The newest flagship phone from Samsung, the Galaxy S24 Ultra, has made an appearance. Samsung prioritised the camera, as usual, and this model has what might be the greatest camera gear ever included in a phone. However, the S24 also boasts one of the brightest screens we’ve ever seen, a lightning-fast processor, and some quite creative AI functions.

However, the Google Pixel 8 Pro, another amazing flagship, was just released a few months ago. It also boasts a very bright display, multiple AI functions, and an excellent camera.

Both phones are the best in their class and have quite comparable specifications. Nonetheless, there isn’t much of a difference between the two to make a decision difficult. Choose the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra or Google Pixel 8 Pro based on your needs and preferences by reading on.

Details
S24 Ultra Galaxy

Pixel 8 Pro

Present

6.8 cm

6.75 inches

Processor

Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Generation 3

Tensor G3 on Google

RAM/Storage: 128GB, 256GB, 512GB, or 512GB
5, 000 mAh battery, 4, 950 mAh

200 MP primary, 50 MP telephoto, 10 MP telephoto, 12 MP ultrawide, 64 MP ultrawide, and 48 MP telephoto cameras
2,600 nits to 2,400 nits of brightness
Mass: 233 grammes / 213 grammes
Cost $1,299 $1,999
If…, you ought to purchase the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra.

1. You desire a better camera.
   Although the cameras on both phones are excellent, the S24 Ultra’s hardware is superior, particularly in terms of zoom. It boasts an amazing 200MP primary lens (as opposed to the 50MP of the Pixel 8 Pro), Nightography Zoom to improve images taken in low light, and an AI-assisted telephoto lens with a little smaller zoom than the S23’s.
2. The S Pen, which is meant to feel like a genuine pen, is a novelty that some users find rapidly tiresome, but others find it indispensable. It is an excellent tool for taking notes, signing documents, navigating your phone, controlling the camera, and drawing. It has been a Galaxy attachment for more than ten years. Furthermore, the Google Pixel 8 Pro offers nothing comparable to it if you’re used to it. While there are third-party styluses that work with the Pixel, they are not nearly as functional as the pen from Samsung.
3. You desire the more advanced processor.
4. You’re after the S Pen.
5. While the Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Gen 3 included in the S24 Ultra is among the greatest semiconductors currently available, Google’s Tensor G3 chip is undoubtedly good. Although both chips are strong, the S24 outperforms the other since they are the basis of their phone’s AI capabilities. It will not only be quicker than Google’s, but it will also use less power, which means the battery life will be prolonged. You should definitely switch to the S24 if you discover that your current phone is slowing down as a result of heavy work or running numerous apps at once.
6. If…, you ought to purchase the Google Pixel 8 Pro.
7. Your buying budget is tight.

If you’re planning to buy a flagship phone, you undoubtedly already know that the cost will be high. However, opt for the Pixel 8 Pro if you want to spend a bit less on your flagship device. The Pixel costs $999, while the S24 costs $1,299, and because the Pixel has been out for a while, there’s a greater chance that you’ll find a decent deal or offer. You will still be getting one of the greatest phones available if you choose the Pixel, and it will be more than capable of handling any task.

You desire a phone that is lighter.

Although it’s not much of a difference, some people will find it noteworthy. Larger phone screens and more camera components than ever before are being packed inside phones by manufacturers, which makes them heavier and more likely to fall. Additionally, the Pixel 8 Pro weighs somewhat less than the S24, if weight is a factor.

3. You don’t want to wait on hold and you want to stay away from spam callers.
   The call screening feature of the Pixel range is one of its most underappreciated capabilities. First off, it allows you to answer calls with Google Assistant, which queries the caller as to why they’re calling, in addition to determining whether or not a call is maybe spam.
4. You can ask another automated inquiry, pick it up, or end the call after seeing a transcript of the caller’s words.
5. The Assistant will also wait on hold, guide you through an automated menu, and notify you when you have a live person. Consider the Pixel 8 Pro if you want to deal with fewer spam calls and spend less time waiting on hold.

The post Which phone—the Google Pixel 8 Pro or the Samsung Galaxy S24 Ultra—should you purchase? appeared first on .

Police departments all throughout the UK have issued warnings about a new Android function that is causing switchboards to receive unintentional “silent” 999 calls.

When a side button is hit several times, the Emergency SOS feature dials.

Police commanders have stated that they believe it to be a contributing factor in the record-breaking 999 calls.

The company that creates the most popular Android phone software, Google, says it anticipates vendors to provide updates to fix the vulnerability.

Smartphones with Android operating systems include the OnePlus, Google Pixel, and Samsung Galaxy models.

The new Android software update “added a new SOS emergency function for devices to call 999 through the power button being pressed five times or more,” according to the National Police Chiefs Council.

“Nationally, all emergency services are currently dealing with 999 call levels that are at an all-time high. There are a few causes for this, but we believe that an update to Android cellphones is the main one.

Silent calls, according to Devon and Cornwall Police, took 20 minutes to handle. They asked customers who dialled 999 by accident to stay on the line and admit their error to the operator.

The police service reported that between 00:00 and 19:00 BST on Sunday alone, it had fielded 169 quiet 999 calls.

According to Police Scotland, BT had noted “a significant rise in 999 accident calls.”

Although the capability was added to Android 12 in 2021, numerous complaints about specific problems have been made since Android 13’s upgrade last year.

Manufacturer websites typically include instructions on how to stop the feature, and most phones allow users to disable the emergency SOS call capability in their settings.

This is normally accessed by going to settings, safety and emergency choices, and switching the Emergency SOS toggle to the “off” position, or by looking up “emergency call” there.

The issue is widespread, not only in the UK. Beginning in June, the European Emergency Number Association issued a warning after receiving information about a “surge in automatic false calls originating from Android devices” from some of its members.

According to a Google spokesman, it was up to manufacturers to control how Emergency SOS operated on their products if they decided to include it.

“Android is offering these manufacturers additional guidance and resources to help them prevent unintentional emergency calls on their devices,” they stated.

“We believe that device manufacturers will soon release updates to their customers that fix this problem. Users who face this problem should turn off Emergency SOS for the next few days.

Related Subjects :

A 13-run inning for the Angels was started by B2B2B HRs — on 3 pitches!

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If someone dials 999 by accident, police advise against hanging up.

Since every quiet emergency call is followed up on, the forces advise people to stay on the line and let the operator know the call was placed accidentally.

In Dorset, police said that compared to the same period last year, the number of unintentional 999 calls has increased significantly in recent weeks.

An update to Android cellphones is suspected to be partially responsible for the dramatic increase in 999 calls.

Police departments have advised individuals to verify their phone’s settings after adding a new SOS emergency function using the power button.

The average time to resolve a mistaken 999 call is 20 minutes.

Staff members phone back to see if the caller needs assistance after searching police computer systems for any prior encounters the caller may have had.

One out of every five calls to Dorset Police’s 999 service each month were unintentional, according to Supt. Pete Browning, head of contact management.

“Our control room staff dealt with accidental calls for more than 1,000 hours in May, or 33 hours per day, when they could have been assisting crime victims.”

Thames Valley Police and Hampshire and Isle of Wight Constabulary reported that their call-handlers had also noticed an increase in calls in recent weeks.

Following the Android update, the police said that BT was reporting a marked increase in unintentional calls to the 999/112 service.

All suspected misdials that BT cannot investigate are forwarded to the appropriate police force.

The post Accidental 999 callers are urged by police to not hang up appeared first on .

The BBC has been informed by cybercriminals that they do not own any information from significant UK firms that are rumoured to have been hacked in bulk.

Businesses like the BBC, British Airways, and Boots have informed personnel that private payroll information was stolen in the incident last month.

However, the hackers Clop now assert that “we don’t have that data” in an email.

It makes it more likely that either Clop is lying or that another unidentified hacker group has the stolen material.

In order to access the data of the BBC, Boots, and BA, hackers broke into Zellis, a UK payroll provider. Zellis stated it couldn’t comment since a police investigation was continuing.

To coerce the victims of its attack into paying a ransom, Clop has been publishing firm profiles of them since June 14th.

However, the names of any of the biggest and most well-known victims in the UK have not yet been revealed.

Nearly 50 victims’ names, websites, and business addresses have all been added by Clop in small batches to their darknet domain.

The organisations come from more than a dozen nations, including the US, Germany, Switzerland, the UK, Canada, and Belgium. They include banks, universities, travel agencies, and software companies.

Several of the businesses that Clop identified on their alleged “leak site” have independently acknowledged that they had experienced data theft.

If victims don’t pay the ransom, which is most likely to be in the hundreds of thousands of dollars or more in Bitcoin, Clop will expose the stolen data.

We don’t have that information,
Numerous firms that employed the file transfer programme MOVEit are believed to have had their data stolen.

This includes eight significant UK companies, including the BBC, BA, and Boots, which were clients of Zellis, which was also compromised by MOVEit.

However, in an email conversation with the BBC, the cybercriminals continually denied stealing the Zellis data.

“We don’t have that information, and we let Zellis know. Simply put, we lack it. We are a seasoned squad and have never misled anyone; if we state that we are missing information, we are missing it, the hackers argued.

We were given no further information from Zellis other than a reference to its prior statement, which read: “We can confirm that a small number of our customers have been impacted by this global issue and we are actively working to support them.”

The business claims that as soon as it learned about the intrusion, it acted right away to disconnect the computer server hosting the MOVEit software.

The company claims it has contacted the appropriate UK data authorities and has hired an expert outside security team to assist it in responding to the incident.

There are numerous options
Clop’s assertions, which further muddy an already complex scenario, perplex cyber security specialists.

Clop might be concealing the fact that they got the data as part of a selling transaction with another hacking gang, according to threat researcher Brett Callow from Emsisoft.

However, according to Clop, “we didn’t sell anything to other hackers.”

There are other options, according to other professionals.

Amir Hadipasi, the director of SOS Intelligence, stated that “Clop has no real reason to say they don’t have the data.”

“If they are telling the truth, it leads me to believe that some other hackers may have entered and stolen the data before Clop, and if Clop don’t have the data, then this situation is less predictable,” said the source. Another hacking organisation will likely use the files to end up somewhere on the darkweb, he continued.

The MOVEit creators, Progress Software, originally disclosed the exploit on May 31.

The thieves managed to break into MOVEit and used that access to gain access to the databases of perhaps hundreds of additional businesses.

However, since the first MOVEit disclosure, researchers have discovered many security flaws in the programme, raising the possibility that the data was taken by a different entity via a different method.

For “information linking the Clop gang or any other malicious cyber actors targeting US critical infrastructure to a foreign government,” the US offered a $10 million bounty on Friday.

Related Post :

Users of the Virgin Media email service experience frequent failure

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Virgin Media has apologised to its email subscribers after persistent issues prevented some users from accessing their inboxes or sending messages.

36 hours after the initial reports of problems, several customers were still posting complaints on social media.

Virgin Media email is no longer offered to new clients, but many current users still use it for business purposes.

The business stated that regaining access was a top priority.

Virgin Media issued a second apology to people who have been having problems with their email services.

Monday morning was when issues were initially detected, and they persisted throughout Tuesday. Since Tuesday at 8:00 BST, there have been over 800 reports continuously posted to the website Downdetector.

According to the broadband news website ISPreview.co.uk, Virgin Media Mail manages a number of email domains, including @virginmedia.com, @ntlworld.com, @blueyonder.co.uk, and @virgin.net.

A Cambridgeshire user who contacted the BBC but asked to remain anonymous claimed to have lost access to her emails. Her loss of email access was “a complete and utter nightmare” after the recent passing of her husband.

“It has been incredibly unpleasant and frustrating. My lifeline is email. I’ve been exchanging emails with him over the past few months because I’m the executor of his will.

But it’s also the people who have been in touch with me about him and their recollections of him from all over the world, and that has been significant to me as well.

She called it “nerve wracking” to have to wait to get access to her emails again.

According to Mike Brennan from Preston, he had gone “very much two days without it. I’ll say it’s frustrating, then.

To be fair, you do pay a lot for the service, and since you depend on it so much, it can be challenging to work around when you can’t access services or other things or contact people to complain about it.

Virgin Media claimed that its “teams have been able to fully restore most email services” in an email to select subscribers that was made public on Tuesday by ISPreview.co.uk.

However, it states that emails “received on or before 19 June will not be appearing in your inbox, sent items, or any other folders” for some clients.

These emails will be restored and would be in “safe and secure” hands, it stated.

The post Users of the Virgin Media email service experience frequent failure appeared first on .

Grayson Kay

• Careem CEO Mudassir Sheikha stated he didn’t want to hire people who were only concerned with money or working hours.
• The CEO’s LinkedIn article was criticised by some Blind employees as “tone-deaf” and “cringe.”
• According to a Careem spokesman, the company offers competitive remuneration.

After a startup CEO produced a list of qualities he didn’t want in new hiring, including personnel who prioritised income and those who wanted to ‘clock in and clock out’ of work, tech workers rushed to the employee forum Blind to criticise him.

Careem CEO Mudassir Sheikha wrote on LinkedIn, “While I can give you hundreds of reasons to join Careem, like the opportunities you’ll have to learn and grow, create impact, or work in a hybrid setting, let me instead share with you the reasons not to join Careem.” He added that employees shouldn’t work for the company if “your top priority is cash compensation.”

He wrote in the post, “While you’ll receive competitive income at Careem, there are many easier locations to earn a paycheck. “At Careem, our coworkers place the greatest emphasis on making an impact and achieving our purpose.”

Sheikha went on to say that working with Careem wouldn’t be a “comfortable 9 to 5” job and that anybody expecting for “structure and certainty” or a “fancy corner office” should steer clear of the business altogether.

“Colleagues at Careem don’t clock in and clock out, they see things through the finish line like owners,” he said in a post that drew over 220 comments on LinkedIn, many of which seemed to disagree with the CEO’s assertion.

The message was described as “tone-deaf” and “cringe” by an anonymous Roblox employee on Blind, a platform that confirms an employee’s place of employment by requesting a workplace email address. The discussion had close to 650 responses. The employment of the US referenced in this story was not independently verified by Insider.

Why Silicon Valley was duped by a $9 billion startupTo return to the default view, scroll back up.

Grayson Kay

Apparently, a company CEO doesn’t want to employ people who just want to “clock in and out.”
Apparently, a company CEO doesn’t want to employ people who just want to “clock in and out.”Careem CEO Getty Mudassir Sheikha stated he didn’t want to hire anyone who were only concerned with money or working hours.

The CEO’s LinkedIn article was criticised by some Blind employees as “tone-deaf” and “cringe.”

According to a Careem spokesman, the company offers competitive remuneration.

After a startup CEO produced a list of qualities he didn’t want in new hiring, including personnel who prioritised income and those who wanted to ‘clock in and clock out’ of work, tech workers rushed to the employee forum Blind to criticise him.

Careem CEO Mudassir Sheikha wrote on LinkedIn, “While I can give you hundreds of reasons to join Careem, like the opportunities you’ll have to learn and grow, create impact, or work in a hybrid setting, let me instead share with you the reasons not to join Careem.” He added that employees shouldn’t work for the company if “your top priority is cash compensation.”

He wrote in the post, “While you’ll receive competitive income at Careem, there are many easier locations to earn a paycheck. “At Careem, our coworkers place the greatest emphasis on making an impact and achieving our purpose.”

Sheikha went on to say that working with Careem wouldn’t be a “comfortable 9 to 5” job and that anybody expecting for “structure and certainty” or a “fancy corner office” should steer clear of the business altogether.

“Colleagues at Careem don’t clock in and clock out, they see things through the finish line like owners,” he said in a post that drew over 220 comments on LinkedIn, many of which seemed to disagree with the CEO’s assertion.

The message was described as “tone-deaf” and “cringe” by an anonymous Roblox employee on Blind, a platform that confirms an employee’s place of employment by requesting a workplace email address. The discussion had close to 650 responses. Insider did not independently confirm the users’ job in this report.

The Roblox employee stated, “In other words, we’ll pay you peanuts, put you in a small space with few amenities, give you no training, work you until you burn out and quit so the execs and owners can get a fat payout on the back of your labour.” Why would you join a place like this, unless you were in a dire situation?

“Ok, let me get this straight- you want the world’s‘most talented’ and ‘purpose driven’ employees, but you don’t think compensation should be a priority for them,” one employee who listed Microsoft in her LinkedIn profile wrote in a response that received 90 likes. You believe that the best people in the world should be motivated by your “mission” to the point where they will work for little pay, despite the fact that this is a for-profit business and the “mission” is to increase profits.

Some of the comments on Blind and LinkedIn were more encouraging than others, and a Careem employee on Blind stated that they are not obliged to work “crazy hours” and that compensation at the company is “ok.” Many commenters on Blind and LinkedIn objected to the post.

On LinkedIn, executive coach Binod Shankar described the position as “fab and rare.”

The post Millennials criticise startups CEO who claimed he didn’t want to hire employees who were only concerned with money or wanted to ‘clock in and out’ appeared first on .

Reddit CEO Steve Huffman stated in an interview with blogtweets News that a user protest taking place on the site this week is being led by a small group of moderators and does not have widespread backing.

The prominent website’s influential website has been largely inaccessible this week due to a user-led protest, which Reddit CEO Steve Huffman said he wants to put an end to on Thursday. In an interview, Huffman said he intended to amend the rules so that Reddit users could vote off the moderators who had been in charge of the protest, likening them to a “landed gentry.”

Starting on Monday, the protest forced the removal of thousands of message boards, or subreddits, and some groups claim they will keep doing so indefinitely. Reddit’s volunteer, unpaid moderators, who have extensive authority over how their subreddits are managed, have taken the initiative. Communities that participated became “private,” making them invisible to members as well. The protesters’ actions have slowed down a large portion of the website because they oppose changes that would most likely prevent them from accessing Reddit through third-party apps.

Huffman, who is also a co-founder of Reddit, stated that he intends to explore modifications to Reddit’s moderator removal rules so that common users can more easily vote moderators out if their judgements are unpopular. The new method, according to him, would be more democratic and give a larger range of individuals the ability to hold moderators accountable.

According to Reddit’s current policy, moderators may be fired for inactivity or breaking the site’s rules by higher-ranking moderators or Reddit itself. They may also take themselves out. Many people have been in their jobs for many years.

“Whether you own a business or are a politician, you have a responsibility to your customers. In other words, a business owner can be fired by its shareholders but a politician must be elected.

The analogy on Reddit, in my opinion, is more akin to the landed gentry: It is not democratic for the first to arrive to keep what they have and pass it on to their offspring.

The great degree of power that moderators have over their communities, according to them, is well justified given the hours of unpaid work they’ve put into creating and enforcing rules on their subreddits. Any strategy to lessen their influence risks creating new opposition.

The protest’s leaders may have had widespread support when it began on Monday, but Huffman, who helped launch Reddit 18 years ago this month, thinks they have lost most of it since.

Even while the protest’s leaders initially enjoyed widespread support, they have since lost the majority of it.

Making sure that, for instance, the protests, today or in the future, are truly representative of their communities is one thing that is “really important,” he said. And while I believe that may have been the case for many at the start of this week, it is becoming less and less so.

He claimed that after what was meant to be a two-day content strike on Monday and Tuesday, around 80% of Reddit’s top 5,000 communities are again operational. However, some of the largest subreddits’ moderators have prolonged their protests by remaining inaccessible in “private” mode, including the most popular one, r/funny.

In a statement this week headlined cblackout organisers explained their extension and stated that “our core concerns still aren’t satisfied.” Internal memos suggest that Reddit believes they can wait us out because they haven’t said anything since the protest started.

According to Huffman, the members should actually vote on those decisions.

More democracy is what I’m advocating as a way forward, he remarked. We need to sort of work our way out of these old, legacy decisions about how communities are administered.

He said other subreddits might halt their protests willingly first and provided no deadline for any adjustments. We’re letting that unfold because, in his words, “I think most will get there through their own natural decision-making process.”

Huffman stated he wasn’t thinking about making changes that would consolidate authority within Reddit as a business, such having Reddit’s paid personnel handle additional moderating responsibilities.

The uprising this week is a reaction to one of Reddit’s commercial strategies. Reddit has long been one of the most well-liked websites on the internet, with devoted members and a significant influence on web culture, but it hasn’t generated anywhere like the revenue of businesses that would typically be considered its tech counterparts, like Instagram and YouTube.

Reddit’s annual income is less than $1 billion, according to an interview with Huffman on Thursday. Huffman has claimed that Reddit is not profitable. Facebook and Instagram’s owner, Meta, recorded $116.6 billion in revenue for the previous year.

Reddit intends to start charging other companies more money for access to its application programming interface, or API, the software that enables apps to communicate with one another, in order to increase income and decrease expenses.

This would likely put an end to third-party apps like Apollo and RIF, formerly known as Reddit Is Fun, which some users use to access and post on Reddit. These rival apps frequently lack advertisements.

Huffman claimed he has no pity for the rival apps who seek to access Reddit’s content without running advertising, which are the main revenue generator for the website.

“Running an app like Reddit is expensive. We fund it via advertisements. And we can’t support other people’s businesses so that we can offer a competitive app for free, he added.

He refrained from making any predictions about the timing of a future IPO (initial public offering of stock).

“One day, when the market and the business are ready, I want to arrive there. We’ll arrive when we arrive, he said.

Users of Reddit who oppose changes to the site are unrealistic, in his opinion.

Looking back on Reddit from 18 years ago, it was primarily made up of American techno-libertarians in their 20s who were 98% men. Because I was one of them, I can say that,” Huffman said.

However, Huffman stated that he would prefer some sort of revenue-sharing.

He remarked, “I would like subreddits to be able to be businesses if they choose,” and that was “another conversation, but I think that’s the next frontier of Reddit.”

While Huffman claimed that his choices about the protest and the API changes were made with the company’s financial health in mind, losing the support of Reddit’s moderators might have a price.

Three computer scientists’ research from last year found that volunteer Reddit moderators put in at least 466 hours every day. The study found that if they were paid $20 per hour, the cost would be $3.4 million, or 3% of Reddit’s 2019 revenue.

Last year, 58% of content that broke Reddit’s rules was deleted by the site’s volunteer moderators, or “mods,” according to the business. 39% of the content was deleted by Reddit staff members, or “admins,” and the remaining was deleted by authors.

Occasionally, the removal of moderators generates news stories. A moderator of r/antiwork was fired last year for what some viewed as a tone-deaf interview with Fox News. Moderators fought for control of the r/wallstreetbets subreddit, which had sparked a string of Wall Street trading frenzys, partly due to the prospect of a movie deal.

The post Reddit’s CEO criticises protest leaders and vows to reform the “landed gentry”-favoring policies appeared first on .

CEO of the business that created ChatGPT, OpenAI, Sam Altman, suggested that the U.S. “might consider a combination of licensing and testing requirements for development and release of AI models above a threshold of capabilities.”

The CEO of one of the biggest AI companies in the nation testified before a Senate committee on Tuesday that the government should force businesses to obtain licenses before they can create powerful artificial intelligence systems.

Sam Altman, the CEO of OpenAI, which created ChatGPT, spoke before Congress for the first time and indicated that the United States “might consider a combination of licensing and testing requirements for development and release of AI models above a threshold of capabilities.”

Altman was a witness in a hearing by the U.S. Senate Committee on the Judiciary to explore governance of AI, along with Christina Montgomery, chief privacy and trust officer of IBM, and Gary Marcus, professor emeritus of psychology and neural science at New York University.

Many leading academics and engineers have called for the industry to suspend some development in response to the quick development of AI systems like ChatGPT and have asked for government action if that doesn’t happen.

However, there is no agreement on what broad regulations should entail, and Congress and federal agencies have had difficulty determining their respective responsibilities. A presentation Altman made to around 60 congressmen the day before his testimony left several of them speechless.

Artificial intelligence models could be obliged to divulge the data they were trained on, according to Sen. Richard Blumenthal of Connecticut.

Should we consider having score cards and nutrition labels—or the equivalent—provided by independent testing labs? packaging that makes it clear to consumers whether the content is trustworthy and what the components are? said Blumenthal.

Altman accepted the notion favorably.

Sen. Josh Hawley, R-Mo., stated that people might use AI as a reliable source of knowledge. In response, Altman reiterated his belief that the government should be involved in regulating this technology.

Altman stated, “I do believe some regulation would be fairly prudent on this matter. People must be aware of whether they are speaking to an AI and whether the stuff they are viewing is generated or not.

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Microsoft is utilizing Fluent Design concepts to significantly alter Visual Studio’s design.

Due to its cross-platform programming features and strong Microsoft support, Visual Studio is one of the most widely used integrated development environments (IDE) in the world. The software is frequently updated by the Redmond tech company with new features, the most recent of which include native support for Windows Arm devices and an accessibility checker. It is now working to enhance the IDE’s user interface and is seeking some early client feedback.

Fluent Design ideas have lately been used throughout all of Microsoft’s key products, and Visual Studio is no exception. The firm claims that the IDE’s visual language has mostly remained the same since Visual Studio 2012, yet user feedback shows that there are several UI inconsistencies, visual noise issues, and navigational issues. As a result, it’s time to apply Fluent Design concepts to improve Visual Studio’s user interface.

Cohesiveness, accessibility, and productivity are the three main focuses of the technological behemoth’s UI upgrades. Microsoft aspires to provide a new user interface that smoothly integrates with other products and the OS. In order to lessen cognitive load and mental fatigue, it also wants to provide a consistent interface and increase the IDE’s accessibility to a larger community. For those who are not aware, this statistic determines the “mental processing power” required by a user to locate UI components and successfully complete specified actions.

Microsoft is making a number of adjustments to reduce cognitive stress. To prevent developers from inadvertently clicking on the incorrect control while still having enough of room in their coding environment, they involve adopting lighter-weight control styling and alterations to their respective target sizes. To reduce unnecessary visual noise, other UI changes include maintaining uniformity across colors, space, alignment, and menu design.

Microsoft hasn’t yet specified a timeframe for when all of these UI upgrades will be made accessible to Visual Studio-using developers. The developer community ticket is specifically designated for user feedback, and there you may compare the current design and the suggested improvements.

The post Microsoft is updating the Visual Studio UI, and they want your input appeared first on .

After Elon Musk eliminated the staff that fought these networks, the blogtweet has discovered that hundreds of state propaganda accounts from China and Russia are flourishing on Twitter.

The team attempted to counter “information operations,” planned initiatives by nations like Iran, China, and Russia intended to sway public opinion and undermine democracy.

However, according to analysts and former workers, the majority of these expertise quit or were fired, leaving the platform open to manipulation from abroad. Many of them have been interviewed by the BBC. Invoking non-disclosure agreements and threats they had received online, they requested anonymity.

“The whole human population has been eliminated. All that’s left of Twitter are automatic detection systems, according to a former top employee.

Musk asserted there was “less misinformation [on Twitter] rather than more” during his leadership in a BBC interview on Tuesday. He made no remarks about the platform’s active state troll farms or the staff that used to combat them.

We contacted Twitter for comment, but all we got in return was a poo emoji, which is how the company always responds to press inquiries.

A “troll farm”

Troll farms are organised groups of people who post coordinated messages. The phrase was initially used by Russian journalists who uncovered one of Yevgeny Prigozhin, the leader of the Wagner mercenary group, 300 or more paid employees.

Since then, troll farms swaying elections and public opinion have been exposed in a number of nations, from Brazil and Mexico to Poland and Turkey. Additionally, they have been employed in wars and ethnic conflicts as a propaganda tool.

Currently, there is a fresh batch of Russian trolls on Twitter.

It defends Putin’s aggression towards Ukraine, mocks Kiev and the West, and disparages independent Russian-language media, such as the blogtweet Russian Service. Despite dozens of these trolls’ accounts being inactive, many of them have been suspended.

The network seems to have its roots in Prigozhin’s troll factory, according to Darren Linvill, an associate professor at the Clemson University Media Forensics Hub in South Carolina.

Two further comparable Russian-language troll networks, although from the opposing side, have also been found by Mr. Linvill and his colleagues. Another tweets in favour of the Russian opposition, including imprisoned Putin critic Alexey Navalny, while one tweets in favour of Ukraine.

These networks appear to go unnoticed by the platform despite having all the telltale signs of troll accounts, such as random digits in the Twitter handles and coordinated behaviour.

Pro-Chinese accounts that speak to users in both Chinese and English about topics that are significant to the Chinese government are also being monitored by the Clemson University team.

Former employees claim that because Twitter just has a skeleton staff left, it lacks the tools necessary to quickly identify, credit, and remove this foreign misinformation.

Although the company also formed alliances with research organisations that tracked down information operations, experts claim Twitter has been silent since November.

beyond its weight in battle

On social media, experts have long expressed concern about the risks of foreign influence.

The FBI claimed in 2018 that false accounts pretending to be real Americans were essential in Russia’s attempt to influence the 2016 election. Facebook and Twitter then began to employ “information operations” specialists.

Yoel Roth, the former head of Twitter’s Trust and Safety, explains, “I vividly remember the indignation I felt when I saw accounts with names like “Pamela Moore” and “Crystal Johnson” posing as real Americans from Wisconsin and New York but with phone numbers tracking back to St Petersburg, Russia.

Facebook’s reach and resources are much greater than those of Twitter. But over time, it developed a small but competent crew. According to Lee Foster, a freelance information operations expert, Twitter “nonetheless punched above its weight” despite not having the resources of its rival social network.

In addition to hiring employees who spoke a variety of languages, including Russian, Farsi, Mandarin, Cantonese, Spanish, and Portuguese, Twitter also hired people with backgrounds in journalism, government organisations, and NGOs.

According to a former detective, “We needed people who would be able to understand: if Russia is likely to be the responsible actor behind this, what is its motivation to do this particular operation?”

He claims he left because Musk’s ‘Twitter 2.0’ did not work for his team.

“Our job was to make Twitter use as safe as we could. And it didn’t seem like that would remain a top concern.

global anti-propaganda efforts

The team collaborated closely with the ones dispelling rumours, but they worked independently. This is so that state-run campaigns can spread their messages using both false information and real-world accounts.

In 2016, Russian trolls used actual video of police brutality to target black voters in the US. And in 2022, a concerted network spread unfavorable—though occasionally true—information about the French military and UN activities in Africa’s Sahel region.

Twitter deactivated both networks.

In order to share information, Twitter personnel got together with their colleagues from Meta and other organisations since comparable information operations were being carried out on various platforms.

The investigators from Twitter would, however, be made aware of how small their operation was at such encounters. An investigator claims, “Their team would be ten times the size of ours.”

Even those resources are now insufficient.

According to Linvill of Clemson University, Twitter “will gradually become more and more unsafe” without the crew devoted to combating coordinated efforts.

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