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Following Thursday's saga in the U.S. president's personal Twitter account deactivation, Twitter said it has “implemented safeguards" to prevent this sort of mishap from happening again.

While Trump’s Twitter handle has been a subject of mixed reactions, not only because the U.S. president makes the most controversial tweets, but because he has tweeted more than 36,000 times.

As such, the attempt at halting the controversial tweets were cheered by many; but others were worried concerning the lack of employee culture at Twitter.

The company in a tweet on Friday, confirmed the new safeguards, thus:



Though, it's understandable that Twitter gave some employees the rights to suspend the accounts of bots, and those who engage in violation of its rules; but wouldn’t it have at least required extra check on the deactivation of such a public figure?

Twitter has been grappling with increasing issues of trolling and abuse, whilst the social media company has had the most difficult time tweaking its rules to protect the experience and safety of its users.

The company, for the first time, has made public how they communicate with people who violate their rules, and how the enforcement processes work.

Twitter implement "safeguards" on Trump Account to Prevent Deactivation



YouTube Kids is the kid-friendly version of YouTube which avails youngsters a safer way to browse YouTube instead of giving them full access to the main app. While that more filtered version of YouTube was first introduced in 2015, it was criticized in the past for not fully locking down the YouTube experience.

Now, the updated app has added several new features designed to reflect the app’s aging user base, with customizable profiles based on the kid’s date of birth, as well as more controls for parents and kids as regards privacy and security.

It spots a new streamlined design, and curated selections of kid-appropriate content from publishers like DreamWorks TV, National Geographic Kids, Reading Rainbow and Thomas the Tank Engine, among others.

The new parental control feature eases access for parents, instead of the toggle off the app’s search to set private passcode or using the default setting, which spells out numbers as words for parents to enter; they can now sign in with their Google account in order to create customizable profiles for their kids.

YouTube Kids app changing of its looks based on the kid’s age, is especially useful for parents with multiple kids.

And because YouTube Kids itself, by default, looked like an app that was designed more or less for preschoolers than the school-age crowd. Overall, it’s safer for kids to browse YouTube Kids compared with giving them access to the main app.

YouTube Kids now give Youngsters own profiles, and more controls

Adobe Digital Insights (ADI) team, as part of its annual “Holiday Predictions” report, analyzed 1 trillion visits to over 4,500 retail websites, 55 million SKUs, and 12 million social mentions. While the results aren't quite surprising, ADI predicts online holiday sales will reach $107.4 billion, which is a 13.8% increase from the same period last year.

According to ADI, online growth will continue to outpace overall retail growth during the holidays — 13.8% online vs. 3.8% overall.

They also conducted companion survey research with 1,100 U.S. consumers, to bring you the following predictions about consumer online purchase habits this holiday season. From this aggregated and anonymized data, 31% of shoppers reported that they are planning to spend more online this year than last year.

With more than half of those visits to shopping sites coming from smartphones and tablets, which will surpass desktop computers for the first time.



It means if you visit a U.S. retailer’s website this holiday season, you’re most likely to do so on a mobile device, with mobile having a bigger share of the predicted $107.4 billion in online holiday spending this year, up from $94.4 billion last year.

Albeit, there’s still a disparity between mobile retail website visits and revenue, but the move toward mobile shopping is inevitable.

While desktop purchases still account for two-thirds of revenue year-round, mobile is often the starting point for many shoppers.

The key is to make the mobile experience helpful to the customer, wherever they are in their shopping journey. And the retailers that deliver the best experience are the ones that will close the deal.

Adobe's Predictions for the Holiday Shopping pitches mobile over the desktop



The U.S. president's personal Twitter account, @realDonaldTrump disappeared from the social network Thursday afternoon, but contrary to any rule violation, Twitter attributed the deactivation to human error by its employee.

While visitors to Trump's page were greeted with a rather unexpected message that the page didn't exist. Albeit, the account's deactivation didn't last quite long, as the page was promptly restored with its usual appearance.

Twitter, however responded via its @TwitterGov handle, with the message that Trump's account "was inadvertently deactivated due to human error" before later placing the blame on an employee spending their last day with the company.



Twitter, though had earlier acknowledged that Trump's tweet had caused an uproar but maintains it was allowed to stay because of its "newsworthiness."

The company's rules forbid using the service to make violent threats, either directly or indirectly. As any account violating that rule may be subject to a temporary or permanent suspension, Twitter warns.

But many observers have wondered why some of Trump's tweets cum account weren't deleted by the social media platform, despite their apparent violation of its rules.

Twitter attributes human error in deactivation of Trump's account



Snap unveiled a dancing burger AR filter, which follows last month rolled out of the new product called Lenses, as a troll on Google and Apple, which row erupted over the weekend about the order in which the ingredients are stacked in both Apple and Google's burger emoji.

Snapchat burger is actually superior to that of Google and Apple, as most burger-munching peeps prefer their burgers stacked from top-to-bottom in this order: lettuce, cheese, and then the meat.

Apple's emoji has the cheese firmly planted on top, with the lettuce underneath the burger.  While Google's burger emoji has the cheese placed underneath the burger patty, with the lettuce leaf atop all other ingredients.

Snap's dancing burger lens has one obvious edge over that of Apple and Google: the two burger patties.

Albeit, Snapchat opted for this order: lettuce, cheese, and burger, which might be completely wrong too. Twitter users battled it out over the weekend and into early this week, with one user reaching this verdict:



Indeed, there's something about Snapchat's burger dance moves that screams "trolling"!

Most obviously, Snapchat is taunting Google and Apple. Though, it does not have its own emoji, but it does have AR lenses. And a good sense of humour, too.

What's not so crunchy about Snap's dancing AR burger



Apple just pulled a fast one, with its recently launched digital wallet and payments service, Apple Pay, as it nabs 90 percent of all mobile contactless transactions everywhere the service is active.

With Apple Pay now in 20 markets worldwide, which represents a whole 70 percent of the world’s card transaction volume, underscores Apple's approach to moving first to markets where the mobile money has kicked off.

Apple Pay allow instant payment by just tapping the terminal with your credit card instead of swiping and waiting for payment to the mobile device.

While Apple Pay has admittedly had fair share of bumpy roads, and bound to encounter more as it continues roll out around the world, mobile contactless payments has been a favored payments method by a wide margin.

The Apple advantage points to using phones as a proxy for a card or cash, and there is some anecdotal evidence that it’s working.

And the fact that merchants and others who have partnered with Apple say that Apple Pay is accounting for 90 percent of all mobile contactless transactions globally in markets where it’s available.

Apple also announced plans to launch the service in Denmark, Finland, Sweden, and the UAE in the next few days, which brings the total number of countries where it is operated to 20. And there are now 4,000 credit and debit card issuers whose cards can be uploaded and used with Apple Pay.

Apple Pay hits 90 percent of Global Mobile contactless transactions

Amazon has unveiled a new augmented reality (AR) feature in its app for iOS that allow online shoppers to view products in a 3D rendering to show how the product will look like in real world experience.

The Amazon AR View is built on Apple’s ARKit technology, and as such, it will only work on the iPhone 6S or higher, on devices running Apple’s latest mobile operating system, iOS 11.

The AR View is simply activated by clicking on the camera icon in the Amazon app and then select “AR View” from the menu that appears. You can choose a product from across the different categories like Light Fixtures & Fittings, kitchen ware or furniture.



In the AR View screen, you can also move and rotate the items to see them in a full 360-degree view.

The AR capabilities have the potential to influence consumers behavior, as it allows them to imagine items not just in a finished room, but right in their own room.

Albeit, shoppers may eventually have the option to select AR View from an individual product page as Amazon complete development of its catalogue of digital imagery needed to make this happen.

The new feature is perhaps bringing AR experience to mainstream online shoppers at a large scale, which hitherto the use cases have been more of a gimmick or publicity stunts. The addition of AR View is about now rolling out to the Amazon app on iOS devices.

Amazon’s 3D AR let shoppers feel Product in Real World view



While Microsoft availed Windows 7 and Windows 8.1 users a whole year to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, there was one exception nonetheless: those users on "assistive technology", such as screen readers, have an indefinite extension.

There's still a way for consumers to upgrade to Windows 10 for free — but Microsoft will shut it down on December 31.

And the December 31 deadline for users to upgrade to Windows 10 for free, means that consumers will have to pay the full price for a Windows license afterwards, which costs about $75 for a "system builder" license for Windows 10 Home, and more for Professional versions.

The company's rather generous offer in making its upgrade path to users of assistive technologies, isn't quite one-sided, as any user of assistive technology on Windows is eligible for the free upgrade.

All that's required is to visit the assistive support page, and fill up that you use assistive technologies, and then download the upgrade tool to Windows 10 for free.

And the enhancements to assistive technologies that are built into the Windows 10, will ensure that those in need of assistance will benefit from the upgrade. Albeit, the assistive loophole represents a gray area, especially for those who normally wouldn't need an assistive technology.

Microsoft shutting down Windows 10 upgrade path for consumers

Apple has released iOS 11.1, the latest software update for its iPhones and iPads, bringing the much-needed security update to patch the KRACK Wi-Fi exploit, a weakness in Wi-Fi-connected devices which could expose users to nearby hackers.

The newly discovered Wi-Fi weak spot, KRACK puts just about every device at risk, but the prompt response by Apple in this latest update to fix the flaw is quite reassuring.

The update is coming on the heels of Friday's launch of the iPhone X, and to add to the fun, it includes more than 70 new emojis: star-struck and exploding-head smiley faces, a woman with a headscarf, a sandwich, a coconut, a T. rex, a zebra, a zombie and an elf.



The iPhone X marks a major redesign for the iPhone in years, and for the first time ditches the home button in favor of Face ID with a flashy OLED display.

While the Apple Watch Series 3 has been available since mid-September, but a couple of major features did not accompany the device at launch. Apple launched WatchOS 4.1 for the Apple Watch, bringing music streaming and a new Radio app to the smartwatch.

The new WatchOS 4.1 also brings GymKit to the Series 3, allowing the device to connect to compatible exercise equipment to share data.

Additionally, the Wi-Fi toggle option to the Control Center in watchOS 4.1 allow users to manually disable Wi-Fi when they want to use LTE data instead of available Wi-Fi networks.

Apple iOS 11.1 brings a fix for KRACK Wi-Fi Exploit and new Emojis



Microsoft Office 365, the company's group of subscription services that provide productivity software, now has about 120 million active monthly subscribers, mostly enterprise users generating more revenue for Microsoft than what's usually the case with its one-time licenses.

Last week, Microsoft revealed its milestone at driving customers to its subscription services for software,with the workplace-provided Office 365 subscription plan hitting 120 million active users.

The figure actually represents about 10% of all Office users; which several months ago, Microsoft had claimed the global Office user base has crossed 1 billion.

Microsoft's chief financial officer, Amy Hood, revealed that during the June financial period, revenue for the corporate side of Office 365 had for the first time surpassed what's generated by traditional licensing of the productivity suite.

Albeit, the company generally revealed the revenue breakdown of the two models - subscription or one-time licensing, with the latter often referred to as "perpetual" licensing.

Microsoft is perhaps making more money from Office subscriptions than from one-time license purchases on the heels of only one-tenth of the user base, which implication is quite obvious: the customers are paying more for Office 365 than they were previously for perpetual licenses.

While the never-ending payments the subscription model require - costs more than an outright purchase; for smaller organizations, they're probably saving money with Office 365, as the size of the organization determines whether savings will dwindle.

Such organizations, lacking economies of scale for internal computing operations, will likely save money and have a more efficient cost structure moving from on-premises services to Office 365.

Microsoft's emphasis on SaaS model pays off with Office 365 milestone

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