Facebook Inc is expanding its “Shops” feature to messaging app WhatsApp and to Facebook Marketplace; the company said on Tuesday as it announced changes to its commerce tools. Facebook Chief Executive Mark Zuckerberg said it would also introduce personalized ads in this shopping service. The social media giant, which launched Shops last year as a way for people to find and buy products on Facebook and Instagram as part of its push into ecommerce; said it has about 1.2 million monthly active shops on the platform. The company said it would in the coming months launch an artificial intelligence tool…
Author: Abiodun A.
Facebook introduced a privacy feature last year, it’s called Off-Facebook Activity. This feature lets you see and control data; that apps and websites share with Facebook and also monitors the kind of information third-party apps can access. If you have this feature activated; then you can clear the history of apps and websites that have shared your data. You also have the option to turn off future Off-Facebook activity; which will tell the platform to disconnect any information that they have shared from your account. Also, you can selectively choose which companies you want to stop from sharing your activity…
Smart TVs are very common these days and particularly over the last year, people have upgraded their home entertainment options massively. However, there are also people out there who are perfectly content with their non-smart TVs. But what happens when you want to watch something on Netflix on a non-smart TV? You can actually do it. Here’s how… How to watch Netflix on your non-smart TV Don’t be bummed if you don’t have a smart TV. Netflix’s casting feature is here to save you. With this feature, you can cast the screen from your smartphone to your TV and watch…
Intel – Chipmaker said on Tuesday it would create two new business units that would focus separately on software and high-performance computing and graphics. Intel also said current executives Sandra Rivera and Raja Koduri will take on new senior leadership roles; while technology industry veterans Nick McKeown and Greg Lavender will join the company. Lavender, who most recently served as senior vice president and chief technology officer of VMware; will be the general manager of the new software and advanced technology group; while Koduri will lead an accelerated computing systems and graphics group. Koduri, a veteran of Apple and Advanced…
Twitter has officially announced it will begin limited testing of two new features; Super Follows and Ticketed Spaces. The microblogging service has announced that it will open up testing for a small group of users who can apply to try out these features that the company announced a while ago. Ticketed Spaces was first announced a month ago; when the company first unveiled its plans to monetise its new Spaces feature — which was introduced to compete with social audio app Clubhouse. Ticketed Spaces allow users to host paid gatherings, where audiences can purchase tickets; supporting content creators and help…
Microsoft Corp. took its place in the history books as just the second US public company to reach a $2 trillion market value; buoyed by bets its dominance in cloud computing and enterprise software will expand further in a post-coronavirus world. Its shares rose as much as 1.1% to $265.64 on Tuesday in New York, enough for the software company to join Apple Inc. as one of only two companies trading at such a lofty value. Saudi Aramco eclipsed that threshold briefly in December 2019; but currently has a market value of about $1.9 trillion. Since taking the reins in…
Dating app Tinder on Tuesday added more ways for people to get to know each other from afar before meeting in a world changed by the pandemic. “People want to take more time to get to know somebody virtually before deciding that they want to match and meet offline;” chief executive Jim Lanzone said while briefing AFP on the app updates. Tinder is also providing an option to add video clips to user profiles to provide glimpses of people’s lives; interests or adventures. As the pandemic accelerated trends of remote work, learning and socializing; it also gave momentum to cultivating…
NASA has climbed on the diversity bandwagon with a short video about their next mission – not visiting a planet or building a Moon base; but Equity – and encouraging minorities to sign up. But such buzzwords don’t launch rockets. Following in the footsteps of the Pentagon and the CIA, NASA is struggling to reinvent itself as woke; capable of luring and keeping the attention of Americans addicted to identity politics, whom it had not previously felt the need to reach. We’re launching Mission Equity, a comprehensive effort to assess how to expand access to our programs and examine potential…
The Ekiti State police command have arrested a 16-year-old girl, Abimbola Suluka alongside her boyfriend, Oluwaseun Olajide for alleged conspiracy and self-kidnapping. Abimbola is alleged to have conspired with her 25-year-old boyfriend and two of his friends to stage the abduction so as to raise money. The Police spokesperson Sunday Abutu in a statement on Friday explained that Abimbola’s sister had gone to the police station to report that her sister was missing after leaving the house for school. Abutu said the sister explained that when Abimbola’s phone was called, an unknown person answered the call and informed them that…
Operatives of the Lagos Zonal Office of Economic and Financial Crimes Commission, EFCC, have arrested two suspected fraudsters, Konne Israel Barieeba and Osuji Miracle Obieze, for obtaining money by false pretense to the tune of N768, 585, 000. 00 (Seven Hundred and Sixty-eight Million, Five Hundred and Eighty-five Thousand Naira). The suspects, alongside Obialor Christian Worenwu (now at large), allegedly approached an investment company, Luxury Gold, for an investment loan facility. Subsequently, the sum of N110, 000, 000. 00(One Hundred and Ten Million Naira) was paid into the GTBank account of Barieeba, while the sum of N255, 000, 000. 00(Two…
The Oyo State Police Command has confirmed the killing of Titus Badejo, a radio presenter who was allegedly shot at the premises of a nightclub at Oluyole Estate in Ibadan. Police spokesman Adewale Osifeso in a statement on Sunday said the incident was reported at the Oluyole police station in the early hours of the morning, by the manager of the lounge. The deceased was until his death a freelance journalist and a disc jockey at the club where he was killed. Witnesses say Badejo was shot around 9pm Saturday night by gunmen who rode on motorcycles to the club…
Police operatives from Kubwa Division foiled an armed robbery attempt at a Hotel along the Kubwa axis of the Abuja metropolis on Friday, June 18. The officers who were on routine patrol engaged the robbers in a fierce gun duel, however, one of the suspects sustained serious gunshot injuries, was rushed to the hospital where the doctor confirmed him dead. Exhibits recovered from the late suspect are one (1) Beretta pistol, three (3) rounds, one(1) silver Mazda space wagon, and plate numbers. Police authorities say efforts are in top gear to arrest the fleeing suspects while those already apprehended will…
Police in the Federal Capital Territory (FCT), Abuja, have arrested one (1) suspect for culpable homicide along Kasuwa-Dere, Gwagwalada axis. According to a communique by the command’s spokesperson, ASP Yusuf Mariam, the operatives acting on credible intelligence arrested the suspect – Danladi Abubakar ‘m’ (20 years) on Thursday the 17th of June, 2021. He was arrested for the gruesome murder of a yet-to-be-identified middle-aged woman. The suspect who was identified by another victim confessed to being a member of a notorious phone snatching syndicate operating along the Gwagwalada axis of the FCT. Exhibits recovered from the suspect include one (1)…
Troops of the Nigerian Army operating junder the auspices of Operation Hadarin Daji supported by the Nigerian Air Force component have rescued more abductees of the Federal Government College Birnin Yawuri in Kebbi State. A statement signed on Sunday by the Director Army Public Relations, Brigadier General Onyema Nwachukwu, disclosed that one teacher and three students were rescued on Saturday at Makuku in the ongoing search and rescue operations. According to the statement, the troops also killed one bandit, recovered nine motorcycles and four phones from the fleeing bandits. Nwachukwu also noted that additional troops have now been deployed to…
Police authorities in Benue State say 14 bandits were killed following an attempted attack on a police station on Sunday morning. A spokesperson for Benue police, Catherine Anene, said in a statement that the gunmen numbering about 50 launched an attack in early hours of Sunday on a police station at Katsina-Ala town of the state, in a bid to free some suspected bandits who were arrested by police on Saturday and detained in the station. Anene said, “Operatives at the police division, who were already on alert, engaged the attackers in a fierce gun battle,” adding that 14 of…
Big tech companies observed Juneteenth by offering education resources during the week of the newly official U.S. holiday. President Joe Bidensigned a bill to made Juneteenth a federal holiday on Thursday afternoon. The holiday, which landed on June 19 every year, commemorates the ending of slavery in the U.S. Tech companies’ reactions came after a year of racial reckoning and increased scrutiny of recruiting practices and treatment of Black employees. Some, like Twitter and Square, began recognizing the holiday last year. “Juneteenth is not just about Black History—it is American history” and a “complex” one, said Tiffany Bowden, program manager…
Morgan Stanley analysts said in a Friday note that Facebook remains the top pick among large-cap social media stocks; with its investments and monetization efforts offsetting any near-term engagement drop-offs as the coronavirus pandemic nears an end. “We remain most positive on FB within the large cap social media names as we see their leading ROI, product innovation, and monetization call options (Reels, Marketplace, Shopping, etc) enabling them to navigate through difficult near-term engagement headwinds,” the firm said. Morgan Stanley also sees Facebook driving ad growth, helping the social media giant with a potential drop-off in engagement. “We also note…
One of the abducted students of Federal Government College Birnin Yauri in Kebbi State has died. However, five others, comprising four students and a teacher have been rescued by the Joint Taskforce Component of Operation Hadari Daji. The Deputy Force Commander of the Joint Taskforce in the North-West Zone, Air Commodore Abubakar AbdulKadir, confirmed this on Friday to reporters in Zamfara State. He explained that the troops came in contact with the bandits in the early hours and engaged them in a gun duel, which forced them to abandon five of the students and a teacher. One of the students…
Alphabet Inc’s Google told Reuters this week it is developing an alternative to the industry-standard method for classifying skin tones; which a growing chorus of technology researchers and dermatologists says is inadequate for assessing whether products are biased against people of color. At issue is a six-color scale known as Fitzpatrick Skin Type (FST); which dermatologists have used since the 1970s. Tech companies now rely on it to categorize people and measure whether products such as facial recognition systems or smartwatch heart-rate sensors perform equally well across skin tones. Critics say FST, which includes four categories for “white” skin and…
Spotify has just acquired Podz. Podz is a startup that generates preview clips of podcasts and unlike other services that podcasters use to manually create clips; this service “automates the process of finding key moments from episodes using machine learning trained on over 100,000 hours of audio”. This particular acquisition should help Spotify improve podcast discovery and let users browse through short clips to decide what they want to listen to instead of 30-minute plus episodes. As Spotify explains, this is going to make it “easier for listeners to find the content they want to listen to, and for…