Facebook and Instagram users will soon have a new paid verified badge option in the form of Meta Verified. The $12-a-month subscription on the Web site and $15-a-month subscription on iOS and Android will give users a blue checkmark next to their account name for increased visibility in search, comments and recommendations, as well as copycat protection, priority customer support…
TikTok continues its efforts to turn its app into a place to shop, attracting more brands for its "Shop" initiative, which allows companies to sell their products directly in the app with full checkout options. TikTok began testing stores in the U.S. last November, and we now know that several more brands are participating in this initial testing phase. According…
Samsung has announced a new feature called Message Guard that protects users from malware and spyware through so-called zero-click attacks. The South Korean chaebol said the solution "proactively" protects users' devices by "limiting the impact of invisible threats disguised as image attachments." The security feature, available in Samsung Messages and Google Messages, is currently limited to the Samsung Galaxy S23…
Google has announced several new ways to use artificial intelligence (AI) to improve its search functions. AI has played a crucial role in Google's search technology from the beginning, improving the company's language understanding capabilities. Through further investments in AI, Google has expanded its understanding of information to include images, videos and even real-world insights. Here's how Google is using…
Microsoft is actively using artificial intelligence with its updated Bing search engine and Edge web browser, both of which are based on what appears to be exclusive access to the successor to the popular OpenAI ChatGPT language model. The new AI is as yet unnamed, described only in a blog post as follows: …OpenAI's next-generation major new language model, more…
Tech giant Meta reports a loss of $13.7 billion in 2022 for its Facebook Reality Labs (FRL) meta-unit. FRL reported a loss of $4.3 billion in the fourth quarter of 2022, down from an estimate of $4.4 billion and up from a third-quarter loss of $3.7 billion. Meta FRL's Metaworld division lost $2.81 billion in the second quarter of 2022…
Uber Technologies ( UBER ) is on the upswing ahead of its fourth-quarter results to be released before markets open Wednesday, with demand for its rides and deliveries up, fares higher and the number of drivers fully recovered from steep losses due to the pandemic. The company is on track to post the first profitable year in its history based…
Common sense in digital photography says that megapixels aren't everything. To some extent they matter, but smartphone manufacturers have a long history of relying too heavily on these numbers as a kind of shorthand for camera quality. In other words, they play an important role, but they have to work together with a number of other key elements to really…
Twitter is introducing a new ad unit called Search Keywords Ads, which allows users to promote sponsored tweets in search results.Advertisers will now be able to pay to have their tweets appear at the top of search results for certain keywords. This feature is similar to promoted tweets that appear on users' timelines, but with the added benefit of appearing…
Intel shares closed down 6.4 percent Friday, a day after the company reported dismal quarterly and annual results . The chip maker's tepid quarterly results, with a 32% year-over-year decline in revenue and a net loss of $664 million for the fourth quarter of 2022, took analysts and investors alike by surprise. Intel's problems, including chip glut and weakening factory…
