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Reddit is Testing a New Live Stream Feature

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The popular American social news aggregation and discussion website, Reddit, has just announced that it is going to start a new live streaming service. Last Friday, the Reddit feed was filled with posts that were talking about a new r/pan subreddit, which made everyone curious about the new feature. Finally, Redditers started getting notifications about this new subreddit on their accounts, including the announcement about a new live broadcasting service from Reddit, and also, the rules that one need to follow in order to live stream.

The company revealed through the notification that the new broadcasting service will be called the “Reddit Public Access Network”, and only the eligible people will be able to live stream over it. The r/pan subreddit will be dedicated to the very service.

Reddit will be displaying the best live streams on its first page. There will be a voting system, like the upvote Reddit already have on it. The other users can vote for their favourite creators, and those votes will be the parameters for the lives streams to feature on the Reddit front page.

reddit live stream
Image Source: marketingland.com

But, there are some rules that the users need to follow in order to live stream on the platform. One of the rules states that the creators need to be careful about posting any adult content, anything that can offend the common users of Reddit, graphic violence, hoax promotion, as well as illegal or dangerous behaviour.

Since it will be a public network, there is no choice for the users to post anonymously or keep the live stream private. Currently, the new feature is out for testing. But even during the test, it will display the top voted posts on its first page. There has been put a limitation on the timings for the stream as well. It will be a five days test, that will end on 23rd August, and the users will be able to post between 9 am to 5 pm.

The main purpose for setting the time limit for the post is to carry out an accurate moderation for the content that will be posted through live broadcast.

“We are 100 per cent committed to making sure that content on RPAN stays safe and Safe for Work. We will be watching RPAN broadcasts very closely.” said the company in the blog post.

Though Reddit is already one of the most loved contents posting platforms, if all worked fine, the new feature can lead it to join YouTube and Twitch as one of the leading streaming platforms as well.

Huawei mapping kit

Huawei to Launch its own Mapping Kit as the Result of the China-U.S. Trade War

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The ban that the U.S. government had put on Huawei has made its experiment with its own products, and after it announced HarmonyOS (HongmengOS), the company has revealed that it is going to launch its own home-grown mapping kit similar to the Google Maps. Though the company has still not admitted that the HarmonyOS will be empowering its smartphones, it definitely is going to feature its mapping app into them.

The company has been facing some serious issues, and it got almost banned in the U.S. Though the company got a relaxation for the trade in the U.S., and it is expected to get 90 more days to operate in the country, it still is banned from embedding Google Maps into its smartphones.

This has led the company to take another step towards independence, such that it is already up to developing on its own mapping app, named Map Kit. The company will be incorporating over 150 countries into the very mapping kit, and for that, it will be operating with the local mapping apps.

Huawei mapping kit

The mapping app is not for the public use, instead, the developers would be able to create their map apps based on the kit. The kit will combine features, like street views and navigation, that will also show real-time traffic condition. The kit can also be used to add a location tracking feature in other apps, and for that, the kit will render support for the augmented reality.

“Huawei Map Kit will be available in 40 languages. It will offer real-time traffic conditions and a highly sophisticated navigation system which can recognize a car changing lanes. It will also support augmented-reality mapping,” Zhang Pingan, the president of cloud services of the consumer business group at Huawei, said in a statement.

But the company still has got into ties with an American company named Booking Holdings to work on the new mapping service. The U.S. government has though given the company the permit to work in the U.S. market, still the company is now aware that it is not permanent, and the company has to bring its own products if it wants to continue to rule the smartphone market.

In the past, many big companies have tried to build their own products, and not all have succeeded in that. The independence from the use of the third-party product will help Huawei to focus on the smartphone markets other than the U.S., and the company can also gain the customer base for its products, that the other companies would use into their products, such as is new HarmonyOS and the mapping kit. Huawei will be bringing the mapping kit in coming October.

sharechat

ShareChat Raises a $100 Mn in a Twitter Led Funding Round

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After a long struggle, India has also become home to many creative and useful startups, and even the global tech companies agree with that. Following that very fact, Twitter, one of the biggest technology company, just closed the D series funding as the lead for a four years old Indian company ShareChat.

Where Twitter led the funding, major investment brands including TrustBridge Partners, Shunwei Capital, Lightspeed Venture Partners, SAIF Capital, India Quotient and Morningside Venture Capital took part in the investments, among which a few are the company’s existing investors. With the latest round of funding, the company was able to raise a $100 million, and with that, the company now values at about $650 million. Till now, the company has raised around $224 million.

ShareChat is an Indian social network that allows people to chat in the regional languages. This is the reason why despite tens of popular chat apps, ShareChat has grown to tens of million users in just four years. Twitter also sees the potential in the startup that is why it took the privilege to lead the funding for the company.

sharechat
Image Source: economictimes.indiatimes.com

There has been no statement from Sharechat on the matter. But the managing director of Twitter India, Manish Maheshwari said in a statement, “Twitter and ShareChat are aligned on the broader purpose of serving the public conversation, helping the world learn faster and solve common challenges. This investment will help ShareChat grow and provide the company’s management team access to Twitter’s executives as thought partners.”

Twitter just appointed Manish Maheshwari in April 2019 for its India office after it started facing a decline in its growth in India. After his appointment in Twitter, Maheshwari has said in a statement, “With premium Indian content on the rise in multiple regions across the country, I believe we are scratching the surface of what’s possible with Twitter in India.”

ShareChat supports almost every regional language except English, which has been the unique feature to attract its 60 million users to the platform. And, the company has no plans to change that in the coming future. So investing in ShareChat can be a step forward for the company to expand its limits to different regions, regional languages and people from different background.

twitter new feature

Twitter Wants You Follow Your Interest With its New Feature

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The tech industry is evolving every day, and every big tech company, as well as the startups, are coming up with new service, products and updates every sing day. So there has to be something that the other existing companies have to do to sustain through the increased competition. Despite being one of the biggest social media networks, Twitter also knows that it has to experiment with new things so that it can maintain its position in the market.

Taking a step in the same direction, Twitter announced that is working on a new feature to be included into the platform, that would allow the users to see tweets based on their chosen interest on their timeline. For now, the company is still testing the feature and will be launching soon after the successful tests take place.

With the new feature, the users will be able to follow their interests as they do for any individual’s account, and this way, Twitter will curate a relevant feed for the users. The platform is going to take the help of machine learning to bring the tweets based on the user’s interest together and show it up in their feed.

twitter new feature
Image Source: sciencemag.org

The company is calling the new feature “dedicated interest experiences”, which it has already talked about in recent years and finally it is conducting tests with them. The topic of interest for the users can be any of the sports teams, celebrities, or the television shows, but according to the product manager at Twitter, Rob Bishop, for now, the interest will only be based on sports. The initial tests are being carried out on the android devices only.

With the feature, Twitter will also bring up topic suggestions for the users, so that they can find their interest among the suggestions and follow them. Also, there will be an option to mute a particular topic you do not want to see the tweets about.

Twitter is also testing another feature, through which the users will make a list of their interests they follow and want to follow. The company even demonstrated the feature, where a product manager mixed hashtags and a few individual accounts to make a list. The list was accessed by swiping the app’s home screen.

The company is also looking forward to testing the other features like search option in DM, reordering a certain photo in a posted tweet, customizable timeline and support for Apple’s Live Photos.

tumblr

Verizon to Sell Tumblr to Automattic the WordPress.com Owner

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Verizon Media, who last year acquired the microblogging site Tumblr has agreed to sell it off to Automattic Inc. According to The Wall Street Journal reports, the WordPress owner company, Automattic, will be acquiring Tumblr for an undisclosed amount soon.

Verizon bought Tumblr after it had acquired Yahoo, last year. Tumblr was the Yashoo’s subsidiary, and for the last year, Verizon Media was taking care of its operations and actions. The company had also imposed a ban on the adult content sharing over the platform, which got the platform to lose most of its user base.

Tumblr was one of the first and the most popular social media platform, but for the past couple of years, it has been struggling with its position in the market. Though before Verizon bought the company, many preferred Tumblr over any other social media platform. The ban that Verizon had put on the company has made many of its users boycott the platform. Since then, the companies, including Instagram and Snapchat, that came after Tumblr into the field of social media, are taking over the whole business game.

tumblr
Image Source: forbes.com

Even though the ban has led to the fall in the number of users for Tumblr, Automattic Inc. has no plans to remove the ban and continue with the Tumblr operations as it is.

“Adult content is not our forte either, and it creates a huge number of potential issues with app stores, payment providers, trust and safety,” said Automattic’s CEO Matt Mullenweg on Monday. “It’s a problem area best suited for companies fully dedicated to creating a great experience there. I have very liberal views on these things, but supporting adult content as a business is very different,” he added further.

Mullenweg also said that the company would be using Tumblr as complementary to its current platforms, and it won’t receive any changes shortly. Since Tumblr also has its app, Automattic may use its app for the expansion for its other products and services.

“Today’s announcement is the culmination of a thoughtful, thorough and strategic process,” Verizon Media CEO Guru Gowrappan said. “Tumblr is a marquee brand that has started movements, allowed for true identities to blossom and become home to many creative communities and fandoms. We are proud of what the team has accomplished and are happy to have found the perfect partner in Automattic.”

But for everyone’s surprise, according to a report from Axios, the acquisition will take place for a sum of 3 million, which is way less than the amount that Yahoo paid for to buy it in 2013, i.e. $1.1 billion.

Adora-bots

Amazon Starts Testing its New Delivery Robots ‘Adora-bots’ in California

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Maybe it is an attempt to eliminate the need for more manpower or maybe to increase the work efficiency, but Amazon is trying to get robots to its work field. The company has been testing its new blue coloured robots for a few months now. After making its new little delivery scouts stroll in the streets of Seattle (Amazon’s headquarter city), the company has started the tests for the same on the roads of California, now.

The little robots have been named the “Adora-bots”, which has got “Prime” imprinted over them. The robots will be roaming around the city and deliver the packages to Amazon customers.

The little delivery robots from Amazon are blue and have got six wheels. It uses batteries for power and moves at walking speed. In the past few months, the robots have been trained in a way that they get to know the maps of the city better, and for that, Amazon has used the 3D maps. It includes cameras and the ultrasonic sensors, which makes this robot capable of identifying any sort of obstacles on its way.

Adora-bots
Image Source: hindustantimes.com

The company will be randomly choosing on who gets the delivery by these new robots, depending on the size and cost of the package as well as the place where it has to be delivered. The timings for the delivery for these robots will be only in the day time, and that too, between Monday to Friday.

Also, the robots will be under the surveillance of human scouts during the delivery, which the company has named as the “Amazon Scout Ambassadors”. They will accompany the robots to get it out of any kind of trouble and will also be answering the questions of the customers during the delivery.

The company has been bringing the robotics technology to its almost every operation to automate all the processes and increase the efficiency of its employees. Earlier, Amazon had introduced a collection of sorting robots in its warehouse, and before that, it tested delivering items using drones.

Amazon started the working on the Adora-bots in January 2019, and since then it has tested a bunch of six robots in the Seattle and Washington’s Snohomish County. The company undertook the tests in the daylight and in a different type of weather conditions to check its capabilities. Soon, the company may test the robots in other parts of the country as well.

Video Credit : Amazon YouTube Channel