YouTube on Thursday announced that its Video Editor and Photo slideshows tools are being retired on September 20.
Not all editing features are being removed however – creators will still be able to use the Enhancements like trimming, blurring, and filters.
The company cites limited usage of the two features as the reason for the discontinuation.
Making the announcement on a Google Product Forum page, Marissa, a community manager, said, “We’ve seen limited usage of these features, so we’re retiring them to focus our efforts on building new tools and improving on other existing features.”
YouTube creators that still have projects in the Video Editor or Photo slideshow section will need to finalize them before September 20, or they will lose the projects. Videos already published with Video Editor or Photos slideshows will be unaffected. Those that want to download their videos from the Video Editor will be able to do so in 720p resolution, or, they can use Google Takeout to get them in original quality.
As we mentioned, not all editing is disappearing from the YouTube platform – a boon for amateur users or those that want to make minor adjustments without re-uploading an entire video again.
Creators will be able to continue to utilize the Enhancements feature, which can be found in the Video Manager section. Enhancements allows for edits like trimming, blurring, and filters.
Google is pointing to the innumerable free and paid third-party editing tools that creators can utilize in place of its Video Editor and Photos slideshow features.
Google Street View now allows users to see the International Space Station (ISS) as close as they can see the streets of London from their homes.
The search giant recently launched the new option for Google Street View that allows users to see the 15 connected modules of the ISS.
Thomas Pesquet, an astronaut at the European Space Agency (ESA), spent six months on the International Space Station (ISS) as a flight engineer to capture the Street View imagery, Google said in its blog post.
“The mission was the first time Street View imagery was captured beyond planet Earth, and the first time annotations – helpful little notes that pop up as you explore the ISS – have been added to the imagery,” Google said.
While this is certainly an interesting option for users, Pesquet explained that due to the constraints of living and working in space, Google’s usual methods of capturing Street View couldn’t be used.
“Instead, the Street View team worked with NASA at the Johnson Space Center in Houston, Texas and Marshall Space Flight Center in Huntsville, Alabama to design a gravity-free method of collecting the imagery using DSLR cameras and equipment already on the ISS,” he said.
Post this, Pesquet sent the still photos captured by him to the Earth where they were stitched together to create panaromic 360-degree imagery of the ISS.
As pointed out in a report by TechCrunch, when the imagery was being captured, one of Space X’s Dragon vehicles was parked at the ISS. This means that users can also see how the cargo is supplied to the ISS. You can check out the new imagery from space already from Street View section on the company’s website.
There would be no need to fear a personal computer (PC) crashing as Internet giant, Google has released a cloud-based tool that is capable of backing up and syncing all the contents of your computer.
“You probably keep your most important files and photos in different places – your computer, your phone, various SD cards, and that digital camera you use from time to time.
“It can be a challenge to keep all these things safe, backed up, and organized, so today we’re introducing Backup and Sync.
“It’s a simpler, speedier and more reliable way to protect the files and photos that mean the most to you.
“This new tool replaces the existing Google Photos desktop uploader and Drive for Mac/PC,” Google Drive Product Manager, Aakash Sahney said in a blog post.
TheNewsGuru reports Backup and Sync is an app for Mac and PC that backs up files and photos safely in Google Drive and Google Photos, so they’re no longer trapped on your computer and other devices.
“Just choose the folders you want to back up, and we’ll take care of the rest,” Aakash said.
To download the Backup and Sync tool that works for both Google Photos and Google Drive, click here or here.
Google was left off the hook in one of its many court battles when a Paris court dismissed a $1.27 billion tax bill levied against the tech giant, according to media reports.
Paris’ administrative tribunal ruled Wednesday that Google’s advertising business doesn’t have a taxable presence in France, absolving it of responsibility for five years of back taxes for a period ending in 2010, CNET reported.
The tax authority had accused Google of routing ad sales in the country through its Irish-based subsidiary.
In a statement, Google said the ruling “has confirmed Google abides by French tax law and international standards,” adding, “We remain committed to France and the growth of its digital economy”.
The ruling is a victory amid a series of legal challenges Google has faced across Europe on concerns including taxes, competition and privacy.
TheNewsGuru reports the fine is the biggest antitrust penalty the EU has ever applied to a single company, exceeding the $1 billion fine handed to Intel in 2009, which left Google bitter.
Also, according to CNET, the EU has also taken aim at Google for its Android operating system, expressing concern that consumers will automatically use Google’s built-in apps, rather than explore other options.
The Competition Commission has also found the internet giant systematically abuse its dominance in search to promote its own shopping services.
Microsoft has officially ended support for Windows Phone 8.1 just over 3 years after its April 2014 debut, according to media reports.
Although this doesn’t mark the end of Microsoft’s mobile ambitions as Windows 10 Mobile is still hanging around, this only means that from now on, devices operating on WP8.1 won’t get software updates or technical help, according to Engadget.
Windows Phone 7 was launched in 2010 as Microsoft’s formal response to the iPhone and Android rave, and according to Engadget, “This was the release that was going to prove Microsoft could make a truly consumer-focused mobile platform instead of catering primarily to the business crowd”.
But Microsoft was unable to make concrete impression on the mind of smartphones consumers to be able to win them over with its innovative effort.
The tile-based home screen and other interface elements were breaths of fresh air, but the so-so device lineup and lack of feature parity (it launched without copy-and-paste text) set the tone. It was always a bit lacklustre compared to what Apple and Google were doing, even if there were occasional bright spots.
Another case in point was the Windows Phone 8 upgrade; which although was huge, no Windows Phone 7 device could run it.
Millions of users were faced with the prospect of having to upgrade their handset early to stay current. Windows Phone 8.1 finally provided a truly complete answer to Android and iOS, but it was still a little bit behind and never got the sustained big-name app support that Microsoft had tried so hard to cultivate.
That Microsoft ditched Windows Phone entirely in favour of Windows 10 Mobile says a lot.
The question of when Nigerian universities research works will leave rusty shelves has been asked time and time again with no end seems to be in view, but experts have provided a tech solution, and there is one university in Nigeria that is at the forefront driving efforts in that direction to removing its pile of research works from rusty shelves.
Universities have great data that can benefit the Nigerian economy, and researches kept in rusty shelves if recouped can actually make a lot of money for the ailing Nigerian economy. This was the position held by a panel of experts at the Nigerian International Technology Exhibition and Conference (NITEC) 2017 that held in Lagos recently.
The experts agreed based on the following facts that the Nigerian university community is a critical ecosystem for generating useful data.
Nigeria presently has about 160 public and private universities. About 600 thousand students are admitted in all universities in Nigeria every session meaning that about 3 million students study in all Nigerian universities annually. Factorizing this into a 10-year period, you have 30 million students who pass through the Nigerian universities system.
These students carry out painstaking researches to write assignments, term papers, seminar papers and final year research project. The data so generated are yet to find the light of day and lying in waste in the shelves of Nigerian universities.
Putting into consideration postgraduate students and lecturers who make up the universities ecosystem, and who churn out large amount of research data as well, the university system then become an important point of call in the discourse of big data.
Experts are saying nations of the world making huge impacts are moving away from commodity-based economy to knowledge-based economy, and that huge data being generated by the Nigerian university system can create huge revenue for the Nigerian economy, if the data are properly harnessed.
UNN innovation with Roar Nigeria hub
Professor Benjamin Chukwuma Ozumba, the Vice Chancellor (VC) of the University of Nigeria Nsukka (UNN), who has seen value in the data lying in waste in Nigerian universities, said his institution is already leading the course in harnessing its data for revenue generation, especially with the establishment of Roar Nigeria Hub.
Prof. Ozumba said with Roar Nigeria Hub, UNN is poised to become the first full-fledged technology-embedded university in West Africa.
“We are trying to make UNN a Smart University. Everybody on campus has bought into it,” he said.
The VC, who was a panellist at the NITEC 2017 event, agreed with other panellists that research and data analytics form crucial part in deepening local content in the Information and Communication Technology (ICT) sector of the Nigerian economy.
“Universities are centres for learning, researches and educating the public. We talk about our universities graduating three million students annually; there are lecturers and non-academic staff, who are generating and warehousing data relevant to the society. But have we really harnessed these data? The answer is no! These data exist, but they have not been harnessed,” the VC said.
“We know that most of these data are warehoused in ICT repositories. They use it in ranking universities. They want to know if you are creating output in the numbers of researches published.
“We are working to connect what we have in the library to the main repository. We found out there are issues with that. We have to hire an ICT specialist to fix it, and our university repository shot up immensely.
“There are a lot of missing links. We have to get it right. That is why I am saying I want to make my university a smart university in that direction.
“We know that if these data in the universities are properly harvested and warehoused, and well researched, organizations can buy them.
“Data is a tool for making money. That is why Google is thriving; they harness the data they have to make fortunes out of them. So, we need infrastructure and intelligent use of data,” the VC espoused.
TheNewsGuru tech editor found out from a visit to the UNN recently that the Roar Nigeria Hub was opened to the public with a mission to produce the next generation of entrepreneurs by creating an enabling environment, support systems and relevant skills to succeed with technology entrepreneurship.
“With about 50 kilometres of fibre optic cable connecting the university, we also intend to solve the challenges faced by businesses with available data on the campuses.
“University is where you are taught to explore. There is no infinity to acquiring knowledge. It’s where you get education before exploration to getting problems solved. Exploration requires a lot of components or tools; but in Nigeria where the laboratories are not functional how do you want it done. This motivated us to pursue the meeting — the town and gown — a meeting point of the universities and the industry.
“With the new trends of creating innovation/incubation hubs, such as Roar Nigeria, we will move Nigeria from commodity to a country creating items,” the VC further stated.
The need to rethink Big Data
The Chief Executive Officer (CEO) of Cymantiks, Mr. Emeka Okoye, who is also a panellist at the event, highlighted the relevance of universities’ researches to the economy, and stressed there need to rethink Big Data.
He said universities’ researches have become more needed as the world enters the fourth industrial revolution driven by Big Data, Internet of Things (IoT), Artificial Intelligence (AI), Robotics and Machine Learning.
“Let’s take ‘big’ aside… data is just an observation,” the Cymantiks CEO said, adding that “When students interact with academic and non-academic staff, they generate data… it dwells down to universities policy on how data are managed. When it is become massive, we now say big data”.
“Focusing on research is actually very huge. We need to understand the current trends. We are about to enter the 4th industrial revolution, and it is driven by data. There are up to 34 disruptive technologies right now — from IoT to AI — and they all feast on data.
“It means that the way we understand data before has got to change; because right now, we need to change by incorporating data into our everyday activities,” he further stated.
Mr. Okoye said it has become imperative for Nigerian universities to rethink on how to commercialize the huge repository of research data developed over the years.
“They ought to make lot of money from data. A university in Kenya is earning close to $1 billion from patents. University as a mini-community is very crucial in research and a test-bed for new technology,” Okoye said.
Also part of the panel was the CEO of Crestsage, Mr. Charles Emembolu, who said value creation should drive universities’ motivation to monetize their data and research works, and assist government’s ideas on local content concepts and development of young people with relevant skill sets.
Mr. Emembolu, who played a pivotal role in the establishment of Roar Nigeria, said research works contain useful facts capable of solving puzzles in the ICT industry and the society in general, adding that “Standardization, skilled professionals are needed in our industry today”.
He further stated that “awareness creation for people to understand the essence of big data must start from the universities” adding that “The Universities boards need to improve the system to further understand graduation and post-graduation achievements of students”.
He, however, advised that students of Nigerian universities must learn to embark on only research works that are capable of generating revenue not just for the university system or the government, but for themselves as well.
Finding explicit contents of yourself – that you shared with someone you trusted – online can be incredibly, deeply distressing. You might feel the ground should just open up for you to enter.
But if you think your private, sexual videos or pictures have been posted on the internet without your consent, there are steps you can take to right it.
Here’s what you should do if you’re a victim of revenge porn.
Call the police
Sharing explicit contents of someone without their consent is a crime, and perpetrators can serve a prison term for it.
You may feel embarrassed or ashamed, but this is something you absolutely must go to the police about.
Reporting the crime to the authorities is the first step – it will not only bring the perpetrator to justice, but it will help stop them from doing the same thing to another victim, and in the event the issue should take a different dimension.
Get it taken down from the website
After reporting to the police, the next thing to do is get the content off the website of.
If the photos are selfies, or a video that you took yourself, then you own the copyright. Contact the website and say they were uploaded without your consent.
You should also mention that you’ve reported the images or footage to the police.
Get it removed from Google
Removing the content from the website of origin is not enough. Google has recently made it easier for victims to stop revenge porn from appearing in search results.
To request that your content is removed from Google, you can fill out this form.
You just need to provide them with the following information:
Your full name
Country
Contact email address
URL for where the content is live, if applicable
A sample URL of Google search results where the image or video appears
Screenshots of the offending content, which will help ensure that Google is removing the correct results. Use image-editing software to obscure the sexually explicit portions of the screenshots, but ensure that it will help identify the specific content you wish to be removed.
Get it off Facebook
If the images or video has been shared on Facebook, you can anonymously report the posts to the site.
You can also report the individual user to the social network, as long as you provide the URL to their profile and their email address. Do so using this link.
Talk to someone
Even though you’re not in the wrong, being the victim of malicious leaks or revenge porn can make you feel ashamed, isolated and depressed. It is an incredibly traumatic thing for anyone to have to go through.
Given the nature of the crime, you may not feel comfortable bringing it up with friends, family, colleagues or teachers.
If so, remember that you’re not alone – there are people you can talk to, especially people who are honest with you about the occurrence.
Google is presently wiping off bitter tears after being slammed with a recording-breaking fine of $2.74 billion by the European Union (EU).
TheNewsGuru reports Google was recently fined a whooping amount of $2.74 billion by the EU for abusing its dominance within the Commission’s domain.
Google’s parent company, Alphabet Inc. late Friday confirming the development said the European Commission’s antitrust fine will reduce second-quarter profit by about $2.74 billion.
“It’s not tax deductible, so the charge will reduce Alphabet’s net income and earnings per share by the full $2.74 billion amount,” Alphabet said in a statement.
According to a report by Bloomberg, the company plans to report the fine in a separate operating expense line on its income statement.
According to data compiled by Bloomberg, analysts expect Alphabet, the owner of Google, to report second-quarter net income of $5.78 billion.
Meanwhile, analysts have dismissed the EU fine as a threat to Google’s stock position.
However, several raised concerns about the potential impact of any forced changes to Google’s shopping service, a growing revenue source.
Googel has a 90-day ultimatum to find ways to give equal treatment to smaller price-comparison services that compete with the Google Shopping ads that appear when people search for products.
Knowing how to backup your Android phone or Tablet is an essential ‘life’ skill to have.
With the growing numbers of cyber attack globally, now is the perfect time to make sure you have a backup of your Android smartphone or tablet, as this means if something goes wrong, then you can easily restore your Android device back to the way it was before.
Android is ready-made for syncing with cloud services, so wherever possible, use online services to back up important data such as emails, contacts and calendars.
Gmail is a great service that makes backing up data in your Android device easy and straightforward.
If you use an Android device, it means you already have a Google account, a Gmail and this Google account is already attached to the device.
With this account, and the Google Sync feature on your Android phone, you can easily back up contacts, email, calendar and bookmarks.
If your Android device is full of precious photos and home videos, this guide will show you how to back them all up too.
Here is how to backup your Android device using Google Backup & Restore
Go to Settings > Accounts > tap Google > select the Google account you wish to use
Check everything you want to sync as shown below:
Go back to Settings > Backup & reset
Activate ‘Back up my data’ if it is not already activated
Select the same account you selected above from ‘Backup account’
Activate ‘Automatic restore’ as shown below:
Note: For those on Android versions older than 6.0., the illustrations above look similar, and has the same options overall.
‘Backup & reset’ will save almost everything, but it is advisable to make sure your documents, photos and videos are saved to the Google Drive app on your Android device.
Google Photos is an option you can use for your photos as well and they are automatically backed up in Google servers.
With this process, you do not have to worry when you lose your phone.
Once you sign into the selected Google account on a new Android phone or tablet you will instantly have all your contacts, browser bookmarks, movies, music, and even photos restored if you followed this guide.
The European Union (EU) has fined Google a record-breaking 2.4 billion-euro ($2.7 billion) in what is just a fraction of the costs from the EU’s demand that the Internet giant stop skewing search results to favour its own shopping site gaining ‘undue’ dominance in so doing.
To some smaller businesses, this might mean ‘torn apart’, but for the search engine giant, the penalty will barely make a dent in its cash hoard of $90 billion in ad revenue.
According to a latest PriceWaterhouseCoopers (PwC) Entertainment and Media Global Outlook, two-thirds of all global ad dollars this year will go to Google, Facebook, Tencent, Baidu and Alibaba, that have been tagged the Big Five.
The Big Five are reportedly crushing everyone else in the new media world, and this has raised a lot of concerns.
While European politicians have called on the EU to sanction Google or even break it up for the undue dominance, US critics claim EU regulators are targeting successful American firms.
A ruling by EU antitrust chief, Margrethe Vestager, has now put an end to concerns in Europe, and raised eyebrows in the US.
“Vestager gave Google a 90-day ultimatum to find ways to give equal treatment to smaller price-comparison services that compete with the Google Shopping ads that appear when people search for products.
“The EU will also monitor Google for five years and can force the company to pay additional fines of up to 5 percent of its daily revenue if it doesn’t comply,” according to Bloomberg.
Meanwhile the search engine giant is to pay a fine towering $2.7 billion to the European Commission.
Vestager’s decision marks the end of a seven-year probe fuelled by complaints from small shopping websites as well as bigger names, including News Corp., Axel Springer SE and Microsoft Corp.
A lawyer for Norton Rose Fulbright in Brussels, Jay Modrall said Google will have “the sword of Damocles hanging over its head” further stressing that this is because it is no longer the firm’s choice on how it makes changes to allay EU concerns. Instead, according to the legal practitioner, Google is “under a legal requirement to do so and under notice that if its commitments are not sufficient, it’ll be fined even more”.
And according to a binding order from the European Commission, Google must “stop its illegal conduct” and give equal treatment to rival price-comparison services.
