Telegram to take on Zoom with a new video calling service

The company has announced that Telegram is developing a video calling service that will be launched this year. The messaging app also announced that it has reached 400 million monthly active users.

HIGHLIGHTS

• The company has announced that Telegram is developing a video calling service that will be launched this year.
• Telegram claimed that their video calling services will be both “secure” and usable
• Telegram has reached 400,000,000 monthly users, up from 300 million a year ago.

The video conferencing app Zoom will now have a new competitor as the messaging app Telegram is all set to launch its video calling services. The company has announced that Telegram is developing a video calling service that will be launched this year. The messaging app also announced that it has reached 400 million monthly active users.

Taking a jibe at Zoom, Telegram claimed that their video calling services will be both “secure” and usable. "Video calls in 2020 are much like messaging in 2013. There are apps that are either secure or usable, but not both. We'd like to fix that," the messaging app said in a statement.’

Zoom, that became increasingly popular during the lockdown due to coronavirus pandemic, was pulled up due to a host of security and privacy flaws. This forced the company to announce a feature freeze for 90 days and they are also rolling out the Zoom 5.0 update this week. The new update promises password protection and improved encryption with support for AES 256-bit GCM encryption. However, despite that, the number of users has gone up from 200 million in March to 300 million in the last couple of weeks.

Talking about its measures to improve privacy policies, Zoom had said, "We take a holistic view of our users’ privacy and our platform’s security. From our network to our feature set to our user experience, everything is being put through rigorous scrutiny. On the back end, AES 256-bit GCM encryption will raise the bar for securing our users’ data in transit. On the front end, I’m most excited about the Security icon in the meeting menu bar. This takes our security features, existing and new, and puts them front and center for our meeting hosts. With millions of new users, this will make sure they have instant access to important security controls in their meetings."

Coming to Telegram, the messaging app didn’t reveal much about how many participants will be allowed, and when the new feature will be rolled out. But they did reveal that their user base has gone up to 400 million active users.

"Telegram has reached 400,000,000 monthly users, up from 300 million a year ago. Every day at least 1.5 million new users sign up for Telegram. Features like folders, cloud storage, and desktop support make Telegram ideal for remote work and study during the quarantine," the company said in a statement.

Currently, there are too many video calling apps to choose from such as Google Meet, Microsoft Teams, and Skype. Facebook also announced its video calling services called the Messenger Room that allows as much as 50 participants to join a video call. WhatsApp too had extended its video calling limit from four to eight.

Twitter shuts down Tweet to SMS feature in most countries

Last year, Twitter had disabled its compose message feature for SMS. This year, the tech giant has decided to completely do away with the feature.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Twitter was built in 2010 keeping the SMS feature in mind since the Internet was not prevalent then.
• Last year, Twitter disabled its compose feature in most countries after CEO Jack Dorsey’s account got hacked using the Tweet to SMS feature.
• This year, Twitter is doing away with the feature altogether in most countries.

Twitter is planning to discard its Tweet to SMS feature, the tech giant announced yesterday citing vulnerabilities.

"We want to continue to help keep your account safe. We’ve seen vulnerabilities with SMS, so we’ve turned off our Twitter via SMS service, except for a few countries. Everyone will still have access to important SMS messages needed to log in to and manage their accounts," Twitter said in a statement.

Twitter was originally launched keeping in mind its 140 characters to be used via a text message or an SMS. This was because there was no extensive usage of the internet then as there is now.

Twitter turned off the ability to receive SMS messages containing the text of new tweets. The feature was disabled in a few countries,The Verge stated.

Twitter users who use the app via the internet are not likely to get impacted by the SMS feature being shut down. The ones likely to feel the difference are people who relied on SMS feature to reach out to the people.

When Twitter was built in 2010, it was entirely built around to work over the SMS, but then the age of the internet took over, and with people buying smartphones, they mostly run the app with the help of the internet.

Twitter CEO, Jack Dorsey’s account was hacked last year in September by a group called Chuckle Squad, Medianama reported. After hacking Dorsey’s account, the hackers tweeted racial slurs, anti-semitic messages and a Holocaust denial from his account. Even though the account was recovered, Twitter's feature faced criticism.

Dorsey's account was compromised due to a security oversight by the mobile provider and sent tweets via SMS from the phone number.

Twittter acknowledged this incident temporarily disabled the ability to compose tweets via text citing security issues.

"We want to continue to help keep your account safe. We’ve seen vulnerabilities with SMS, so we’ve turned off our Twitter via SMS service, except for a few countries. Everyone will still have access to important SMS messages needed to log in to and manage their accounts," Twitter had stated when it disabled the compose message feature last year.

A spokesperson familiar with the matter told The Verge that the remainder of Tweet to SMS feature is being phased out in a few countries to keep people’s accounts safe.

There will be an exception to a few countries who completely rely on Twitter. Twitter will send SMS to secure accounts for verification codes.

As of now, Twitter has not stated in which countries the feature would work but it seems that it is still active in India, reports stated.

WhatsApp’s multi-device feature spotted in Android beta’s latest update

WhatsApp is currently working on the 2.20.143 Android beta update and has added clues about the multi-device feature in the app. Here is everything you need to know

HIGHLIGHTS

• WhatsApp is currently working on the 2.20.143 Android beta update and has added clues about the multi-device feature in the app.
• The report further stated that all the devices will receive notifications for incoming messages, calls when the multi-device feature is officially rolled out.
• So the multi-device feature is one of the most-awaited features that WhatsApp is working on

Amonth ago, it was reported that WhatsApp is working on a multi-device feature that would allow people to log in from different devices but now the traces of the feature has been found in the latest Android beta update. WhatsApp started working on the feature for over a year now and there is still no clarity about when the Facebook-owned company will release the feature.

As per WABetainfo, WhatsApp is currently working on the 2.20.143 Android beta update and has added clues about the multi-device feature in the app. As per the screenshots shared by WaBetainfo, a screen showing “Log in on a new device” appeared on Android beta. The screen flashes a message that reads, “Using mobile data may be slow and may use a large amount of your data plan.” By the looks of it, the logging on a device is only possible if you are connected to WiFi as “it may use a large amount of your data plan”.

The report states that this could be due to the transfer of large files. WhatsApp is asking people to connect to Wifi maybe because it wants to transfer something from the main device. It cannot be anything other than the chat history because there isn’t anything else that needs to be transferred from your primary device to your secondary device while using WhatsApp.

The report further stated that all the devices will receive notifications for incoming messages, calls when the multi-device feature is officially rolled out. All the actions will be synced once the feature is made active.

So the multi-device feature is one of the most-awaited features that WhatsApp is working on. It will allow users to log in from different devices without having to create a separate account. For instance, if you are already using WhatsApp in your phone, you can simply enter your phone number and log in to WhatsApp in your iPad as well. You will not have to take any new connection or log out from one device to log in to another. Users can log into more than one device simultaneously. It has not been specified how many devices can you log in to at a time but when the feature is released officially, that would be made clear too.

Earlier, WAbetainfo reported that WhatsApp will send a notification to the users if their contacts add a new device or log in from a new device. The messaging app will change the encryption keys every time a user logs in from a new device.

Google announces new spam policy for Chrome Web Store starting August 27

Google has announced a new set of spam policy so that the Web Store is not muddled with copycats, misleading functionalities, or fake reviews and ratings.

HIGHLIGHTS

• Google announced a new set of policies which have to be adhered to by developers starting August 27.
• Publishing multiple extensions, extensions for a single purpose, anonymous user testimonials are some of the things prohibited.
• If the developers do not stick to the policy, their extensions will be disabled and taken down.

Google has come with a set of new spam policies for Chrome Web Store. Google has introduced eight updates to its spam policy. Google Chrome Policy and Anti-abuse team Rebecca Soares and Benjamin Ackerman in a blog post stated that Chrome Web Store has become the largest catalogue of browser extensions since its launch in 2011.

“The increase in adoption of the extension platform has also attracted spammers and fraudsters introducing low-quality and misleading extensions in an attempt to deceive and trick our users into installing them to make a quick profit,” Soares and Ackerman wrote.

The blog further notes that it has brought about changes in its spam policy to avoid the path of a user discovering an extension from the Chrome Web Store is not muddled with copycats, misleading functionalities or fake reviews and ratings.

To give the user a clear and informative policy, the tech giant has come up with the following eight anti-spam policies. The blog noted that developers must comply with the policies by August 27th. Failure in doing so could lead to the extensions being disabled and the extensions could be taken down.

Developers should avoid publishing multiple extensions. The blog notes that this can provide duplicate experiences and create confusion.

Developers must provide a clear and well-written description of the blog states. Extensions should avoid data that is misleading, improperly formatted, non-descriptive, irrelevant, excessive, or inappropriate metadata, including but not limited to the extension’s description, developer name, title, icon, screenshots, and promotional images.

The description should be clear and well written. Anonymous user testimonials are not allowed.

Developers must not attempt to manipulate the placement of extensions on the Chrome Web Store. This includes inflating product ratings, reviews, or install counts by illegitimate means, such as fraudulent or incentivized downloads, reviews and ratings.

The next policy is that extensions with a single purpose of installing or launching another app, theme, webpage and extension are not allowed.

Finally, extensions that abuse, or are associated with the abuse of, notifications by sending spam, ads, promotions, phishing attempts, or unwanted messages that harm the user’s browsing experience are not allowed.

Extensions that send messages on behalf of the user without giving the user the ability to confirm the content and intended recipients are also not allowed.

Facebook AI launches Blender, an open-source chatbot for more human-like conversations

Facebook has launched Blender, a chatbot designed for more human-like interactions. The bot is designed for in-depth conversations with humans. 

HIGHLIGHTS

• Facebook has launched Blender, an open-domain chatbot for more in-depth and human-like conversations.
• Facebook stated that Blender is the first chatbot to build a diverse set of conversational skills.
• 67 percent evaluators concluded that Blender sounds more human than Google’s chatbot Meena.

Facebook’s AI has built an open-sourced Blender, the largest, open-domain chatbot, the tech giant's blog noted.

It has been trained on 9.4 billion parameters -- nearly 4 times as many as Google’s Meena and more than 10 times as many as the previous largest OS chatbot available on the internet, Engadget reported.

Facebook stated that Blender is the first chatbot to build a diverse set of conversational skills which include empathy, knowledge and personality in one system.

The bot in terms of engagement feels "more human" according to human evaluators, the blog noted.

To feel more human-like, the bot is designed in such a way that it can assume a persona, discuss nearly any topic, and show empathy — in natural, 14-turn conversation flows.

Facebook stated the composition used in making the AI. The bot uses transformer neural networks on large amounts of conversational data.

Facebook stated that the chatbot uses previously available public domain conversations that have 1.5 billion training examples of extracted conversations.

"Our neural networks are too large to fit on a single device, so we utilized techniques such as column-wise model parallelism, which allows us to split the neural network into smaller, more manageable pieces while maintaining maximum efficiency," Facebook stated.

Stephen Roller, a research engineer at Facebook’s AI lab (FAIR) told Engadget “There are a lot of sophisticated techniques that you have to use in terms of how you chop this thing up. If you split it over different devices and chop it up like the wrong way, then you're going to lose that efficiency that you have and you're not going to be able to scale to these terabyte-sized data sets that we've been working with.”

Facebook said that it has introduced Blended Skill Talk (BST) for training and evaluating desirable skills like the use of personality, knowledge, and display of empathy.

Further in the composition goes beam search, token sampling and n-gram blocking.

"To make sure conversational agents don’t repeat themselves or display other shortcomings, researchers typically use a number of possible generation strategies after the model is trained," Facebook notes.

To test the bot, it was kept against Meena, Google’s chatbot which has not been released yet. The blog states that human evaluators were shown a series of dialogues between humans paired with each respective chatbot.

After being presented with Meena in action and Blender in action, 67 percent of evaluators concluded that Blender sounds more human.