a controlled list of recipients, with the unique ability to set a time limit for how long recipients can view their Snaps (sent photographs and videos).

Snapchat as at May 2014, noted that its app users were sending 700 million photos and videos per day, while Snapchat Stories content were being viewed 500 million times per day.

Whilst Snapchat has been very successful on the Android and iPhone platform, until now it’s not been possible to use Snapchat on a PC. Saver for Snapchat (PC) is the ideal application for you if you’re looking to use Snapchat on your Windows computer.

Saver for Snapchat makes it possible for users to use Snapchat on their computer, while allowing you to edit, view or save pictures your Snapchat friends send you, thus ensuring no time expiry - and stop Snapchat from deleting your treasured photos from your friends.

Now, you can save all of the photos and video that’s sent to you on Snapchat, no leads or messing about with your phone and the fun part, its easy and absolutely free.

Saver for Snapchat (PC) lets you use Snapchat on Windows computer

Google on Tuesday unveiled Classroom, a free tool that integrates Google Docs, Drive, and Gmail so that teachers can assign and collect homework electronically, communicate with students in and out of class, and organize their curriculum. It helps teachers create and organize assignments quickly, provide feedback efficiently, and communicate with their classes with ease.

Classroom was designed hand-in-hand with teachers to help them save time, keep classes organized, and improve communication with students.

It is based on the principle that educational tools should be simple and easy to use, and is designed to give teachers more time to teach and students more time to learn, according to Zach Yeske, Classroom product Manager in a blog post.

The rolling out of Classroom, however will commence in September to all schools that use Google Apps for Education.

Meanwhile, Google is testing the new tool with several universities and colleges and now, teachers and professors alike have been invited to give the tool a spin, by registering for free on: https://classroom.google.com/signup.

Google integrates Docs, Drive and Gmail in Classroom

Most popular websites have been circumventing users privacy settings by deliberately restoring previously deleted HTTP cookies using local storage outside the control of the browser. And the persistent tracking of users has taken a new dimension with the latest web tracking technologies, albeit, evading browser privacy settings.

Yahoo has openly in a blog post admitted that henceforth it will not honor "Do Not Track" requests made by a user's browser. But rather, it will actively attempt to track users' interactions with its site and contents for better personalized experience.

Personalized experience, on the other hand, is invariably "Personalized ads" and it means Yahoo can now tailor ads based on user's interests, gender, location and most probably income level.

And for those users who sees the tracking as exploitative, and wish to manage their privacy on Yahoo while benefiting from a personalized web experience, are advised to tailor their online experience through the variety of privacy tools accessible on Yahoo Privacy Center.

While those seeking for a routing tool to help protect their privacy online, Ghostery, a plug-in for Chrome, will be handy to protect you from third party sites.

Yahoo's "Personalized Experience" Replaces "Do Not Track"?

Snapchat, the innovative instant photo-sharing app, has announced new feature "Chat", which lets users to start text conversation simply by swiping right on a friend’s name in the Snapchat inbox. The new feature allows live video sharing – and face-to-face chat for users who are both online, while notifying you when a friend is active in your Chat so that you can give each other your full attention.

According to the company blog post, Snapchat was missing an important part of conversation: presence, knowing you have the full attention of your friend while you’re chatting.

Hence, the introduction of "Chat" to notify users when a friend is online, allowing them to start live video chats with the press of a button. While, messages viewed by both you and your friend will be cleared – either of you can always tap or screenshot to save anything you’d like to keep.

The new service will be launching with Android and iOS, and is seen by analysts as most requested features by Snapchat users. Albeit, the new features are commonly offered by its competitors, these are the must-have features in order for Snapchat to retain its users, and also to acquire new ones.

Snapchat introduces video and instant messaging for iOS and Android

As access to the free flow of information on the web is increasingly critical, and online censorship becoming the order of the day in many conflict areas, tools to help those fighting for free expression around the world is now more than ever before most expedient. Psiphon's censorship circumvention tool gives you access to sites and web services that are blocked or otherwise unavailable through the normal service provider.

Whether it's to access sites that your provider is blocking, or to add a layer of protection when using open Wi-fi services, Psiphon is the best tool for accessing the open Internet.

The Psiphon's circumvention system uses a combination of secure communication and obfuscation technologies (VPN, SSH, and HTTP Proxy) to enable Internet users to securely bypass the content-filtering systems used by governments to impose extralegal censorship of the Internet. It works by the Android or Windows client connecting to servers run by Psiphon.

Psiphon utilizes multiple transport systems, so that if one protocol is blocked by a censor, it will automatically switch to an alternative mechanism.

It is specifically designed to support users in countries considered to be "enemies of the Internet". And it's an open source project, and the source code and design documents can be found on the project page.

Psiphon: Uncensored access to blocked Internet sites

Pinterest, the notorious virtual pin-board, has announced "Guided Search", a new mobile tool that taps into its massive user collection to bring the contents you’re really looking for right to the front page. Built primarily for mobile - iOS and Android, Guided Search will help users easily source for information , and also explore new frontiers on the iconic social network.

About 75 percent of Pinterest users comes via its mobile apps, stressing why a mobile-first search tool is essential to the visual pin-board’s future.

With Pinterest's ever-growing user-generated contents, it's become increasingly difficult to find what you're searching for, or useful contents amidst the massive pool of information. Therefore, the need for a search engine that's more about exploration and discovery on the social platform becomes pertinent.

The roll out of the new feature started last night for users on its mobile app, iOS and Android, while the possibility that it may land on the desktop platform remains high.

Guided Search: Pinterest's Content Discovery for Mobile

Dual SIM smartphones have been at the peak of popularity for the past few years and still the frenzy of the users about double SIM phones is ever growing. Dual SIM mobile phones offer the greatest advantages of getting the best tariffs of the leading mobile carriers as well as staying connected with two different phone numbers.

What are the major benefits of opting for mobile phones with double SIM (2 cards) solution except of course, cost advantage?

The comfort of using one handset instead of using two phones for every card is one aspect. As well as time effective solution as you need to take care only of one handset (charging, servicing, and installing additional apps). Dual SIM mobile phones give you a chance to store more contact information on two SIM cards which will be of great use for users keeping all contact information of their friends in phone contact list (for example: the popular smartphone Lenovo S920).

Moreover, double SIM handsets are the best solution for travelers who often visit areas of poor connectivity, as chances are rather low that both mobile carriers will have poor coverage in the region, thus you will still be connected with your dual SIM phone as one of the cards may still be available.

However opting for a double SIM mobile phone you should keep in mind some disadvantages such as: Low battery life - dual SIM smartphones commonly bite into battery life severely. So you should take care of a timely phone charging to keep in touch.

There is the idea that double SIM phones are poorly equipped and feature fewer options than single SIM mobile handsets. However experience has proven that every user can find an optimum dual SIM solution meeting all needs and fancies.

Why Choose Dual SIM Mobile Phones?

Google first introduced +Post ads to limited number of advertisers as a new way to amplify content and create conversations across the web. +Post ads differs from the conventional "social ads", instead of streaming ads within Google+, Google will run it across the web, including news portals, blogs or other webpages, allowing brands to reach a larger audience.

It let brands take a piece of their public Google+ content, like a photo or video, and turn it into an engagement ad that runs across the Google Display Network.

The conventional "social ads" as implemented on sites like Twitter and Facebook, usually tagged "sponsored" content, sandwiched between posts from friends are what users have become accustomed.

Now, users will soon start to see new ads that look like posts from Google+, but outside of the social network.

+Post ads have been made available to all advertisers who meet a minimum of 1,000 Google+ followers.

The +Post ads is kicking off with two new features - promoted Hangouts on Air and automatic post promotion - to help brands create compelling ad experiences and make it easier to extend the reach of their social content.

Google pushes +Post ads to all Advertisers

Heartbleed Bug is a vulnerability in the popular OpenSSL cryptographic software library underpinning major sections of the Web, which potentially exposes data supposedly encrypted from various sites. It allows stealing the information protected, under normal conditions, by the SSL/TLS encryption used to secure the Internet.

Robin Seggelmann, the coder, admitted that he "missed the necessary validation by an oversight."

The code in question was originally intended to enable a function called Heartbeat in OpenSSL's Transport Layer Security, which exchanges a packet of random data between your computer and a server to confirm they're connected.

Hackers, thereby can manipulate their computer to lie about how much data is in the original packet, allowing the server to give out the packet with data pulled from its memory before sending it back.

The Fixed OpenSSL has been released for Service providers and users to install the fix as it becomes available for the operating systems, networked appliances and software.

Heartbleed Bug: What You need to Know?

Microsoft has been strongly trailing the path of openness on the web, lately. And for no obscure reason, than the repeated success stories of the likes of Google with Android, proving beyond doubt that open platform has its great benefits.

And today, Microsoft took a rather foreseen step in opening up the source code of the Windows Library for JavaScript (WinJS) under the Apache 2.0 license as an Open Source project by MS Open Technologies, according to Windows blog.

WinJS is a JavaScript library that was first created for Windows 8 to enable first class, native-quality experiences in Windows Runtime apps using familiar web technologies like HTML, CSS, and JavaScript.

WinJS becoming cross-platform means that web developers can now take advantage of high-quality controls and infrastructure to expand their reach beyond Windows to the web and non-Windows devices. Extending WinJS to other browsers and devices beyond Windows further extends their reach and allows them to bring the personality of Windows apps to the web without rewriting code or learning new skills.

The new WinJS is now live, give it a try by going to the Try WinJS site in your favorite browser, view and edit code, and check out the results.

Microsoft finally Opens up WinJS as Open-source Software

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