https://www.cordcuttersne .. vr-recordings/


Back in December 2018, it was reported that AT&T and Hulu were working on adding ads to videos when you pause a DVR recording. The idea is that AT&T can make more money with AT&T TV NOW and DIRECTV. Back in May of 2019, AT&T rolled out this feature to DIRECTV satellite customers, meaning when they pause their TV they see rotating ads for HBO programming, for example. Now it seems that AT&T has started to add this feature to the DIRECTV NOW app on select devices.

Earlier this month AT&T rolled out an update to the AT&T TV app on the Apple TV. Since that update happened, a small number of users have started to report that they see ads when they pause their DVR recordings. For now, the ads are mostly for HBO programming as it seems AT&T wants to use them to try and get you to add HBO if you donÂ’t have it.

AT&T is not alone in this effort. Earlier this year Hulu also added ads to its pause screen if you have a limited commercial plan. Hulu has argued that ads like these help keep the cost of HuluÂ’s $5.99 a month plan down. AT&T has pushed the idea as a way to make more money, helping it offer more content and keep prices down.

As competition on price keeps getting more competitive the ability to use ads to offset the cost of service has become more popular. the question now is deciding whatÂ’s the right balance between content and ads. TiVo has faced strong backlash as it added pre-roll ads before DVRÂ’d content and others will also likely face backlash as they try to figure out the right balance here. Yet it seems that ads are here to stay as companies struggle to keep prices low

Anybody got a list or a particular item they got on their check list for black friday tech?

Glap. Play controller

Change in the market capitalization of public companies from Dot-com/Internet sector since 1998 to 2019. Includes companies whose core businesses are internet consumer web services with the main activities occurring online. Excludes hardware and semiconductor companies. Only publicly traded companies listed.



1998:



2019:

Thousands of Disney+ subscribers say theyÂ’ve been hacked since signing up for the new streaming service.
Hackers have allegedly already stolen thousands of customer accounts, according to the BBC.
Ten million people signed up for the service since its launch on Nov. 12.
Hours after the service launched, customers reported being locked out of their accounts.
Thousands of accounts were soon for sale on the dark web for as little as $3, according to Zdnet. Disney+ costs $6.99 a month.
The subscriptions available on the dark web show what type of subscription the customer bought (monthly, yearly, bundle with ESPN+, etc), what country the service is based in (it has only launched in the U.S., Canada and the Netherlands, so far) and when the subscription expires.
Customers who have been locked out of their accounts reported their email addresses and passwords were changed.
Jason Hill, a cybsersecurity researcher, told the BBC many people re-use passwords across websites and accounts, which likely played a large part in this hack.
“Whilst many may consider having a unique password for each online service to be difficult to manage, password managers simplify this process and allow you to generate and securely store unique difficult-to-guess passwords,” he said.
Disney+ does not currently have two-factor authentication, a feature that requires users to answer a prompt on a secondary device when logging in to a website or service.
 https://www.nydailynews.c .. fXEawTSYXVQy-o

 https://www.engadget.com/ .. location-data/

Anyone see deals or got plans?
I bought 43" last year at a price I thought was good. A 50" is same price this Black Friday.

Best Buy has a 75" Samsung LED TV for $750. 70" Samsung LED TV for $550. Then, BJ's Warehouse club has a 82" Samsung QLED for $2,000 and 86" LG LED TV for $1950.

Where we start in life doesnÂ’t have to determine where weÂ’ll go. We all have the potential for greatness. We just have to recognize it.

Few people understand this better than Freddie Figgers. Shortly after giving birth, FreddieÂ’s mother abandoned him, leaving the baby in a dumpster. But he didnÂ’t let his rough beginning define him. In fact, Freddie has become an incredible role model for success at 29 years old.

At two days old, Freddie was adopted by Nathan and Betty Figgers, whose love and support made all the difference for him growing up. Freddie had a knack for tinkering from a young age, and proved to be surprisingly intelligent for a little boy. At nine, he received his first computer. It didnÂ’t work, but that didnÂ’t discourage Freddie. He had it up and running after fixing it himself, and went on to nab his first job as a computer technician at 12.

At 15, Freddie started his own cloud computing services. The idea came to him when an Alabama car dealership lost all their customer files after a tornado hit. To prevent this from happening again, Freddie helped them back up their information on a remote serverÂ… from his own backyard.

One of FreddieÂ’s proudest innovations, though, was the special shoe he created for his father. Nathan was diagnosed with AlzheimerÂ’s disease during FreddieÂ’s childhood. As such, his memory began to fail, but his son came up with a brilliant way to keep him safe. Freddie created a device to insert into NathanÂ’s shoe, which would serve as both a GPS tracker and a two-way communicator.

“I could pick up the phone and say, ‘Hey dad, where are you at?’ and he doesn’t have to do anything, just lean down and talk into his shoe and I can track his location,” Freddie explained. “That program was very successful and I had a company reach out to me out of Kansas and they bought the program from me for $2.2 million.”



Freddie used the money to start Figgers Communications, a telecommunications firm now valued at over $62 million. ItÂ’s also the only minority-owned company of its kind in the U.S. Freddie, the founder and CEO, has already made headlines with his companyÂ’s anti-texting and driving software. HeÂ’s also created a cell phone with a built-in wireless blood glucose meter for people with diabetes.



 https://www.inspiremore.c .. eddie-figgers/

Is ig getting rid of these likes the nail in the coffin for this app? Ig has been slowly fu*king up gradually with things like

- the new algorithms
- the nonchronological order feed
- consistent kappery by fake ppl (which ig canÂ’t really help lol)

- the ads thatÂ’s constantly in your face (which is kinda inevitable for social media platforms but still the early glory days was better)

- etc ( IÂ’m sure thereÂ’s plenty more I just canÂ’t really think of all the ways ig fu*king up)

Is TIKtok next up?? What do you guys use most? I still Use my snapchat for a more interactive texting experience. Lmk u guys thoughts

Facebook is launching a new payments system today, appropriately named Facebook Pay. It will be available across Facebook, Messenger, Instagram, and WhatsApp, and it’s designed to facilitate payments across Facebook’s popular social networks and apps. You’ll be able to use Facebook Pay to send money to friends, shop for goods, or even donate to fundraisers. The service will be separate from Facebook’s new Calibra wallet and the Libra network, and it’s “built on existing financial infrastructure and partnerships,” according to the company.

Facebook is planning to start rolling out Facebook Pay on Messenger and Facebook in the US this week. It will initially be available for fundraisers, person-to-person payments, event tickets, in-game purchases, and some purchases from pages and businesses that operate on Facebook’s Marketplace. “Over time, we plan to bring Facebook Pay to more people and places, including for use across Instagram and WhatsApp,” explains Deborah Liu, Facebook’s vice president of marketplace and commerce.

Facebook Pay will be available in the settings section of the Facebook or Messenger apps, and it will support most debit and credit cards and PayPal. Facebook is using Stripe, PayPal, and others to process these payments.

Facebook isnÂ’t revealing exactly when this payment system will be available across all of its apps, nor when it will launch internationally. Facebook Pay comes just weeks after a large number of payment companies dropped out of FacebookÂ’s Libra project. PayPal, which is supporting Facebook Pay, was one of the first companies to distance itself from the Libra a*sociation, the nonprofit organization that oversees the creation of the cryptocurrency and its rollout.

Every major US payment processor has now exited the a*sociation, and itÂ’s left Facebook with the daunting task of convincing governments that Libra is an option, just when trust in Facebook is at an all-time low. ThatÂ’s not stopping Facebook from launching a more traditional payment system today, though.

“Facebook Pay is part of our ongoing work to make commerce more convenient, accessible and secure for people on our apps,” says Liu. “We’ll continue to develop Facebook Pay and look for ways to make it even more valuable for people on our apps.”

 https://www.theverge.com/ .. enger-features

Texting on Android phones is about to get a lot better, Google said Thursday. The maker of the widely used operating system is launching a major update to its Messages app in the US that will modernize texting on Android phones. The update, which will incorporate features such as read receipts and exiting group chats, is one of the biggest steps Google has taken with Android, which lags far behind Apple's iOS when it comes to texting.

The much-anticipated update is made possible by the rollout of a technology called RCS, or Rich Communication Services. RCS is meant to replace SMS, or Short Message Service, a stalwart but tired protocol that's more than 25 years old.

The update will give you features including:

Chat over Wi-Fi
Sending and receiving high-resolution photos and videos
Read receipts
Typing indicators
Group chat naming
Adding and removing people from group chats

In an interview, Sanaz Ahari, director of product management for Google's communications services, acknowledged the update was long overdue, saying the SMS protocol currently used in the Android system lacks "lacks the features users expect from modern messaging."

People can turn on RCS by opening up the Android Messages app and, when prompted, enabling the chat features. If another Android phone also has RCS enabled, text messages will automatically use the new protocol. Google is doing a slow rollout and only about 1% of Android phones will get the update Thursday. Most people in the US will get the new features "by the end of the year."


One feature that's notably missing is end-to-end encryption, which secures messages so only the sender and receiver can read them. It has become a privacy standard in messaging apps, including Apple's iMessage, WhatsApp and Facebook Messenger. Ahari said the company continues to study the issue.

"It's a fairly complicated topic," Ahari said when asked why end-to-end encryption isn't included. She said there are "technical complexities," as well as legal and policy implications. Google also has to think about its ecosystem of partners, which includes wireless carriers, phone makers and third parties. She said Google doesn't read messages or use them for personalized ad-targeting.

With RCS, messages will flow through Google's servers, said Drew Rowny, Google's product lead for Messages. That means Google would have to comply with law enforcement requests if, say, it was issued a subpoena. But Rowny said Google deletes messages from its servers as soon as they're sent, so it's less likely it would have the data to hand over.

We need to get our own house in order'
The RCS announcement has been a long time coming. The company has been working on the initiative since 2016. Google introduced RCS in the UK and France in July. Rolling out the product hasn't been as simple as just building and releasing it like any other Google service. Because of Android's labyrinthine ecosystem, the company has to navigate a tangled web of carrier and device partners.

Texting on Android will include things like typing indicators and read receipts.

Google
Still, Google is taking charge of the RCS rollout instead of relying on the carriers to do it -- an unusual step for a company so dependent on its ecosystem of partners. The search giant took the same route when rolling out RCS in the UK and France. Ahari said Google has been in "close contact" with the carriers, and stressed that they all broadly want messaging to be powered by RCS. Last month, the four major US carriers -- Verizon, AT&T, T-Mobile and Sprint -- teamed up to form the Cross Carrier Messaging Initiative, a joint venture aimed at standardizing RCS.

Google wielding its power to take charge of the RCS rollout could worry regulators already scrutinizing the company's market dominance. The tech giant is facing multiple antitrust investigations in the US. In Europe, Google was fined Google $5 billion last year for anticompetitive practices regarding Android.

While Thursday's launch is focused on the US, it's a crucial move for Android as a whole, which accounts for almost nine of every 10 smartphones shipped. The strength of Android's services is also important to Google's overall business because the operating system serves as a gateway to the company's other services, like search and maps.

The RCS update is also critical when it comes to Google's rivalry with Apple. iPhone users often deride Android's texting deficiencies. They also mock the green bubble used to indicate Android users on iMessage. The difference in platforms often causes glitches in group texts.

While the RCS launch is a big step, it isn't the "end-all, be-all," Ahari said. It won't make a difference in Apple-Android interactions unless Apple supports it on iPhones. Google would love that, though it's unlikely Apple would give up the status barrier, which legitimately keeps some people from switching to Android. (Apple didn't respond to a request for comment.)

The launch is about getting texting on Android up to par rather than solving the issue of the "green bubble problem," Ahari said. "We need to get our own house in order."

 https://www.cnet.com/news .. droid-texting/

Transit app
Citizens app

Anyone know of a good police scanner?

Switching back to Android this is my next device. Still have my old RAZR 2. That vintage mode launcher is

 https://www.verizonwirele .. es/disneyplus/

Are all Unlimited plans eligible for the Disney+
on us offer?

Eligible plans include the Verizon Unlimited plan, Go Unlimited, Beyond Unlimited, Above Unlimited, Get More Unlimited, Do More Unlimited, Play More Unlimited, and Start Unlimited. Business accounts are not eligible.

Are existing Fios and 5G Home customers
eligible for the Disney+ on us offer?

The Disney+ on us offer is only for new Fios and 5G Home customers. Business accounts are not eligible.

Are ESPN+, Hulu, or Hulu Live included with
Disney+?

Our Disney+ on us offer is only for Disney+ and does not include Hulu or ESPN+.

If I pre-purchased Disney+, am I eligible for
the Disney+ on us offer?

Yes, Verizon customers who have already pre-purchased through Disney+ are eligible for Disney+ on us.