Архив метки: Google

33% of US TikTok users say they regularly get their news on the app, up from 22% in 2020

Earlier this summer, a Google exec admitted that TikTok was eating into its core Search business, particularly among younger users. But that’s not all TikTok is now being used for, a new Pew Research Center study indicates. According to the findings from a report that examined Americans’ use of social media for news consumption, 33% of TikTok users now say they regularly get their news on the social video app, up from just 22% in 2020.
Meanwhile, nearly every other social media site saw declines across that same metric — including, in particular, Facebook, where now only 44% of its users report regularly getting their news there, down from 54% just two years ago.
Image Credits: Pew Research
This data suggests TikTok has grown from being just an entertainment platform for lip syncs, dances, and comedy to one that many of its users turn to in order to learn about what’s happening in their world.
That may raise concerns, given TikTok’s connections to China — a topic it was recently pressed to clarify in a Senate hearing focused on national security. The hearing had followed the release of a BuzzFeed News report that had discovered how China-based ByteDance employees had been regularly accessing TikTok’s U.S. users’ private data.
If TikTok were to become one of the primary ways younger people in the U.S. learned about news and current events, then the app could potentially provide a channel for a foreign power to influence those users’ beliefs with subtle tweaks to its algorithm.

Meta, TikTok, YouTube and Twitter dodge questions on social media and national security

For the time being, however, TikTok is not a primary source of news consumption across social media — that honor still resides with Facebook.
Pew found that 31% of U.S. adults report regularly getting their news from Facebook, which is higher than the 25% who get their news from YouTube, the 14% who get it from Twitter, or the13% who get it from Instagram.
TikTok was in fifth place by this ranking, as only 10% of U.S. adults said they regularly get their news on the video app. (Of course, when TikTok’s sizable user base of those under the age of 18 grows up, these metrics could quickly change.)
LinkedIn (4%), Snapchat (4%), Nextdoor (4%), WhatsApp (3%) and Twitch (1%) were much smaller sources of news among Americans, the study also found.
Image Credits: Pew Research
In addition, Pew somewhat backed up Google’s assertion that it was losing traction to TikTok and other social media apps, as it noted that the percentage of U.S. adults who got their news via web search had dropped from 23% in 2020 to 18% in 2022.
But it didn’t necessarily point to TikTok or any other social platform as gaining, as the percentage of adults using social media of any sort for news consumption dropped from 23% to 17% between 2020 and 2022, as did other forms of news consumption like news websites and apps.
Image Credits: Pew Research
It’s not clear that any single platform is benefiting from these declines, as Pew didn’t uncover a shift from digital news sources to others, such as TV, print or radio — all those saw declines in news consumption as well.
Image Credits: Pew Research
Still, digital devices continue to outpace TV, Pew said, as the latter has seen its usage drop as a source for news consumption from 40% in 2020 to 31% in 2022.
Plus, when asked about preferences, more Americans (53%) said they would rather get their news digitally than on TV (33%), radio (7%), or print (5%) — an answer that’s stayed consistent since 2020.

Google exec suggests Instagram and TikTok are eating into Google’s core products, Search and Maps

33% of US TikTok users say they regularly get their news on the app, up from 22% in 2020 by Sarah Perez originally published on TechCrunch
33% of US TikTok users say they regularly get their news on the app, up from 22% in 2020

Google delays move away from cookies in Chrome to 2024

Google is again delaying plans to phase out Chrome’s use of third-party cookies — the files websites use to remember preferences and track online activity. In a blog post, Anthony Chavez, Google’s VP of Privacy Sandbox, said that the company is now targeting the “second half of 2024” as the timeframe for adopting an alternative technology.
It’ll be a long time coming. Last June, Google said it would depreciate cookies in the second half of 2023. Before then, in January 2020, the company pledged to make the switch by 2022.
“We’ve worked closely to refine our design proposals based on input from developers, publishers, marketers, and regulators via forums,” Chavez wrote. “The most consistent feedback we’ve received is the need for more time to evaluate and test the new … technologies before deprecating third-party cookies in Chrome.”
Google’s efforts to move away from cookies date back to 2019, when the company announced a long-term roadmap to adopt ostensibly more private ways of tracking web users. The linchpin is Privacy Sandbox, which aims to create web standards that power advertising without the use of so-called “tracking” cookies. Tracking cookies, used to personalize ads, can capture a person’s web history and remain active for years without their knowledge.
Privacy Sandbox proposes using an in-browser algorithm, Federated Learning of Cohorts (FLoC), to analyze a users’ activity and generate a “privacy-preserving” ID that can be used by advertisers for targeting. Google claims that FLoC is more anonymous than cookies, but the Electronic Frontier Foundation has described it as “the opposite of privacy-preserving technology” and akin to a “behavioral credit score.”
Privacy Sandbox has also prompted regulators to investigate whether Google’s adtech aims are anticompetitive. In January 2021, the Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) in the U.K. announced plans to focus on Privacy Sandbox’s potential impacts on both publishers and users. And in March, 15 attorneys general of U.S. states and Puerto Rico amended an antitrust complaint filed the previous December saying that the changes in the Privacy Sandbox would require advertisers to use Google as a middleman in order to advertise.
Google earlier this year reached an agreement with the CMA on how it develops and releases Privacy Sandbox in Chrome, which will include working with the CMA to “resolve concerns” and consulting and updating the CMA and the U.K.’s Information Commissioner’s Office on an ongoing basis.
In the meantime, Chavez says that Google will expand a trial of its Privacy Sandbox technologies to “millions” of Chrome users beginning in August. It’ll then gradually increase the trial population throughout the year into 2023, offering an opt-out option to users who don’t wish to participate.
Google now expects Privacy Sandbox APIs to be launched and generally available in Chrome by the third quarter of 2023.
“Improving people’s privacy, while giving businesses the tools they need to succeed online, is vital to the future of the open web,” Chavez wrote. “As the web community tests these APIs, we’ll continue to listen and respond to feedback.”
Google delays move away from cookies in Chrome to 2024

Samsung will unveil its latest foldables on August 10

The days of the Galaxy Note Unpacked events are sadly gone, but Samsung’s foldables are more than happy to fill a phablet-sized hole in the company’s annual release schedule. Over the last couple of years, the company has made good on its promise to fully commit to the form factor, and we expect to see the latest additions to the Fold and Flip lines arrive in a matter of weeks.
Samsung this morning dropped an official invite for its late-summer Unpacked event, confirming an August 10 date for the virtual event. This is a Samsung event, so that means the big announcements have been leaked in part — or in full — over the last several weeks. As anticipated, the big news centers around the Galaxy Z Fold 4 and Z Flip 4, along with Galaxy Watch 5.
Image Credits: Samsung
Both foldables are said to include the Snapdragon 8 Plus Gen 1 chip, along with some new color options. The new Galaxy Watch, meanwhile, represents Samsung’s latest Wear OS partnership. That one’s certainly worth keeping an eye on, as Google begins a newfound push for the wearable operating system, ahead of the fall Pixel Watch launch.
Meanwhile, Samsung’s super early pre-show product reserve is going even earlier this year, featuring the following discounts if you want to buy the mystery products (jkjkjkjk), site unseen:

$200 credit toward Galaxy phone, watch and buds bundle

$150 credit toward Galaxy phone and watch bundle

$130 credit toward Galaxy phone and buds bundle

$80 credit toward Galaxy watch and buds bundle

$100 credit to use on Samsung.com toward eligible products when you reserve a Galaxy phone

$50 credit to use on Samsung.com toward eligible products when you reserve a Galaxy watch

$30 credit to use on Samsung.com toward eligible products when you reserve Galaxy buds

All said, it should make for an interesting event, and a nice jolt of news amidst the late-summer hardware doldrums. The event kicks off at 9AM ET/6AM PT August 10. We’ll be there (virtually).
Samsung will unveil its latest foldables on August 10

HTC looks to the metaverse for answers

LG officially pulled the plug on its smartphone division in April of last year. It was another signpost in a dramatically changing mobile market that had left the electronics giant behind. HTC tends to be lumped into that conversation, though the Taiwanese manufacture has — in spite of everything — continued to press on, even after Google acquired around half of the company’s phone talent and IP in 2017.
HTC’s mobile division has spent the last several years searching for the right angle to recapture some of that magic. In 2018, it was the HTC Exodus, which was undoubtedly ahead of the curve as a blockchain/crypto-focused handset. That device, predictably, failed to make a dent. Now the company’s back with another trend-surfing handset, the HTC Desire 22 Pro, a “metaverse” focused device it’s been teasing for a few weeks now.
This time, at least, the company’s got a leg up in that department, as one of the primary manufacturers of VR headsets through its Vive line. HTC is positing the Desire 22 Pro as “the phone to carry you into the future” and “the perfect companion with Vive Flow VR glasses.” On the face of it, however, it’s a fairly middling mid-range device with limited claims to actual metaversiness.
The product sports a 6.6-inch 1,080 x 2,412 display with a 120 Hz refresh rate. Inside you’ve got Qualcomm’s Snapdragon 695 5G, coupled with 8GB or RAM and 128GB of storage. Any actual metaverse functionality appears to be little more than marketing from a company struggling to rediscover its footing in the cruel and unforgiving world of mobile phones.
Image Credits: HTC
It does, however, apparently sport a digital wallet and an NFT, as evidenced by the above images of cats posing as classical artwork. Though, as noted, such functionality appears to be limited to select markets.
If all of that sounds good for some reason, the handset is up for preorder now and set to start shipping August 1.
HTC looks to the metaverse for answers

Meta has reportedly shelved its watch with in-built cameras

Last year, leaked photos of Meta’s smartwatch with a camera made the rounds. But the product may never make it to the light of day: according to a report in Bloomberg, the parent company of Facebook has halted its development.
The report does not give a reason for the about-face, but in April, the tech giant said that it lost $3 billion in Q1 in metaverse development.
Meta (and before it Facebook) has been looking for years for a route into hardware to diversify its business and to fill out a more vertically integrated approach to building tech products, not unlike Apple and Google.
While Facebook-owned Oculus has produced the company’s biggest hardware hits, the watch becomes the latest in a line of stops and starts in Facebook’s hardware efforts. Others have included an ill-fated attempt to break into smartphones, the Portal screen, and a many-years-long effort with glasses (still not launched).
One reason for the shift could have been also due to design issues. Bloomberg said that a prototype of the watch had two cameras — a five-megapixel on the front and one rather oddly placed 12-megapixel camera on the back.
The company wanted to use electromyography and convert nerve signals into digital commands, which could be helpful in games and virtual world experiences. But the second camera proved to be a roadblock to that feature, and the firm decided to stop its development.
Meta had been aiming at releasing the watch next year with a $349 price tag.
According to photos and videos of the prototype, apart from the camera, the smartwatch had features that are now fairly standard for smartwatches and wrist wearables, such as activity tracking, notifications and cellular connectivity through eSIM. The device, codenamed Milan, was touted to have an 18-hour battery life.
This is not the end of the line for some of the tech it has built, it seems. Bloomberg’s report suggested that Meta is still working on other wrist-based wearables. The company showed off an AR-controller prototype last year — before it renamed itself Meta — that could be worn on your wrist.
Meta declined to comment on the story.
Meta has reportedly shelved its watch with in-built cameras