TikTok is in trouble. Or so it seems (the understatement of the year!). Across the U.S. and the European Union, the crazy-popular short video-sharing platform is facing scrutiny and mistrust. And now, Politico reports that European Commission staff is banned from using TikTok over security concerns.
The EU Commission has now banned employees from using TikTok
Allegedly, there are ties between Chinese tech companies and the Chinese Communist Party, and the West is getting alarmed. Also, people are getting more and more concerned with the possibility that TikTok collects info from all over the world. An unnamed official told the folks at Politico that EU staff was ordered to remove TikTok from their official devices and that the app should be removed from their personal devices as well if they happen to have work-related apps on said devices (or they can delete work-related apps from their personal devices and leave TikTok).
EC employees received the information in an email sent on Thursday morning. Employees have until March 15 to remove the video-sharing app. After that deadline passes, devices with the app installed will be considered non-compliant, which was also underlined in the email.
The European Union Council and Parliament are likely to follow with a similar ban, but it may take more time for the Parliament to implement such a policy.
TikTok’s been facing similar treatments in the United States as well. In the U.S. the app got banned in December for all federal government devices – due to concerns that the app may be spying. TikTok’s parent company, ByteDance, is based in China. Also, TikTok’s CEO Shou Zi Chew is expected to testify before the U.S. Congress on March 23 – the topic of discussion: potential risks that TikTok could be to U.S. national security.
AnyTracker is a rather interesting app that we’ve stumbled upon, which can track prices, but also so much more than that. It’s an extremely versatile app that can keep you up to date on various things.
AnyTracker app can help you track so many things, including prices of products
So, what exactly can it do? Well, let me give you an example. I decided to test it out by setting tracking to a price of a product. You can basically get it to track anything. For testing purposes, I chose the Pixel 7 on Amazon.
All you have to do is open up the app, and tap the ‘+’ button at the bottom. Then paste the link of a website the product is on, and highlight the text or number you want to track. In this case, it’s the price of a product.
The app will allow you to choose whether you want to be notified when the price increases, decreases, crosses a particular threshold, and so on. There are quite a few options to choose from here
There are a number of use cases for this app
You are not limited to prices, though. You can track pretty much anything, in theory, though based on the comments, the app doesn’t really work with anything, so… do take note of that.
The developer says you can use this app to track your Twitter follower number, for example, or finances and stocks. The same goes for YouTube subscribers and views, and so on. Basically anything textual or numerical you can think of.
Another great example is to track when products are in stock. Simply put a tag on the ‘Out of stock’ label on a product, and when that changes, the app will let you know.
The free version does have its limitations
Do note that the app seems to be free, but there are limitations. You can go ahead and get a monthly subscription, annual subscription, or lifetime license, if you want. The price is not low, but if do plan on using this very frequently, it may be worth it for you.
In any case, if you want to try out the app, the link is provided below, along with some official images.
Ever since DALL-E planted the seeds, there have been a ton of AI image generators sprouting across the internet. Now, there is a multitude of options for people to convert their text to images. This leads people to search for the best DALL-E alternatives across the internet.
If you’re looking for a different image generator, then you’re in luck. It’s not the hardest thing to find another generator that can give you great results. Here’s a list of the best alternatives to DALL-E. These will include some examples along with the prompts that were used to make them.
Let’s start off with a simple one. Craiyon is a bit of a weird entry to this list of DALL-E alternatives because it’s technically part of the DALL-E family. This is a watered-down and lower-powered version of DALL-E that the company introduced last year. It’s a generator that you can use at your leisure without making an account.
The results that it produces are good, but they won’t exactly fool the eye. While most AI images definitely have a tell, the images generated by Craiyon are very unpolished compared to its more-developed big brother. When you enter a prompt, you’ll get a wall of nine images generated. You’ll sometimes be able to pick out a few good ones. Craiyon is meant to be a free introduction to AI image generators.
You’re able to generate unlimited images for free. However, there are some paid tiers that offer you added perks. For $6/month, you’ll get results within 45 seconds, no ads, no watermark, and high priority. Also, your images remain private. At $24/month, you’ll get those features (images are delivered within 20 seconds, however), and you’ll have early access to new features.
MidJourney is one of the most popular AI image generators out there, and for good reason. It stands out from the other generators by being hosted on a Discord server. The images are generated in different channels. All you have to do is join the server, accept the standard agreements on the landing page, and go to one of the designated generation channels. You’ll put in the prompt followed by your text. Then, you’ll see your images being made. When it comes to alternatives to DALL-E, this is one of the best.
Midjourny, while its images contain the classic hallmarks of AI images, is more than capable of creating jaw-dropping images. You’ll get amazing results when it comes to human faces, but know that finer details like teeth might be a bit wonky. Each time you generate, you’ll get four variations. You can regenerate the prompt based on any of the images, download them, or upscale them to 4K.
There’s a free plan along with three paid tiers. For free, you’ll be able to generate up to 25 prompts. For $10/month ($96/year), you’ll have access to 200 prompts every month. For $30/month ($288/year), you’ll have access to unlimited prompts. Also, you’ll have access to 15 hours of fast generations. After that, you’ll have the standard speeds. Lastly, for $60/month ($576/year), you’ll have 30 hours of fast-speed processing and up to 12 concurrent jobs.
Subscription price: None- but donations are welcome
DreamUp AI has the unfortunate fate of sharing names with Deviant Art’s image generator. This is a standalone project, and it’s a solid offering. To access it, all you have to do is create an account and jump right into the action. The interface is easy to use. You’ll see the text field on the very top. Just type in your prompt and click the purple Submit button. You can also choose how many images you want generated per prompt.
DreamUp AI is a solid contender. It’s definitely better than something like Craiyon, but you’ll still get your fair share of uncanny faces and messed-up features. In any case, it handles the human anatomy well and that goes for animals and objects. The only thing is that DreamUp is not the best for creating hyper-realistic images. They all have a painted or CGI look to them.
Using DreamUp is completely free, but there’s the option to give donations to help the development of the project. You’re able to either pay a monthly fee or do a one-off payment. You can pay between $5/month and $75/month.
Stable Diffusion
Stable Diffusion is definitely one of the best DALL-E alternatives, and you’re able to use it for no charge. You don’t even need to create an account to get a taste of it. When you go to the Stable Diffusion page, you’ll just need to click on the Playground button up top. Then, you’ll be taken right to the creation section. It’s self-explanatory. Type in your prompt and click on the generate button. It typically takes less than 10 seconds to deliver your results.
Stable Diffusion is definitely a powerful generator. It’s up there with the likes of DALL-E and MidJourney. Each prompt gives you four pictures, and there are usually ones that stand out as amazing. One of Stable Diffusion’s strengths is in making realistic images. If you give it pretty simple prompts, it can make results that look almost indistinguishable from photos. Just know that you’re still liable to get wonky results as well.
Using Stable Diffusion is free. When you go to the site, you’re able to use it right away. Also, there aren’t any payment plans.
Dream stands out on this list because it’s not a site. Rather, it’s an app. When you enter the app, you’re greeted with the text field up top with the available art styles below. When you type in a prompt, you have to select a style for the image. After that, it will start making your images. The images usually pop up within 15 seconds.
Dream does an impressive job considering that it’s an app. It’s good enough to give the other generators a run for their money. There are several styles that you can choose from, and it does a great job with realistic images. The issues with hands and faces persist, but it’s not as bad with some of the lower-tier generators. This is a great option if you want a strong generator with your choice of styles.
You have unlimited prompts, but there are certain features that are blocked if you don’t subscribe. You’re confined to one image per prompt and there are several styles that you can’t use. If you want everything unlocked (four images per prompt, all styles, and more), you can pay $9.99/month ($89.99/year). If you want to pay only a one-time payment, you can pay $134.99.
There’s a new malware roaming free online right now. It hijacks people’s social media accounts, steals login credentials, and mines cryptocurrencies using people’s devices, reports TechRadar.
New malware exploits users’ YouTube and Facebook account
The info comes from researchers from Bitdefender’s Advanced Threat Control Team (ATC), which found a new strain of malware named S1deload Stealer. The malware tries to avoid being detected by antivirus programs by using DLL sideloading. In the second half of 2022, malicious users were able to infect hundreds of users.Bitdefender products detected more than 600 unique users infected with this malware between July and December 2022, Dávid Ács, a researcher from Bitdefender, stated.
The malware needs to be downloaded and run by the victims themselves. It was hidden in archives (.zip files) that allegedly had adult content. When the victims downloaded and run the “content”, they didn’t find what they were looking for but instead got their devices infected with an infostealer.
Here’s what this malware is capable of. First, it can download a headless Chrome browser that runs in the background. It opens YouTube vids and Facebook posts and rakes up views. It can also download and run an infostealer that decrypts login credentials saved in browsers, as well as session cookies.
When it comes to a Facebook account, it tries to analyze it. It looks for whether the account administrates any Facebook pages or groups, if it pays for ads, or if it’s linked to a business manager account. All in all, you can imagine this makes the account even more valuable.
And then it can go ahead and download, install, and run a cryptocurrency miner. It mines the BEAM cryptocurrency for hackers. By the way, the hacker can also use the stolen credentials to spam on social media and try to infect even more machines.
A more techy explanation of the malware’s actions can be found on Bleeping Computer’s article. The moral of the story: don’t download shady things from the internet.
If you’ve never quite found the keyboard that you like, from a functionality standpoint, this app may help. This app basically allows you to design your own Android keyboard, and it’s called ‘Keyboard Designer’.
You can design your very own keyboard via this app, and much more than that
Now, this app is not all about the looks, it’s about the functionality too. In fact, that’s the bigger part of it. You can literally move around the keys as you please, and even assign specific tasks to specific keys.
Let me give you a couple of examples. You can set an action to launch when you swipe up over the space bar, or long press any button on the keyboard. You can also move the letter ‘a’, or whatever other letter, next to the space bar, if that’s what you wish. This is just a wild example, but this app does allow you to do pretty much anything.
It even allows you to increase the size of specific keys
Yes, you can also increase the size of some keys, to make them easier to press, and so on. The end product can look truly wild, if that’s what you wish. There are also various third-party designs that you can check out, as they’re available from within the app.
There are a ton of additional options that you can tap into. It would take an age to list them all, so if you’re interested, installing the app, and checking it out would be best.
This is an ideal solution if you’re tired of your current keyboard. You can truly spice things up. We’ve seen plenty of apps that offer different designs, and some that offer entirely different functionality, but never the app that allows you to create your own keyboard from scratch. Oh, and on top of that, customize it with various added functionality.
A link to its Google Play Store listing is included below, along with some official images.
Augmented and virtual reality have been popular buzzwords in the tech industry for years now, with Meta striving to become a leader in both the software and hardware domains. Recently, Meta shared its latest hardware roadmap for AR and VR with its employees, revealing plans to launch full-fledged AR glasses in 2027 that people can wear all day, according to a report from The Verge.
These glasses will be able to project high-quality holograms of avatars onto the real world. Although many details about the glasses are yet to be disclosed, they have been in development for nearly eight years, and the company plans to start public testing by 2024.
While the AR glasses are not launching anytime soon, Meta is preparing to release several other AR and VR devices this year. These include the new Ray-Ban Stories, developed in partnership with Luxottica, and the Meta Quest 3, which will bring some massive improvements to comfort as the device is reportedly twice as thin while still retaining the same performance.
A look into the future
Next year, Meta plans to bring the VR experience to the masses with a VR headset called “Ventura,” which will supposedly be available at an attractive price. Moreover, the company also plans to launch the third generation of Ray-Ban Stories in 2025, which will offer advanced features such as real-time text translation, QR code scanning, and a “neural interface” that enables users to control the glasses through hand gestures and eventually type messages using a virtual keyboard. These advancements will take AR to the next level and offer users a more immersive experience.
It’s clear that Meta is striving to solidify its leadership in the industry with the launch of its AR glasses, but it’s not the only player. Apple is also developing its mixed reality headset, and while there’s not much information about it, reports suggest it may feature advanced hardware such as 4K Micro-OLED displays, motion-tracking cameras, and dedicated processing chips for AR and VR.
It was exactly one month ago when we told you that Google was broadening its test of new read and delivered icons for RCS messages. RCS, or Rich Communication Services, is the Android equivalent of Apple’s iMessage platform. With RCS there are no character limits, higher quality image, and video files can be shared, messages are sent with end-to-end encryption, users receive a read receipt when a message they sent has been read by the recipient, and a typing indicator appears when a reply is being typed by the recipient.
Google’s RCS is very similar to Apple’s iMessage
Of course, all of these features are only available when two Android users are messaging each other and both are using the Google Messages app. Should an iOS user join the group chat, all of those great features-including end-to-encryption-are disabled. In other words, RCS is very much similar to iMessage although you don’t see Android users insulting iPhone users when they join a group chat comprised solely of RCS users.
Google is making a change to its Delivered and Read indicators on RCS for Android
In the past, if two RCS users were chatting with each other, the one sending a message would see the word “delivered” when his/her message was received by the other party. Once the message was read, the sender would see the word “read” under his message. This obviously allowed a user to know whether his missive was indeed received by the recipient, and more importantly, whether the message was read.
But Google has changed this and as we noted last month, it had been testing the use of a checkmark system similar to what WhatsApp uses. When a message has been sent, underneath it, you’ll now see a small circle with a single checkmark inside it. When the message is delivered to the recipient, you’ll see two circles side-by-side, each with a single checkmark inside. And when the message has been read, the two circles are filled and the checkmarks are now white against a black background.
Per 9to5 Google, the update is rolling out now. For the other RCS user that you’re messaging to receive a read receipt and a typing indicator when you’ve read his message and started typing out a reply, you need to make sure that you have both features toggled on. To do that, open the Google Messages app and tap on the picture profile in the upper right corner of the search field. Tap on Message settings > RCS chats and make sure Send read receipts and Show typing indicators are both toggled on.
Google wants to know why we can’t all just get along
Google has been trying to pressure Apple to support RCS on iOS. This would end the green bubble bullying that takes place when an Android user joins a group chat made up of iOS users and disables all of the special iMessage features including end-to-end encryption, read receipts, typing indicators, and higher-quality images. As we noted at the top of this article, similar RCS features are disabled whenever an iOS user joins a chat made up of RCS users. So why can’t we all just get along?
When a chat is going on between iOS users, all text is seen in a blue text bubble. Once an Android user joins the chat, the text bubble turns green. And that seems to bring out the worst in iOS users. Google created a video last year which we’ve embedded in this story. The video is clever since it throws back Apple’s “think different” ad campaign from pre-iPhone days and also points out that by not supporting RCS, the company is downgrading the mobile experiences of its own customers.
Alas, Google might as well be banging its head against a wall(ed garden). Meanwhile, we’d imagine that not too many consumers know that Google Message’s RCS offers the same features as iMessage. As a result, some Android users use a messaging app provided by their carrier. If you have an Android phone and want a chat experience equal to Apple’s iMessage platform, you need to install the Google Messages app (also known as Messages by Google). You can find it in the Play Store.
According to available reports, the Play Store Material You theming might be rolling out soon. This will sync the app’s color scheme to the colors present in your device’s wallpaper. Already, the Material You theming feature is available with most Google apps on Android.
For some reason, certain Google apps haven’t gotten Dynamuc Color. Such apps still make use of their default app themes, hence ignoring the device’s general theme. Other apps like the Play Store make use of the Material You theme in certain aspects of their design.
The design of such apps is not unified with different elements featuring different colours. This needs to be fixed by the design team at Google to help unify the look of these apps. A fix to this issue which involves a total integration of the Material You theming might be on the way.
Material You theming might be making its way to all areas of the Google Play Store
Google introduced Material You design features to the Play Store app two years ago. This introduction brought a new design, affecting the icons and overall layout. But the theming feature didn’t become available to the entire app, as some elements didn’t get this feature.
The theming feature only became available on the app’s home screen, navigation, and search buttons. Other design elements in the app settings and account section stuck to the old green Play Store theme. This disparity breaks the overall design of the Play Store app, and Google is working on a fix for this issue.
There are a lot of changes that are coming to the Play Store app, which will become available in the coming months. Part of these changes will be the integration of Material You theming to all areas of the app. This change will enable the app to use your wallpaper theme across every aspect of its design.
At the moment, these changes have not rolled out to the public. Sources also point out that other improvements will roll out along with the Material You theming upgrade.
Xiaomi announcedsolid-state battery technology in China. This tech will offer higher energy density amongst other things. Before we get to it, however, it’s worth noting that HONOR introduced the very first silicon-carbon battery a couple of days ago.
That battery was announced during the HONOR Magic5 Pro launch. It is already used in the phone, but only in the Chinese model. That tech offers a 12.8% improvement when it comes to energy density compared to lithium batteries.
Xiaomi announced solid-state battery tech which offers higher energy density & more
On the flip side, Xiaomi says that its pre-developed solid-state battery tech can achieve an energy density of over 1,000Wh/L. In other words, it can technically offer an improvement of 20%. It can also offer a 20% improvement in low-temperature discharge performance, and an increase in the acupuncture experiment passing rate.
So, what makes these solid-state batteries different? The answer is… the electrolyte. Solid electrolytes offer better mechanical strength than liquid ones. They’re also great in the low energy density state, low temperature performance, and are technically safer, it seems.
Earlier, we mentioned that these batteries have an energy density of over 1,000Wh/L. That is a considerable improvement over regular lithium batteries, and it allows for more energy to be stored in the same space.
Safety is another aspect that sets them apart
Xiaomi also mentioned safety as another aspect of why these batteries are superior. They are safer than regular ones, as solid electrolytes can prevent the penetration of lithium dendrites.
Needless to say, this is very interesting, and it could potentially push the battery tech forward. Those batteries are not yet ready for primetime, it seems, but Xiaomi did put one in the Xiaomi 13 prototype for testing purposes. It did great in terms of endurance.
Xiaomi did not say when can we expect these batteries in commercial products.
One of the biggest music streaming services, Spotify, has just announced a small yet meaningful update to its app. Typically, we don’t report on updates that involve minor changes like turning a Heart icon into a Plus, but Spotify’s update does more than just add visual changes.
Earlier today, Spotify officialized a brand-new change that’s beneficial to all its users. The app’s iconic Heart button will be replaced with a Plus button that does more than just marking the songs you want to save.
Basically, Spotify is unifying the Heart and “Add to playlist” icons into a single symbol: the Plus (+) button. This means that when you use the Plus (+) button, you will be able to save and choose the destination of any song, playlist, or podcast with a single tap.
Going forward, in order to save a song or podcast episode, Spotify users must tap the Plus (+) button positioned to the right of the song or episode title in the Now Playing view. After the song or podcast has been added to Liked Songs or Your Episodes, the Plus (+) button will become a green check. Moreover, you can even change the destination of your saved content by simply tapping the green check.
Another option at your disposal makes it possible to add an entire album to Your Library. Simply click the Plus (+) button to add your favorite album, playlist, or audiobook to Your Library. Once you see the green check, it means that it’s been successfully added.
Obviously, the reason behind the new change is a simple, more unified user experience. Having a more streamlined way to save favorite music and podcasts means a lot these days when any extra action makes us lose focus.
Unsurprisingly, this is exactly what Spotify found in its user research. On top of that, the same research found that saving songs and podcasts makes us more likely to listen to them again, which is pretty interesting.
According to Spotify, the new changes to the Heart icon will begin to roll out to all users globally on iOS and Android starting today and will become available to all users in the coming weeks.
