Heena Sharma Blog

  Twitter , which paused its public verification process or that elusive Blue Badge three years ago, on Tuesday announced to relaunch verification, including a new public application process, in early 2021. Before it reopens the verification process that saw its share of controversies in the past couple of years, the micro-blogging platform is asking the public to share feedback on a draft of its new verification policy. "Calling for public feedback has become an important part of our policy development process because we want to ensure that, as an open service, our rules reflect the voices of the people who use Twitter," the company said in a statement. "If you prefer to Tweet your feedback, we'll be listening there, too. Use the hashtag #VerificationFeedback . The public feedback period starts today, November 24, and continues until December 8," Twitter informed. Read More

  BEIJING (Reuters) - China resolutely opposes India's measures to ban more Chinese mobile applications over national security concerns, its embassy in the South Asian nation said on Wednesday. India banned 43 of the apps on Tuesday, including Alibaba Group Holding Ltd's e-commerce app Aliexpress, in a new wave of web sanctions targeting China after the neighbours' months-long standoff on their Himalayan border. Read More

  "There is now real hope that vaccines, in combination with other tried and tested public health measures, will help to end the pandemic," said the World Health Organization (WHO) Director-General Tedros Adhanom Ghebreyesus. The WHO chief's remarks came after drugmaker AstraZeneca said on Monday that its COVID-19 vaccine , developed with Oxford University, was up to 90 percent effective, making it the third major drug company after Pfizer and Moderna to have reported late-stage data for a potential COVID-19 vaccine, Xinhua news agency reported on Tuesday. "The significance of this scientific achievement cannot be overstated. No vaccines in history have been developed as rapidly as these. The scientific community has set a new standard for vaccine development," Tedros added. He pointed out now the international community must set a new standard for access, as "the urgency with which vaccines have been developed must be matched by the same urgency to d...

  Snap Inc on Monday rolled out a feature, " Spotlight ", that would allow users to share short-form videos publicly in its Snapchat app, adding a service that would compete with ByteDance-owned TikTok and Instagram Reels. Users, who could previously share snaps or stories with friends, can now share them directly to Spotlight and garner more followers, Snap said in a blog post https://press.snap.com/introducing-spotlight. The company said it would give about $1 million every day throughout the remainder of 2020 to users whose snaps make it to the top of the platform, in a bid to boost engagement with the feature. Facebook Inc earlier this year launched Instagram Reels - the company's version of TikTok wherein users can record short mobile-friendly videos, then add special effects and soundtracks pulled from a music library. Read More      

  Twitter on Tuesday announced it is set to show a warning notification when the users try to like a labeled tweet. The micro-blogging platform began showing a warning before the 2020 US presidential election when the users tried to retweet a flagged tweet. Now, the company has expanded the warning functionality which is rolling out on the Web and iOS first and will come to Android devices in the coming weeks. "Giving context on why a labeled Tweet is misleading under our election, COVID-19, and synthetic and manipulated media rules is vital," Twitter said. "These prompts helped decrease Quote Tweets of misleading information by 29 per cent so we're expanding them to show when you tap to like a labeled Tweet," the company said in a tweet. Read More      

  Apple has extended its deadline for requiring in-app purchases for online group events within iOS apps from December to June 30 next year. The tech giant earlier temporarily waived its customary 30 per cent App Store fee on in-app purchases for paid online events by small businesses on Facebook. The company said on Monday that as the world fights Covid-19, it recognises that adapting experiences from in-person to digital continues to be a top priority. "Although apps are required to offer any paid online group event experiences (one-to-few and one-to-many realtime experiences) through in-app purchase in accordance with App Store Review guideline 3.1.1, we temporarily deferred this requirement with an original deadline of December 2020," Apple said in a statement. "To allow additional time for developing in-app purchase solutions, this deadline has been extended to June 30, 2021". Read More

  Xiaomi restricted itself to budget and mid-range smartphones in India’s price conscious market for a long time. This year, however, the Chinese electronics maker took the leap and launched its premier smartphones in India. Fresh in the line-up is the Mi 10T Pro , which epitomises the company’s efforts in display technology and imaging. Priced at Rs 39,999, the Mi 10T Pro is one of the smartphones that seems to offer sheer value-for-money, at least on paper. Is it as good in real life usage? Let’s find out: Mi 10T Pro: Design The Mi 10T Pro is huge, bulky and heavy. Look elsewhere if you need a compact smartphone because this one is a brick not meant for single hand operations. The smartphone boasts premium glass-metal construction with Gorilla Glass 5 protection on the front and back, and on the rear camera module. Though the phone has a premium built, its glossy rear profile makes it susceptible to accidental slips from hands. Moreover, the phone’s back cover attracts finge...