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Twitter to Add Photo Filters to Compete With Instagram

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Image source from wired.com. Twitter is finally learning a lesson from Facebook: If you can’t buy it, build it. In the coming months, Twitter plans to update its mobile applications to introduce filters for photos that will allow people to share altered images on Twitter and bypass Instagram, the popular mobilecentric photo-sharing network, according to people who work at the company but asked not to be named as they are not allowed to discuss unannounced projects. The filters on Instagram make photos look like they were shot with 1960s Kodachrome or with 1890s sepia tone film. Although adding photo filters to Twitter may seem like a trivial addition to a social network that processes nearly a billion 140-character missives every two days, it could prove to be an important part of the company’s business. As most smartphones are now equipped with high-resolution cameras, photography and mobile devices go together like peas and carrots. Flickr, which was once the go-to photo-sharing site...

Tesco Removes Sign Suggesting Superheroes Are 'for boys' After Twitter Backlash

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Tesco has removed a sign next to a superhero alarm clock reading "fun gifts for boys" from its stores after a social media backlash inspired by a seven-year-old girl. Karen Cole tweeted a photo of her daughter Maggie pointing to the sign at the Tower Park branch of the supermarket in Poole, Dorset, which was subsequently retweeted over 10,000 times. In a message on her Twitter page , which is now protected, she wrote: "My superhero loving 7yo daughter not impressed when she spotted this sign in @Tesco today @LetToysBeToys." Maggie had pointed to the sign and said it was "stupid." The retailer has now removed the sign and a spokesperson insists it would "make a great gift for both girls and boys." Mrs Cole explained her thinking behind the tweet in a blog post. "Last year [Maggie] started coming home from school saying some of her friends were suggesting some toys were for girls and some for boys. I explained that they were wrong, if the toy ...

Motorola’s Original Moto G Gets Android 5.0 Lollipop

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Owners of the original Moto G are now receiving their much-anticipated Lollipop upgrade. The release makes Motorola’s most popular smartphone one of just a small few handsets released in 2013 that are already running Google’s latest Android software. Rolling out to users in India first, Lollipop for the 2013 Moto G is essentially the same software that started reaching the newer 2014 Moto G last month. Users get a Material Design makeover the way Google intended it — without any third-party tweaks — as well as lock screen notifications, improved multitasking, and Smart Lock, which automatically disables lock screen security when your Android Wear device is nearby. User can also look forward to Ambient Display, a flashlight toggle in the Quick Settings menu, Motorola Assist, and significant performance and battery life improvements. All of these things make Lollipop the Moto G’s biggest update yet. It also means this is a big download, so you’ll want to get it over Wi-Fi rather than a c...

Twitter Adds Coupons to Its Commerce Plans

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Twitter has long said it works best as a tool for serving  up news on whats happening as it happens. Twitter has long said it works best as a tool for serving up news on what’s happening, as it happens. Now, Twitter hopes that will work with commerce on its network, as well. On Tuesday, the company unveiled a program that introduced deals to tweets on the 284 million-user social network. The program, Twitter Offers, is aimed at marketers who want to drive sales directly through Twitter advertisements and is an attempt to kick-start Twitter’s nascent efforts to build e-commerce into its platform. After buying a Promoted Tweet — a paid ad that appears as content inside a user’s Twitter stream — a marketer can insert a deal, such as a time-sensitive discount, which users can redeem on their smartphone. Twitter says it believes that for advertisers, the program will be a novel way to woo new customers to their stores. “I think new customer acquisition is going to be the primary use cas...

Sony Pictures and F.B.I. Widen Inquiry into Hackers’ Attack

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SONY Pictures Entertainment and FBI were seeking more information about an attack computer system. LOS ANGELES — Sony Pictures Entertainment and the F.B.I. on Wednesday were seeking more information about an attack that crippled Sony’s computer systems — including whether North Korea, or perhaps a former employee, was responsible. “The investigation continues into this very sophisticated cyberattack,” the studio said in a statement. It added that a news report by the technology site Re/code, which said that North Korea had been identified as the source of the attack and that the studio planned an imminent announcement, was “not accurate.” Sony was hit by hackers on Nov. 24, resulting in a companywide computer shutdown and the leak of corporate information, including the multimillion-dollar pre-bonus salaries of executives and the Social Security numbers of rank-and-file employees. A group calling itself the Guardians of Peace has taken credit for the attacks. The studio, wor...

Former Google+ Designer Slams The Service for Being 'Facebook Lite'

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Google+ Plus slams the service for being Facebook Like. He also calls out Google Plus for any meaningful. Google+ is a social network "adrift at sea," representing a big missed opportunity for the company, a former Google employee who worked on the service says. Chris Messina, who worked on Google+ user experience design before leaving the company over a year ago, wrote a long post on Medium , in which he criticizes the service for not delivering on its initial vision of empowering users with the vast amount of data that Google collects about them. He also calls out Google+ for not having any meaningful differentiators over its more successful competitor, Facebook. "Most people would likely describe Google+ as a newsfeed, a kind of Facebook-lite," he wrote. Messina, who is often credited with inventing the hashtag, acknowledges that Google's social network has many devout users, and that it's become a go-to service for a few specific topics (like photography...

Twitter Begins Testing a ‘Buy’ Button for Instant Purchases by Its Users

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Twitter is Already a real time emporium for news. Twitter is already a real-time emporium for news, photos, video clips and 140-character snippets of thought. Now, the real-time social network wants to be a shopping mall for real products, too. The company announced on Monday that it would begin publicly testing a “buy” button that can be embedded in posts to allow users to buy a product with a couple of clicks. The feature — initially limited to mobile versions of Twitter and aimed at selling limited-edition or time-sensitive items like T-shirts and event tickets — could eventually create a new revenue stream for the social network, which currently relies on advertising for virtually all of its income.The test comes as competition in the world of mobile e-commerce intensifies. Still, billions of dollars of online sales are already associated with social networks. Many marketers post messages on services like Twitter and Facebook promoting their products and offering links to external...