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Facebook Parent Meta Ordered to Pay $10.5 Million Legal Fees to Washington State

Facebook’s parent company Meta has been ordered to pay Washington state $10.5 million (nearly Rs. 86 crore) in legal fees and a fine of nearly $25 million (nearly Rs. 200 crores) for repeatedly and willfully violating campaign finance disclosure laws.

King County Superior Court Judge Douglass North ordered the court fees Friday, two days after hitting the social media giant with what is believed to be the largest campaign finance fine in U.S. history, The Seattle Times reported.

North ordered the company to pay by wire transfer, check, or money order within 30 days. The money is supposed to go to the state Disclosure Commission, which enforces campaign finance laws.

North imposed the maximum fine allowed for more than 800 violations of Washington’s Fair Campaign Practices Act, which was passed by voters in 1972 and later strengthened by the Legislature. Washington Attorney General Bob Ferguson argued that the maximum was reasonable given that his office sued Facebook in 2018 for violating the same law.

Meta, based in Menlo Park, Calif., did not immediately respond to an email seeking comment, the newspaper said.

The company previously said it was assessing its options in light of the decision.

The Washington Transparency Act requires ad sellers like Meta to store and disclose the names and addresses of those who buy political ads, the target of such ads, how the ads were paid for, and the total number of views of each ad. Ad sellers must provide this information to anyone who requests it. TV stations and newspapers followed the law for decades.

However, Meta has repeatedly protested the requirements, unsuccessfully arguing in court that the law is unconstitutional because it “unduly burdens political speech” and is “virtually impossible to fully comply with.” While Facebook maintains an archive of political ads that run on the platform, the archive does not release all the information required by Washington law.

In 2018, after Ferguson’s first lawsuit, Facebook agreed to pay $238,000 (almost 2 million rupees) and pledged to be transparent about campaign finance and political advertising. She subsequently stated that she would rather stop selling political ads in the state than comply with the demands.

Still, the company continued to sell political ads, and Ferguson sued again in 2020.

Meta, one of the world’s richest companies, on Wednesday reported a quarterly profit of $4.4 billion (nearly Rs 36,200 crore) or $1.64 (nearly Rs 130 crore) per share on revenue of nearly $28 billion (nearly Rs 2,30,400 crore rupees). , in the three-month period that ended September 30.

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Instagram to Shut Down IGTV App, Set to Increase Investment in Reels

Instagram will close its dedicated IGTV app, the company announced Monday. As the company discontinues support for its dedicated video sharing platform, IGTV videos and other video-based content will continue to be available on the main Instagram app, according to the company.

At the moment, Instagram is working on a new “ad experience” that will allow service creators to earn ad revenue from Reels. The move comes two months after Instagram announced that the service would be “doubled” in video content by 2022.

In a blog post announcing the decision, Instagram announced that it is closing the IGTV app, to make video content “as easy as possible to find and create”.

Instagram has launched a separate IGTV app for 2018, aimed at capturing longer videos in a straightforward format. Instagram merged its Feed Video with IGTV on Instagram Video last year, and the company says it will continue to invest in Reels.

Instagram also announced that in-stream video ads (formerly known as IGTV ads) have also been discontinued, as part of the company’s focus on Reels.

The company claims that content creators who make money with the help of in-stream video ads will receive a temporary monthly payment, based on their previous profits. Instagram has also revealed that it is working on a new Instagram ad experience for Reels monetized content, which will be tested later this year.

In December, Instagram head Adam Moseri unveiled the 2022 service path, which included a focus on video on Instagram. Last month, Meta launched Reels into the company’s Facebook application in more than 150 countries, after the company lost a third of its market value following a revenue report.

Meanwhile, Instagram rival TikTok on Monday began allowing users to upload videos for as long as 10 minutes in an attempt to challenge YouTube’s rival, which focused on short-form content with its “Shorts” feature.

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Apple Complies With Dutch Watchdog Ruling on Dating App Payment Options

Apple said on Saturday it would allow developers of dating apps in the Netherlands to offer non-Apple payment options to their users, complying with an order from the country market regulator to do so on January 15 or face penalties.
The country’s consumer and market authorities found in a decision published on December 24 that Apple misused its market position by requiring developers of dating apps, including the owner of Tinder Match Group, to specifically use Apple’s internal payment system.
Apple’s practice of requiring developers to use its system and pay 15-30 percent commissions on digital purchases has been observed under regulators and legislators around the world, but the Dutch decision applies only to the Netherlands and only to dating services.
In a post on its developers’ blog on Saturday, Apple said it would abide by the decision and introduce “two new options that work specifically for dating apps in the Netherlands App Store that provide options for processing additional user payments”.
However it noted that developers were not required to use non-Apple tools, and warned that Apple would not be able to securely assist or reimburse payments that occur outside of its systems because it “could not directly control them”.
Apple opposes Dutch decision.
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Twitter now allows everyone to record Spaces on Android and iOS, here is how

Twitter now allows everyone to record their own posts. The company made the latest announcement using its platform. This feature was first released to some users in December last year.
Now, anyone using Twitter will be able to record a Spaces session, and one will find an option to share it. This way, those who did not have time to join the audio session will be able to listen to it later.
However, Twitter does not allow the host to save recorded posts permanently. The microblogging site says that people will only be able to access it for 30 days after it is published. After a specified period, Recorded spaces will be deleted. If the host wants to remove you early, that can happen again.

How to record Twitter Spaces?

The “Record Space” button is available to all iOS and Android users. When you create a Space, you can switch to Record Space. The company says that when the recording feature is turned on, a recording is displayed at the top to indicate that the Space is being recorded by the host.
Once Space is over, you’ll be able to see how many people have come to Space with a Tweet sharing link. Under Host settings, there is an option to select where to start your recording by Setting a start time.
This allows anyone to cut off any dead airtime that may occur at the beginning of the Space.

How to download Twitter Spaces?

The option to download the recorded spaces is not immediately available and you will need to follow a few steps of it. The feature appears in the ‘data’ folder to download your data, according to Twitter.
If you have downloaded Twitter archives in the past, then you know the process. All you have to do is go to the Twitter Settings section, click on the “Your Account” section.
Here, you will see the “Download and archive your data” tab. Users can then click on ‘Request Archive’, after which the social media will share a zip file of all your Twitter data, including Spaces audio. There is a chance that the company could take a day to send all your files from the Twitter archive.
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WhatsApp Business gets new search filters: What they are and how to use them

WhatsApp has introduced a new search feature for its Business app users. The feature allows users to search for local businesses and restaurants directly from the app itself. Here’s what you need to know about the new Business Directory feature and how it is being used.
WhatsApp Business, for those new to the messaging area, is another app aimed at users who run their businesses in the area. Provides features such as listing your catalog and greeting messages.
A new feature of Business Directory was discovered a few weeks ago as some users discovered this feature on their phones in São Paulo, Brazil. While not much was known about the global availability of the feature at the time, we now know that it is available to all WhatsApp Business users on Android and iOS.
WhatsApp Business directory WABETAIFO
WABetaInfo has leaked a screenshot showing the new search filters that come with the latest feature. You can check it out below.
To use this feature, all WhatsApp Business users need to do is simply click on the search button in their app at the top of the main screen. Among the results, users will see new filters for nearby businesses such as restaurants, grocery stores, and more in addition to older sub-categories such as photos, videos, and documents, as seen in the screenshot above.
It is still unknown if the WhatsApp Business Search feature will come in the standard WhatsApp app, although this seems unlikely at the moment. The feature may be used in the Business forum where users may want to know more about local businesses such as competing businesses in their area.
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WhatsApp Group video calling now supports up to 8 people on Android, iOS

WhatsApp on Tuesday said it will now allow up to eight people to connect on a group video call as an increasing number of people turn to digital platforms to connect with friends and family amid the COVID-19 pandemic.

 The Facebook-owned company said over the last month, people on average are spending over 15 billion minutes talking each day on WhatsApp calls, well above a typical day before the pandemic.
“…we see that people all over the world are turning to voice and video calling on WhatsApp more than ever before. Group calling has been particularly useful and our users have asked to connect with more people at once,” WhatsApp said in a blogpost.
Starting Tuesday, the company is doubling the number of participants one can have on a WhatsApp video or voice call from 4 to 8 people at a time, it added.
WhatsApp emphasized that like written messages, all calls on its platform are protected with end-to-end encryption.
“We have built group calling in a way that makes it available for as many users as possible, including people on lower-end devices and slow network conditions,” it added.
WhatsApp said that to access the new, higher participant limit on WhatsApp calls, all participants in a call need to update to the latest version of WhatsApp available on iPhone or Android.
Video calling tools like Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, Zoom, and others have also seen a significant jump in userbase and traffic as people connect while maintaining social distancing amid the coronavirus outbreak.
Last week, Facebook had introduced Messenger Rooms that will soon hold up to 50 people with no time limit.
It had added that the company will also add ways to create rooms from Instagram Direct, WhatsApp, and Portal.
Noting that between WhatsApp and Messenger, more than 700 million accounts participate in calls every day, Facebook had said, adding that video calling on Messenger and WhatsApp more than doubled in many countries.   
Also, views of Facebook Live and Instagram Live videos have also increased significantly in March, it said.
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YouTube app to save you from long scrolls by hiding video comments

YouTube is about to bring one of the biggest changes to its app– the ability to collapse the comments section to save you from long scrolls.
For now, people have to scroll through the entire comments tab under a video to see the recommendations. But soon they will be able to reach the particular section quickly without wasting those precious seconds.
This change will be coming to both Android and iOS versions of the YouTube app in the ‘next few weeks’ as mentioned in Google’s updated support page.
The company says it will be adding a comments preview section right below the YouTube video’s description that can be expanded by tapping on the dedicated icon.
When collapsed, you will see other videos under the current one. “From the preview, simply tap anywhere to view all, like, and reply to comments.
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We hope this makes it easier for you to connect with others and discuss the video you’re watching – in our early experiments, we found that more people are writing comments with the new design,” said YouTube.
However, it has been added that since the comment preview section has a limited space, it is not for sure if the pinned comment by the creator will show up in the preview section or not.
Some other changes have been made as well. The videos in the watch next section will now have a larger thumbnail and longer titles so you get more information about the video at a glance.
There will also be some channel icons below every video to “help you recognize your favorite creators while you scroll through the feed.”
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Furthermore, users will see a new type of content alongside videos to watch next. This includes everything from Community Posts from your selected creators to text updates, polls, images, GIFs, and more. People will also see YouTube Mixes as additional content.
YouTube Mixes are curated playlists made by YouTube featuring videos from the channel you’re watching, or that you recently watched.
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8 Latest Whatsapp Updates Which Will Make Your Social Life Easy

With over 1.5 billion users in 180 countries, WhatsApp continues to ace the game of messaging applications.
And why not as it continues to add new features to amaze its users.
With the latest WhatsApp updates news in the market, people are eager to know more about their favorite brand. The fun continues with these updates, they are user-friendly and extremely entertaining.
8 Latest Whatsapp Updates Which Will Make Your Social Life Easy
So here is a countdown of 7 for our favorite features:

1st Private voice notes

Many people don’t know about this feature. Voice notes can be listened privately without using any earplugs. You simply have to start the note and keep it next to your ears. When you try this, WhatsApp routes the audio from loudspeaker to earpiece. So that you can hear it while enjoying your privacy.

2nd Consecutive voice notes

Earlier when we used to receive voice notes, if we try to play it, we had to manually select every note to make sense of the subject which the sender is trying to say.
With consecutive voice notes feature, we could able to here note in the sequence we have received them without the interruption. This will make life much easier I guess.

3rd Frequently forwarded label

WhatsApp has its own frequently forwarded tool feature.
In every update, they are working to make the user experience more acceptable. With this feature, if a message is forwarded five times then a tag will be attached as “frequently forwarded” to notify users that this post can be part of spam activity or fake news.Exide’s EV Battery Plant with Swiss-based Leclanche Operational by Dec in Gujarat

4th Fingerprint Recognition

Now you can lock your messenger and open it with the simple application of your fingerprints. This feature may come handy in use.
For doing this WhatsApp has recently adapted the fingerprint authentication feature in its android beat version.

5th Group Invites

Does it happen with you that one fine day you open your WhatsApp application and you find yourself members of the groups which you didn’t intend to participate in?
Pictures, videos and forwarded messages taking up all the spaces in your Smartphone. Think about the amount of time you need to put in to resolve this debacle. How does it sound? Scary.
And if you try to leave the group, people might feel offended while you are totally innocent in your act.
With this new feature, we will have an option to choose for group invitation by
1.       Everyone
2.       My Contacts
3.       Nobody
You can keep your piece without any intrusion.
Also once you add someone to a group. WhatsApp will send a group joining invitation to that particular user and this request will expire in 72 hours time frame. Blockchain Technology Explained

6th Notification settings

This feature will give you total peace of mind. No more notification for less important matters.
With this setting, you can set notifications for messages, calls, and groups by your choice. It will provide options like
1.       Notification tone
2.       Vibration length
3.       Choose to show popup notification in the middle of the screen when you open your phone.
4.       High priority notifications – This notification is shown on the top part of your mobile phone.

7th WhatsApp from Facebook tag

This tag doesn’t change anything for functionality or usability prospect for users. But with this label, Facebook started to mark its territory. According to BBC, the idea of adding the label is marking the start of the “long process” of integration of different platforms.   

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CUTCUT, the AI photo-editor enjoys more than 10 million downloads on Google Play

Beijing-headquartered APUS announced the launch of its newly developed apps, CUTCUT and VidMax, and two mobile games – Amazing Fishing and Pot Shot at ADTECH 2019.

It also presented its already popular user system for Android smartphones – APUS System that already has accumulated 1.4 billion users globally by 2018, with more than 100 million users in India. This latest development indicates the company’s willingness to building Eco-System in India via the smooth transition from system and tools development to a new era of content related apps development.
APUS user system, an enhanced version of user system for Android smartphones, designed to provide the fastest and most convenient access to the Internet, already offers a string of products, such as APUS Launcher, APUS Security, APUS Booster+, APUS Search, APUS News, APUS Know, APUS Discovery, APUS Message Center and APUS Arts in the Indian market.
The new entrant, VidMax, allows its users to download all the trending videos from social media channels, such as Whatsapp, Facebook, Instagram and Twitter in just one click. Best described as the finest free video downloader app for Android smartphones, VidMax is tailormade to suit the needs and interests of the Indian users.
APUS-Apps CUTCUT
Mr. Tao Li, Founder, and CEO, APUS Group, said, “We are very excited to launch these content-driven apps in the Indian market. India has always been central to APUS’ overall market development strategy as it is the single largest market for the company that has grown from 100 million to 1.4 billion APUS users globally. The idea behind launching these apps stems from our thorough understanding of user profiles across India. APUS has been offering a host of applications via its user system to assist the first adoption of smartphones for Indian users. There is a huge demand for content that involves formats, such as photos, videos, news, and games on mobile. Therefore, we feel that we must elevate our ‘ecosystem’ establishment from being a basic user system towards a content- focused platform. Later this year, we will bring new service-driven apps catering to segments, such as e-commerce and O2O service.”
APUS has set up its game sector recently to offer a comprehensive content experience. The two games shown at this ADTECH event are the best examples of Eco-System establishment strategy. Amazing Fishing (download link), an easy and fun fishing game, and Pot Shot (download link), a brand new agile and casual type of cannon shooting game, help users have fun while gaining knowledge.
CUTCUT, the AI photo-editor, already launched in India, enjoys more than 10 million downloads on Google Play. The AI technology embedded in the app has the power to calculate the shape of the figure instantly. Tens of millions of photos have been shared from CUTCUT in the past 2 months onto users’ Instagram and Facebook accounts as the app offers varied backgrounds, WhatsApp statuses, and stickers for free downloading, editing and sharing. According to Google Play, CUTCUT is ranked No.1 in the Indian market in the category of photo taking since its debut in January 2019.
The app is a result of APUS’ in-house sophisticated big data analytics and its user-driven application development philosophy. APUS has created an overseas app index based on the big data collated via its worldwide users. The index offers profound insights into user profiles in many countries including India. These apps are launched after a thorough internal analysis of the demands of the end users in the country.
“Taking VidMax as an example, as per our big data analysis, the majority of our Indian users are young, typically defined as millennials, with an average age of 18-25 years – comprising college students and young careerists. Consuming video content and photo sharing are both central to their content consumption patterns. More than 40 percent of Indian users in India like to watch videos online, use or browse music-related apps every day. As far as photo sharing is concerned, Indian users, mostly women, are keen to take selfie photos with their smartphone. We strongly believe CUTCUT is popular because of it,” said, Ms. Jing Young, Head, APUS India Office and General Manager, South Asia Region.
Also, the company will focus on the APUS ecosystem in India as a part of the company’s market development strategy. APUS has entered into partnerships with a host of local companies during ADTECH 2019, including video providers such as ShareChat, Vmate, ROPOSO, INJOY, KLUFY, and Flickstree and two news publishers —India Today and News point.
In the future, more content and service developers, along with publishers, are expected to join hands with APUS and be a part of its ecosystem to improve users’ experience on the mobile.

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Vignette Is A Handy New App That Keeps Your IOS Contact Photos Up To Date

If there’s a special place in your heart for single-purpose utilities that solve a nagging problem, then you’re going to want to skip your daily Starbucks coffee and instead buy yourself a copy of the new iOS contacts utility Vignette.

The new app is focused on doing one thing well: finding photos for your contacts by scouring social media profiles and updating them.
Many people don’t bother to add a photo when entering in an iOS contact for the first time — it’s often an afterthought at best.
And because the iOS Contacts app directs you to your own photo library to find an image when editing a contact, adding a photo tends to be something people only do for close friends and family.
(After all, most people don’t carry photos of co-workers, clients or business colleagues on their iPhone.)
But that means when you use Apple’s Phone app or iMessage and others, you see gray boxes with the person’s initials instead of a colorful picture.
It’s a minor grievance, sure, but one that can impact people with wide networks — like those who interact with a range of clients or customers as part of their job, or remote workers who like to be reminded of what far-flung colleagues look like, for instance.
Plus, the gray initial boxes are just aesthetically displeasing.
Vignette is simple to use. The app will scan select fields in your Contacts, including Email (which is used for Gravatar), Twitter, Facebook, and the Custom social network field, Instagram. (Instagram is not one of the built-in options in iOS Contacts, unfortunately).
Vignette Is A Handy New App That Keeps Your IOS Contact Photos Up To Date
You can then choose to update each contact with the photo it finds. In the case of multiple photos, you can pick which you prefer.
And you don’t have to make these updates one-by-one — you can “Select All” to make dozens or even hundreds of updates at once.
If you’re worried the app won’t find anything — or not enough to warrant spending $4.99 — you can opt to run the scan first, before committing to paying.
But if you decide to proceed with the updates, you’ll need to make the one-time purchase.
There are some third-party utilities for contact management, including those that will update based on social network profile data; but they tend to require you to authenticate with the third-party network in order to pull in the additional content.
Vignette does not. The app instead takes a privacy-minded approach to its work. It doesn’t require you upload your contacts to its servers, and it only uses the social networks anonymously as opposed to having you log in.
The indie developer behind the app, Casey Liss — who you might know from the Accidental Tech Podcast or the video series Casey on Cars — says he has a few ideas for improving the app in the near-term.
This includes duplicate detection, limiting Vignette’s scans to select contact groups and better Facebook integration. (Right now it requires a numeric Facebook ID like Fb://profile/1234567, which Liss realizes is undesirable).
He also acknowledges that many people are asking for LinkedIn integration.
“That would require a login, which I’m currently kind of allergic to, but I’ve gotten enough requests to at least consider it,” he tells us.
The app was built over three months’ time and is now launching just days before Apple’s annual developer conference, WWDC, where it’s expected we’ll see updated versions of core apps, including Messages.
Given its singular purpose, Vignette may not have a wide audience. Liss admitted that’s the case on a recent episode of the Analog(ue) podcast, in fact. Related:  The Realme 3 is an impressive budget phone for India
When asked who the app was for, he responded: “it’s for me.”
“This is really scratching an itch that I had. I really was tired of looking at all these initials in my Contacts list — I wanted to have pictures,” he explained. “But I didn’t want to go through the manual process of adding them all one-by-one.”
He may be surprised to find quite a few of us were similarly annoyed by all the gray initials. The app today is making the rounds across the Apple blogs and news sites, including 9to5MacMacStoriesThe Mac ObserverCult of Mac and others, where it’s being largely well-received.
Vignette is a free download with a $4.99 in-app purchase on the App Store.
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