Just after the ban, Bytedance pulled out its apps, TikTok and Helo, from both stores and stopped these services to comply with the government’s order. — TikTok India (@TikTok_IN) June 30, 2020 While Bytedance voluntarily pulled its apps, the latest removal of apps seems to have come from Google and Apple. We’ve asked these companies for more details, and we’ll update the story if we hear back. Google said in a statement that the company hast temporarily blocked access: Out of the list of 59 banned apps, we searched for at least 20 apps on both App Store and Play Store, and found them missing....

The feature, dubbed assignable reminders, simply requires you to say something like “Hey Google, remind Cornelius to grab some croissants tomorrow morning.” Cornelius will receive a notification throughout his assistant devices both when the reminder is created and at the time denoted. Google can also set reminders to go off when Cornelius arrives at a particular location. And if you can’t remember which reminders you’ve assigned, you can ask Google to read those back to you as well....

Most importantly, the beta version of Chrome 76, which was officially released a day ago, makes a subtle tweak that may not be welcomed by publishers like The New York Times, The Boston Globe, and others that rely on subscriptions and paywalls. Currently, they prevent you from viewing articles in Incognito Mode (or Private Browsing in Safari and Firefox) to get around free article limits. This is because Incognito Mode temporarily blocks a site’s ability to read or write cookies on your device, making it impossible for a publisher to know if you are a paying subscriber or if you have passed your monthly quota of free articles....

The internet giant has announced a crack down on political ads that limits advertisers from targeting ads based on voters’ political leanings or public voter records. Outlining its new approach to microtargeting of election ads, the company said it’s limiting ad targeting to voters based on age, gender, and general location at the zip code level. While ads based on an individual’s specific location or those with false claims will no longer be allowed, contextual targeting — i....

The watchdog began the investigation in April 2019, and found the Big G guilty of using its position to gain an unfair advantage in areas like search, music (YouTube), browser (Chrome), and app library (Play Store). The investigation notes that Google holds a strong market share of 98% in the Indian market. Data from the analytics site Statista suggest that Android has 95% market share. It just goes to prove how little room other operating systems have in India....

In a tweet, a spokesperson confirmed the company is “rolling out dark mode for Gmail in the latest update.” The spokesperson added that users with Android 10 and iOS 11 (and newer versions) should see an option to enable it in settings “soon.” “Currently dark mode options are only available for Android 10+ and iOS 11+,” the spokesperson said in a follow-up tweet. “If these OS versions are available for your device we recommend updating in order to use dark mode....

The feature’s been making writing suggestions as you type for a couple of years now, but never before in messaging apps. Google initially launched it for Gmail, where it now recommends closing messages, like “Have a great weekend!” or “Please leave me alone, you’re scaring me.” Well, maybe not the latter — but it should do. It was later added to Google Docs for G Suite, and it now seems like it’s coming to messaging services too....

“OKAY Google, what’s the weather like?” “YO GOOGLE ARE YOU LISTENING?” If you’ve ever had a similarly one-sided conversation with the Google Assistant, you might appreciate an upcoming update. In a blog post detailing privacy changes to the Assistant (more on this in a bit), Google announced it plans to add an option to let you adjust the Assistant’s sensitivity to your voice: And that’s about all the company says....

According to researchers, the apps are accessing one-time passwords (OTPs) and SMS-based two-factor authentication (2FA), was well as some email-based 2FA systems. By impersonating the cryptocurrency exchange, the apps are able to phish for users’ login credentials. Instead of intercepting SMS messages to bypass 2FA protection on users’ accounts and activity, the malicious apps take the OTP from notifications appearing on the comprised device’s display. Worryingly, besides being able to read the 2FA notifications, the apps are also to dismiss them, meaning victims are unable to notice the fraudulent transaction taking place....

The company has now said its new requirements for Minimum Permission and updated User Data policy will be enforced starting October 15, 2019 — in other words, Chrome will no longer support sketchy extensions that gather data on your browsing activity. Back in May, the internet giant had annouced it would begin cracking down on Chrome extensions that abuse your personal information. To that effect, it had urged all developers to post privacy policies and rework their Chrome extensions to request only minimum permissions without compromising their functionality....

So to drive you to start looking for the opportunities that are already present at your own startup, I’d like to give you a full rundown of a recent growth hacking process my team did. Now let’s start by setting the scene the almost all of us are familiar with: Back in the days where traditional software engineering models were popular — before agile became the ruling and dominant mindset that almost every company shares — the relationship between a developer and a client was one where the client would give the developer a bunch of requirements (negotiated at the start), and the developer dutifully carried them out one by one....

Here’s the good news: there is a Wizarding World after all. Hogwarts, hippogriffs, flying broomsticks, the Ministry of Magic, it’s all real! A most whimsical, freeing, empowering, and inspiring reality exists for wizards and witches, and it’s closely within reach, accessible with a flick of the wand. For many who grew up with the Harry Potter fantasy, this is a dream come true. However, there’s also bad news: you’re a muggle, and this wizarding reality was only built for those with magical inclinations....

Apple’s CEO Tim Cook said in an interview with French outlet Les Echos: “No. I really think that a currency should stay in the hands of countries. I’m not comfortable with the idea of a private group setting up a competing currency.” “A private company shouldn’t be looking to gain power this way,” he added. Last month, VP Jennifer Bailey also said Apple thought cryptocurrency had “interesting long-term potential.” Some outlets are reporting that Cook’s outburst means Apple won’t ever launch a cryptocurrency, but I don’t think it’s so clear cut yet....

In this tutorial, we will build a simple bot that sends random dad jokes to a community at a users request. Using Node.js and discord.js module, we can create, develop, and deploy this Discord bot in less than 60 minutes. Before we begin… We’ve listed all the things you need to set up before getting started with the tutorial: Install Node.js onto your machine. Create an account on Discord. You can either download the desktop app or access it using your browser....

Yes, a Financial Times report showed that although Huawei’s P40 phone has less American parts than its predecessor, the P30, there are still a few US components in there. But this is all a bit more complex than first impressions suggest. [Read: Huawei P40 Pro first impressions: Superb hardware let down by shoddy software] Although the Huawei P40 has US components, there’s a chance that this is completely legal and falls under the conditions of the ban....

Intention-action gap Sustainability without transparency is meaningless. 76% of Millennials say that they’ll research the authenticity of a company that claims to support an environmental or social issue, and 94% say they’re likely to be loyal to a brand that offers complete transparency. Yet out of the many consumers who say they want to buy greener products, only a fraction of them actually do. This paradox is what researchers call the “intention-action gap,” and that gap is often populated by ideas that greener products are less convenient, more expensive, and less functional....

It was hard to imagine taking a less hands-on approach, or delegating important decisions to others — but as the company grew I learned, as every boss must, that sharing power was the only way to succeed. It’s the same, in many ways, when it comes to innovation. Early on, it’s tempting to do everything internally: if your product needs a new widget, you set your R&D team loose on widget development....

While YouTube has certainly extended the reach of conspiracy theorists, it’s difficult to assess the objective role of algorithms in these radicalization processes. But my own research has observed the way certain radical communities that congregate at the fringes of the web have managed to essentially manufacture conspiracy theories. These have, in turn, trended on social media. In 2019, YouTube dramatically cleaned up its platform after coming under pressure from journalists....

This is why the decision to postpone the launch of ExoMars 2020 for two years should be regarded as responsible and sensible. Obviously, it is disappointing that this mission – a joint one between European Space Agency (ESA) and the Russian Space Agency Roscosmos – has been delayed. But the disappointment would have been so much greater if the launch had gone ahead and the spacecraft had added to Mars’ tally of debris by crash-landing at the landing site Oxia Planum....

The problems with email were there from the beginning. You’d be reading documentation, see something to improve, and wish you could tell the author. For MIT’s programming staff in 1965, that idea led to the invention of email. “A new command should be written to allow a user to send a private message to another user which may be delivered at the receiver’s convenience,” wrote the team. “This will be useful for the system to notify a user that … files have been backed-up,” presciently imagining email as a notifications inbox....