Peerlyst

Original author: 8m

You spend $4 on coffee; what's 99 cents for an app? Many of the apps in Apple's App Store are free, but these are the best paid iOS apps, according to PCMag staffers.

December 16, 2018 8:15PM EST December 16, 2018

The best things in life are free. Well, not always. There are plenty of great free apps out there, but some apps are worth a dollar (or even 20). You hand over a buck or two for a pack of gum, why not an app?

Why put down good money for something when a free (or "lite") version exists? No. 1 on the list is quality. A paid app will often offer things like offline access, syncing across devices, and the absence of ads. Sometimes an app takes the place of what used to be handled by a device, like a GPS or a radio. And finally, there's that category of app that so few can resist: games. Features editor Eric Griffith admitted to paying good money to avoid ads in Words With Friends 2.

Considering that we test thousands of apps, it's pretty impressive when PCMaggers decide one is worth buying. So we surveyed the staff to find out which apps they've paid for with their hard-earned cash.

(If you're a Google fan, here are some Android apps worth buying.)

Original author: Steele

This past October, Google announced that they will be shutting down their social network, Google+, for consumers after a data leak. To some this was a shock, and others, not so much.

The reasons that Google gave for shutting down included the lack of use and overall security. They claimed that “90% of Google+ user sessions [were] less than five seconds.” This very clearly shows that users did not intend to visit the social channel, and left immediately after realizing where they were.

Ben Smith, Google Fellow and Vice President of Engineering, stated in a blog post, “[Google+] has not achieved broad consumer or developer adoption, and has seen limited user interaction with apps.”Google originally announced that they would shut down their social platforms to consumers in August of 2019. But after a second data leak they have moved the date to April 2019.How does this impact me?Sure, it’s interesting that Google is shutting down one of their products, but how does this really impact you? Believe it or not, it might very much! Let’s go over how this change could affect you and your website.The shutting down of Google+ can actually be a relief for some small businesses. You no longer have to worry about posting and managing this social network and can focus on what is really making an impact.This is also a good reminder that everything online around social channels is temporary and there is no guarantee that all of your posts and images will be accessible forever. This is the reason that we recommend posting all of your valuable content on your website, as you then have direct control over it. After posting to your website, you can push out links on social media channels, helping drive more traffic.How will this change affect SEO for my website? As Google has slowly been phasing Google+ out of their tools, this change is not expected to impact your site SEO.Social sharing buttons on your websiteDo you have Google+ sharing buttons on your website? With the official shutdown of this social channel, it’s now time to take note where you have these little buttons. Take the time to remove the Google+ branding from your website, printed materials, email signatures, and anywhere else you may have the G+ logo.Google My BusinessJust because Google+ is shutting down doesn’t mean that you should forget about updating your status on other Google products. Google My Business isn’t a social media channel, but it does have the ability for you to post product/services updates, share info about your team, or whatever you’d like to share with local customers. With a 1,500 character limit, Google My Business gives you a little room to be creative with what you share.Delete your account?Even though Google+ is shutting down, should you delete your account or just leave it and allow Google to purge your data? Some choose to delete their account as a way to ensure that all data is erased. If you decide to go that route, be sure to download all of your files first. Related

Original author: Johnson

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Original author: Heather

Facebook gave more than 150 companies, including Microsoft, Netflix, Spotify, Amazon, and Yahoo, unprecedented access to users’ personal data, according to a New York Times report published Tuesday.

The Times obtained hundreds of pages of Facebook documents which were generated in 2017 that show that the social network considered these companies business partners and effectively exempted them from its privacy rules.

Facebook allowed Microsoft’s search engine Bing to see the names of nearly all users’ friends without their consent, let Spotify, Netflix, and the Royal Bank of Canada read, write, and delete users’ private messages, and see participants on a thread, allowed Amazon to get users’ names and contact information through their friends, and let Yahoo view streams of friends’ posts “as recently as this summer” despite publicly claiming it had stopped sharing such information a year ago, the report said. Collectively, applications made by these technology companies sought the data of hundreds of millions of people a month.

The records also show that Russian search giant Yandex, which was accused last year by Ukraine’s security service for giving user data to Kremlin, also had access to Facebook’s unique user IDs in 2017. A Yandex spokeswoman told the Times that the company was unaware of the access to user data provided by Facebook. Yandex did not immediately respond to BuzzFeed News’ request for comment.

In response to the report, Steve Satterfield, Facebook’s Director of Privacy and Public Policy defended the actions of the social network.

Why it matters: As the quantum future looms closer, hundreds if not thousands of companies and research groups race towards constructing the first quantum computer that can outperform traditional supercomputers. However, the competition is not just between organizations, it’s also between competing methods of quantum computing.

IonQ was founded on a gamble that 'trapped ion quantum' computing could outperform the silicon-based quantum computers that Google and others are building. As of right now, it does. IonQ has constructed a quantum computer that can perform calculations on a 79-qubit array, beating the previous king Google’s efforts by 7 qubits.

Their error rates are also the best in the business, with their single-qubit error rate at 99.97% while the nearest competitors are around the 99.5 mark, and a two-qubit error rate of 99.3% when most competitors are beneath 95%. But how does it compare to regular computers?

According to IonQ, in the kinds of workloads that quantum computers are being built for, it’s already overtaking them. The Bernstein-Vazirani Algorithm, a benchmark IonQ is hoping will take off, tests a computer’s ability to determine a single encoded number (called an oracle) when the computer can only ask a single yes/no question.

When the algorithm is run for every number between 1 and 1023, a conventional computer gets a 0.2% success rate. IonQ’s quantum computer gets a 79% success rate.

“After two years of work, our against-the-grain bet is paying off,” IonQ’s CEO, Christopher Monroe, believes trapped ion quantum computing is the best bet. “The IonQ System is robust and industrial strength. Even at this early stage, the results show the ion trap design has all the advantages we expected and more.”

Firefox introduced its latest variant – Firefox 64 – last night with features like improved tab management and smart suggestions.

The update should make tab junkies happy: Firefox now lets you select multiple tabs and move, bookmark, mute, or pin them all at once. To do that, hold Control/Cmd, and then click on tabs to select as many of them as you need to wrangle together.

 

That’s cool, but you should know that rival browser Vivaldi supports grouping tabs along with the aforementioned functions. I really hope Mozilla brings that to Firefox soon.

Firefox 64’s second biggest highlight is called Contextual Feature Recommender (CFR); it suggests features and extensions that you might find useful, based on your browsing habits. For instance, if you visit certain sites often, Firefox will recommend pinning those tabs for easy access.

A manufacturing company which settled a piracy lawsuit for AU$160,000 was exposed through an inside informant that received a substantial reward for their report.

According to CRN, the tipster was paid $10,000 for exposing the unnamed firm to The Software Alliance (BSA), a global software advocate and anti-piracy outfit.

The offender, operating in both Sydney and Perth, Australia, was taken to task for copyright infringement for using at least one BSA member's software without purchasing a license.

BSA lists Adobe, Akamai, Apple, Box, IBM, Microsoft, and SAS among its members.

The publication reports that up to 30 pirate copies of "CAD, data analytics and productivity software" were allegedly in use.

Inbound marketing is the process of attracting your target audience to your website, produce or service via eye-catching content. It’s all about converting strangers into customers. It’s about finding creative ways to get traffic to your website and to turn that traffic into profit for your business.

In this article, you’ll find free books, infographics, and articles with useful tips that will guide you in creating a successful inbound marketing strategy for your business.

Getting new clients for your business can be an overwhelming process but these resources are coming to your aid.

You can manage a thriving marketing strategy by giving away free content that users can relate to and use in their projects. The content must be valuable and interesting enough to catch their attention and keep them engaged. This may include articles, video, freebies, etc.

Also, you must conduct a vigorous SEO campaign, to make sure people can find your content.

Microsoft president Brad Smith has called on governments around the world to immediately start work on adopting laws to regulate facial-recognition technology.

It's not often that companies that stand to gain from a technology call for new laws that might constrain them. But Smith is worried enough about the spread of surveillance systems with powerful facial recognition that he's calling for lawmakers to act now.

Tech companies are faced with a "commercial race to the bottom", which should have a "floor of responsibility" that allows competition but outlaws the use of facial recognition in ways that harm democratic freedom or enable discrimination.

The call to action comes as China increasingly adopts facial recognition to monitor public spaces. Analysts estimate China's 200 million surveillance cameras will grow to 300 million in the next two years as tech companies beef up surveillance offerings.

Privacy rights advocates are also worried about plans by the US Secret Service to trial facial-recognition surveillance around the White House, which will help it track people of interest.

Programming note: The Interface will be off the rest of the week for Thanksgiving travels. Thanks to everyone who has joined me for this first year, and shared the newsletter with your friends — lots of exciting things are coming. Stay tuned.

Thanksgiving is nearly upon us in the United States, and Americans will sit down to dinner feeling less certain than ever about their social media accounts. This news comes from Axios, who had SurveyMonkey ask 3,622 adults if social media does more to help or hurt democracy and free speech. It was the second year the poll had been conducted — and the poll found a precipitous decline in social media sentiment. Sarah Fischer and Alison Snyder report:

In the past year, there has been a 15-point spike in the number of people who fear the federal government won’t do enough to regulate big tech companies — with 55% now sharing this concern.

In that same period, there was a 14-point increase in those who feel technology has hurt democracy and free speech.

The authors note that the disdain for social media, as of this year, is a fully bipartisan phenomenon. Whether it’s the ginned-up outrage about “censorship” or something more legitimate, Republicans now believe social media is worse for democracy and free speech than Democrats do.