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Facebook is about to rollout a version of Messenger aimed specifically at kids, known as Messenger Kids. The emphasis is on safety, with all contacts having to be approved by parents. The app will be iOS-only when it launches in the next few days, with an Android version to follow later in the month … Engadget reports that the app is designed to overcome a couple of issues. First, the fact that many messaging apps require a phone number, which young kids don’t have....

Fantastic Beasts 3 will happen, but fans of the Wizarding World will have to wait longer than expected to reunite with Newt Scamander and company – and it’s all for the best. The Wizarding World that fans came to know thanks to Harry Potter continues to expand with the Fantastic Beasts series, which is set decades before the events in Harry Potter and provides some backstory on characters like Albus Dumbledore, Gellert Grindelwald, and the magizoologist Newt Scamander....

Typical scene outside an Apple Store that hosts a high-profile product launch On May 19, 2001 Steve Jobs took a cherry-picked entourage of journalists on a tour of the company’s first brick-and-mortar retail outlet located in the second level of Tysons Corner Center in Virginia. “Literally half the store is devoted to solutions. Because people don’t just want to buy personal computers any more. They want to know what they can do with them,” he later explained in promo footage shown to the gathering of devotees at the Macworld Expo 2001 conference....

It wouldn’t take much for me to be okay with Twitter’s official app — the place where it clearly wants users. I don’t mind seeing ads, especially if they help the service keep running, and the iOS app has modern features like 3D Touch, Split View, and even dark mode. Timeline streaming is what keeps me in third-party apps like Tweetbot though. It’s a feature I consider crucial to how the service works…...

Here is how Facebook explains the data breach in its announcement on Friday: The company has since fixed the breach, however, and photos are no longer exposed. “We have fixed the issue but, because of this bug, some third-party apps may have had access to a broader set of photos than usual for 12 days between September 13 to September 25, 2018,” explains Facebook exec Tomer Bar. Facebook continues to say in the announcement: “We’re sorry this happened....

It was perhaps unimaginable just a few years ago, but live streaming has become particularly popular thanks to apps like Meerkat and, most notoriously, Twitter-acquired Periscope. Not to be left out, Facebook joined the race last summer — albeit initially only for public figures via the dedicated Mentions app — and then pushed beyond earlier this year with the open introduction of “Facebook Live” in the US, a feature within the mobile app that allows anyone to live stream to their friends....

Facebook has today announced it is rolling out a new feature for users that will let friends send money to each other, through its Facebook Messenger app. Like similar services, a simple tap allows users to send a cash amount to their recipient in a single step. Users must first associate a Visa or MasterCard debit card to their Facebook accounts. Then, a ‘$’ symbol appears in the Facebook Messenger user interface alongside the chatbox....

According to reports, original plans were to release the Portal device during the annual F8 developer conference that was held in May but, the scandals maneuvering over their heads that includes the Russia bombshell revelation and the Cambridge Analytica data breach that was used to effect the 2016 elections, have no option but to shelve the device till the clouds blow away. Though, the social media behemoth has yet to comment on this still inside reports claim the large device will cost around $400 and the small one around $300....

A long-running Apple Support Communities thread with 257 posts complaining of audio issues when using a pre-Bluetooth LE Mac on Yosemite reports that the issue is still present in OS X 10.10.3 and 10.10.4 Beta . The issue reportedly affects a number of machines up to and including late-2011 Macs. Various fixes suggested in the thread seem to work temporarily for some, including a restart and resetting PRAM, but the issue returns....

Dan Lyons, who started the Fake Steve Jobs Blog as his anonymous pet project a few years ago, says he is no longer posting as Fake Steve. Like a lot of us in the tech community, Lyons is feeling awful about the situation with Jobs’ illness. I’ve enjoyed the Fake Steve Blog for years but it has languished over the last few months. Lyons hasn’t been keeping the blog very current lately so it isn’t much of a surprise that he is stepping down....

In this day and age, there’s no better way to hype up a film’s release than creating hundreds of memes in the build-up to the movie’s release. In the case of Fast & Furious 9 - officially known as F9 - we have the meme-making department all set. Oddly enough, even though the series is supposed to be geared toward action, it is a comedy that makes one want to see these films....

Despite a captivating performance by Zac Efron, Extremely Wicked is hamstrung by its lack of focus and fails to offer a fresh perspective on Bundy. Given Netflix’s success with true crime projects in the past (like Making a Murderer), it came as little surprise when the streaming giant acquired the Ted Bundy docudrama, Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile, following its world premiere at the 2019 Sundance Film Festival. It’s actually the second Bundy-related production they’ve unveiled this year after Conversations with a Killer: The Ted Bundy Tapes, and hales from the series’ director-creator Joe Berlinger, no less....

In a move designed to counter misinformation during the 2020 presidential election campaign, Facebook bans deepfakes: extremely convincing fake videos created using AI techniques. Deepfakes use machine learning to analyze the way someone’s face moves as they voice different sounds. AI can then create fake video that mimics the movements needed for any word. This can then be combined with either chopped-up sound clips of the real person, or an impressionist, to create entire fake speeches that are hard to tell from real video footage…...

A Facebook iOS gaming app has been forced to launch without access to any games, thanks to an App Store policy which bans streaming gaming services. Facebook Gaming on Android allows users to play games, as well as watch the gameplay of popular streamers – but iOS users cannot play games … Facebook told The Verge that earlier versions of the apps which allowed gameplay were rejected ‘multiple times’ by Apple, and the app was only approved when all games were removed....

Facebook is today introducing an Events app that will give you a standalone experience for keeping track of all your Facebook events separate from its main app. The app will let you view and stay on top of all your events from friends and Pages you like on Facebook, and give you notifications on upcoming and nearby events you and others are planning: The app has a built-in calendar view that lets you see your iPhone’s calendars from within the app, and from there you can add new events or create a new Facebook event:...

Facebook is shifting its focus when it comes to winning back the youth. According to a report from Recode today, Facebook has restructured its “youth team” of more than 100 employees and is abandoning plans for a meme app titled “LOL.” The report explains that Facebook informed its “youth team” last week that focus is shifting to Messenger Kids. For those unfamiliar, Messenger Kids is Facebook’s messaging platform for children under 13....

Facebook’s New Product Experimentation (NPE) Team has released its newest app today for iOS. Named “Tuned” the app is aimed at offering “space where you and your significant other can just be yourselves.” To help Tuned stand out from other messaging options, including the company’s own Facebook Messenger and WhatsApp, the NPE Team highlights the ability to “build a digital scrapbook” and use other features like sharing your mood and “exchanging” music with Spotify integration (via The Information)....

Facebook isn’t fantastic at hiding secret stuff in their Apps. Just last month, its iPad ambitions were outed by some folks rummaging around in the App. Today, Facebook released their Messenger app and seconds later, we see that there is a video component to the application: The video component would seem to work on both Android (yep) and iPhone and would likely tie in with their recently announced Skype desktop video conferencing service as well....

While the Memorial has at least indicated to many viewers to take much of the series with a grain of salt, it may not be clear to everyone what aspects of the program are actually true to life and which were completely made up to aid the fictional plot. Fact - Operation Paperclip Agent Morris, of the FBI, stumbles upon a secret government program to bring high ranking Nazis (particularly those who are engineers and scientists) to the United States at the end of World War II....

Factorio is a management and construction type of simulation game. You can build and maintain factories in it. You will be mining resources, along with researching technologies, building infrastructure, and other manufacturing and production processes. Players need to know that blueprints are a vital part of this game. Blueprints are items that contain layouts. Unfortunately, many players don’t know how to use these blueprints. These are essential to save time and effort in building factories....