Twitter Inc. Is Redesigning its Timeline Outlook

The social media network is changing the way you view your timeline on Twitter.

On March 3, 2016, Twitter users will be able to witness a whole new look of the micro-blogging website’s timeline display as it had decided to redesign the entire format, which will include embedded profiles, collections and lists. During the Flight Developer Conference held in October, Twitter stated that it will be rolling out its embedded grids which would also display publisher’s profiles and posts well tired together on their timeline.

After this new display feature is launched, users will be able to integrate their profiles and posts together with the help of the new timeline – however, they will not be bound  to maintain their customized settings and no changes will be made to that unless the users himself does so.

With the help of the redesigned timeline display publisher’s posts and profiles will be shown in a more rich and responsive manner and will get a better response. Another thing that the user will not have to worry about is the ‘remove media’ option. As per the new default settings, the content will automatically be expanded on the posts and tweets of the publisher.

Twitter is making its efforts to attract more traffic towards its website, and this feature is an example of that. By promoting its content outside of the social media site it is exactly heading in that direction; as through this people who are not signed up on the website yet can still see posts made by publishers. It is making sure that its efforts do not go in vain as the update will be providing benefit to not only the publishers but also the developers.

On the other hand, Twitter stock has gone up by almost 25% after touching its all-time low a few weeks back but it is still 30% below its Initial Public Offering – IPO share price of $26. Analysts believe that if the social media giant ever wants to reach its IPO share price, it will have to work on getting as many users on its platform as possible – user growth is the only way Twitter can get back in the social media game again. However, a number of analysts do not have a bullish stance on the stock of the company – 27 analysts have given the stock a rating of ‘Hold’ while 13 have suggested a ‘buy’, as per the report by Thomson One Analytics.

Qualcomm Inc. is Back in Business With Samsung Electrornics

The chip-maker is again doing business with Samsung; after going through a terrible 2015.

2015 was a rough year for chipmaker, Qualcomm Inc. as one of its biggest customer Samsung Electronics Ltd ditched the chipmaker’s Snapdragon 810 and moved towards in-house smartphone chip manufacturing.  After the Korean smartphone maker decided to stop doing business with the chipmaker, the stock of the company went down by as much as 30%. Samsung decided to part ways with Qualcomm mainly because of the performance issue of Snapdragon 810. Ever since this split happened, the company has been trying to gain back Samsung’s trust as well as business.

Qualcomm Inc. is the world’s largest chipmaker and its other venture includes LG, which has continued to do business with the chipmaker. The company stated that it’s working on Snapdragon 820 now to bring back its old customers and those which they business has lost. This new system is expected to have a number of new features including power, graphics, and connectivity and battery efficiency.

During the Mobile World Congress the company stated that the Snapdragon 820 will be used in Samsung’s latest Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge products – this conference was held earlier this week. Safe to say that the organization managed to gain back Samsung’s trust and managed to convince it to do business with the chipmaker.

Samsung is the leading manufacturer of android powered smartphones; this comeback by the Korean giant bodes well for Qualcomm on many levels. According to reports by IDC, the smartphone maker ships over 325 million smartphone each year. The chipmaker organization stated that the company’s products that are said to hit the market soon; over 100 of those will be powered by Qualcomm’s snapdragon.

The snapdragon 820 is proving to be quite beneficial for the company; and with its current progress it which just be able to get back the lost share of the business. The production of the latest chip will be ramped up in the second half of the current fiscal year.

Presently, Qualcomm stock is being traded in the market at a share price of $51.52 indicating an increase in the share price by as much as 2.18% - this increase in the stock price happened after the latest announcement. The trade session commenced with a share price of $50.00 and hitting a high of $51.66 and was seen at a low end of $49.73 and finally ending at $51.52. The market cap of the largest chipmaker in the United States is $79.92 billion. The earnings per share reported by the technology company are $3.02 with price to earnings ratio of $17.05.

After an abysmal 2015, matters are finally settling down for the company and future seems to look brighter than ever – due to the current performance, shareholders of the tech giant will be expecting better and increased returns.

IBM Partners With VMware Inc.

The tech giant is leaving no stone unturned to get the company back on the road to growth

Big Blue has announced this Monday that it has signed partnership with VMware so that the workload can be conveniently launched in IBM SoftLayer cloud infrastructure by the  VSphere customers. Apart from IBM, many other companies, who have any kind of public cloud strategy, look forward to get around the existing VMware vSphere consumers.

The importance of VMW customers can be deduced from the fact that VSphere server are being used by nearly 80% of corporate customers in their data centers. Moreover, a large number of customers intend to integrate their applications and data into an enterprise-class cloud so that they can reap benefits of potential cost advantages and flexibility from the consumption of shared computing and storage.

The New York based organization, at IBM InterConnect, is likely to disclose how the workloads of VSphere can be managed in IBM’s public cloud in Las Vegas. The proposed project is quite in the line of VMware VCloud Air, which has been launched approximately three years ago.

Once declared as a potential rival to Amazon Web Services, the Silicon Valley business’ VCloud Air focus has been narrowed by VMware. This decision triggers IBM’s and other cloud players interest in the service. Few years ago, Amazon Web Services released a set of tools which let the administrators of VMware conveniently manage AWS and VMware workloads by working on the same screen. However, according to IBM’s chief technology officer, Jim Comfort, the company envisions taking the VSphere workloads to a new level and enabling the VSphere to be “pushbutton accessible on our cloud.”

Comfort further said: “We can do that globally. If you do that with a provider here and one in Singapore we have globally connected network in 49 data centers.”

Comfort further cited that it may seem that the $129 billion firm is planning to work on the plain VSphere however the company intends to do the same for VMware’s NSX network virtualization technology and for VSphere plus NSX plus vRealize management software.

Big Blue has been persisting strongly for the hybrid cloud message where, the company says, the consumers can choose to let some workloads run on IBM’s cloud while the rest being run in their own infrastructure. Consumers can also choose to handle the transition or let IBM do it.  

How far can IBM take this VMware’s partnership will be revealed in the future. Hopefully the quivering ship of the company be back on the track to success.

Facebook Wishes To Make Virtual Reality Social

Facebook has plans to make its Virtual Reality domain more social

The keynote that took place for Samsung Galaxy S7 was loaded with surprises. Among which the best one was Facebook Inc.’s Chief Executive Officer, Mr. Mark Zuckerberg came on the stage to talk about a VR headset that can be used socially.

Mr. Zuckerberg stated, "Pretty soon, we're going to live in a world where everyone has the power to share and experience whole scenes, as if we're there in person.” He gave an explanation about how he wants to make use of the 360 degree camera similar to the Samsung Gear 360 which was announced recently to share a video of his new born daughter first few experiences with his parents.

As per Mr. Zuckerberg, it has been recorded that more than one million hours of the video have been viewed already via the Samsung Gear VR headset. Moreover, another million users will get a chance to try out the Gear VR this annum.

Samsung has also decided to offer a Gear VR headset free of cost that is priced at $99 for all those who pre-order the Galaxy S7.

When the CEO graced the stage, a hoard of journalists decided to rush to stage so that they could take selfies and photographs. The company is trying its best to acquaint Virtual Reality amongst the masses through its Oculus Unit. The social media giant is one of those companies that are investing heavily on Virtual Reality considering it to be the next technology that can engage consumers.

The Oculus unit will start the shipment of its headset to the early birds next month. However, the platform has never displayed a Facebook app running on the platform, other than that, the company has not even showed how the family and friends on Facebook can interact via Virtual Reality

However, this might change in the times to come. At present, Mr. Zuckerberg took the opportunity to announce that they are working towards creating a dedicated team for “Social VR”.

The team which will be working on virtual reality will be devoted to Oculus as well as the other teams at Facebook so that they can transform the fate of social interaction through VR. The company mentioned in a recent blog post, "This team will explore how people can connect and share using today's VR technology, as well as long-term possibilities as VR evolves into an increasingly important computing platform.”

This is not the first time when the tech giant has shared its plans of making Virtual reality more social. Almost a year back, Chris Cox, the Chief Product Officer at FB admitted that the company is working on its own Virtual Reality apps during the Recode's Code/Media conference.

Other than that, Oculus has also come up with “Social Alpha” which is an experience on the Samsung Gear VR headset that allows the users to watch videos on Twitch or Vimeo along with other Gear VR users. However, they do not have to be their Facebook friends.

Toyota Motors Corporation Recalls Nearly 3 Million of its SUV Vehicles Globally

Due to faulty seat belts, the auto-maker has decided to call back almost 2.87 million of its SUVs from all across the globe.

Toyota Motor Corporation has announced on Thursday that it will be recalling 2.87 million of its SUVs globally due to faulty seat belts. This fault was discovered when a fatal accident incident happened in Canada and one in the United States in which a passenger was injured badly.

However, they have not yet announced that the injuries or fatality was due to the seat belt but it’s a smart move for them to act fast and recall all of their RAV4, RAV4 EV and Vanguard SUV models as they have become quite popular worldwide. Keeping the SUV in the market for longer would result in more accidents, more lives and a bad name for the company as well. According to an e-mail by the company’s spokeswoman, Kayo Doi the company has not yet confirmed if the fatality or injuries in the accident are connected with the faulty seat belts.

Kayo Doi added that the rear seat belts can be cut by metal seat-cushion frames in case of front crashes. This fault in the vehicle poses a huge issue in the image of the SUVs specifically the RAV4 because it has become on the top selling models in the United States. The top selling car in the American market for the last 14 years has been the Camry but it seems as though Toyota’s RAV4 is not too far behind anymore.

The spokeswoman also stated that after the Canadian regulators informed that the seat belts had been damaged during the crash test research the auto-maker initiated this call back strategy. But this is mainly due to the car’s design and not because of its suppliers. This recall includes 1.33 million automobiles in North America and over 625,000 from the European market and finally over 434,000 from the Chinese market, as per the report by the company.

Additionally, Toyota is not the only company recalling cars, presently Mitsubishi Motors Corporation is also working on repairing 1.4 million of its automobiles as well all across the globe, as per the information provided by Japan’s Transport Ministry.

Back in May 2015, the auto-maker recalled over 5 million vehicles worldwide due to faulty Takata airbags – in case of fatal incident, these airbags were susceptible. Furthermore, over 24 million cars of 14 global car manufacturer were called back to replace Takata airbags as they were unable to serve the purpose. It was considered the largest auto-safety recall in the history of the United States.

Toyota stock rose by 1.7% and is presently being traded at a share price of $107.45. During the session the highest share price was at $108.95 while the lowest was at $107.22 and the trade commenced with a share price of $108.50. The current EPS is 12.96 with price to earnings ratio of $8.29.

AT&T To Take Sprint, T-Mobile and Verizon, Head On!

The telecommunication network is providing customers a chance to switch their network along with a 'buy one get one free' offer.

AT&T Inc. had decided to directly compete against Sprint; as soon as Sprint extended its switch over deal, the telecom giant announced its very own switch over deal to take its piece of the pie. According to the latest deal, the telecommunication organization now offers $650 credit points if customers shift their network to AT&T from any other network.

The telecommunication business is planning on giving tough competition to Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint as there is also a catch to this deal; it is also making its buy one get one free offer a part of this switch over deal. In case the subscribers decide to switch their network, the telecom company will give them an extra smartphone. Presently, this offer is available on the purchase of a new smartphone.

According to the President and CEO of AT&T Mobility, Glenn Lurie, these offers made by the company are one of the best that they have ever had – he added that the $650 credit points is a great offer for its new customers if they decided to switch to their network and additionally, the buy one get one free is a bonus deal that their valued customers will be getting. He believes that this is the perfect time for the customers to ‘rack up their savings’.

This new offer by the telecom network comes with a few terms and conditions and will expire on March 31, 2016, according to the announcement made by the organization. As per the conditions, the new customers will be able to utilize the ‘buy one get one’ offer for the first 30 months to make the most of the $650 credit points. The deal has been exclusively made for the users of Verizon, T-Mobile and Sprint; companies that AT&T is planning to crush with its intense competition – the ultimate aim of the telecom giant is to take the market share of these three telecommunication companies.

In an effort to boost their net subscribers, both Verizon and Sprint had announced similar deals back in December 2015 – however Sprint mentioned that they had been receiving better than expected demand due to which they extended their deadline to avail the deal. According to the deal made available by Sprint, customers got a 50% discount with a switching fee of $650, which was especially for T-Mobile and AT&T users.

During the fourth quarter of fiscal year 2015, the telecom giant reported net wireless subscribers of 28 billion in total while for the quarter the new additions were 174,000. The main concerns of the organization at this point is that its worried that Sprint might be able to take its market share; and if it does so then the monthly net additions of the company might see a significant difference in its growth rate.

Facebook Inc Has Finally Decided To Upgrade The Security of Instagram

Instagram is a Facebook's photo and video sharing app which has now become more secure

In today’s world it’s not hard to take out any person’s personal information – as all the information is usually available on the all the social media networks. These social media applications have become more vulnerable with time; making it easier for hackers to invade user’s privacy. The largest social media network Facebook Inc. has taken a stand and bold move against this problem and is aiming at making its platform more secure for its customers where they can easily and without any stress socialize and connect with their friends.

In order to combat major hackers on the internet, the photo sharing platform Instagram now has included two factor authentications to its video sharing platform, as reported by TechCrunch. Instagram was acquired by the social media website back in 2012 – ever since the acquisition was made by Facebook, the photo sharing application has only grown and prospered. According to a report by the website, the video sharing platform has cross the mark of 400 million users officially.

Furthermore, a number of people are attracted towards the platform now including high profile celebrities, artists and brand – because of this reason even the hackers are encouraged to hack in to their profiles. An advanced level of security was one of the major requirements of the photo sharing app since a while now; however it has finally decided to provide that level of security to its users.

According to the latest advancement made by the social media company, from now on the customers will be asked to verify their profiles through their phone numbers; they will be required to type in their cellphone number, on which they will receive an authentication code. Once the user types their username and password, they will be required to mention the verification code as well hence making it difficult for the hackers to login into user’s accounts. From now onwards, hacking user’s accounts would not be as easy as it used to be which they used to do by either guessing or phishing a customer’s account.

The tool of two factor authentications is now being used by a number of applications especially the parent company of Instagram; it has been using this security advancement since 2011. Additionally, Facebook and Instagram are not the only applications and websites that use the security tool; Gmail also offers the same service. The social media network has been highly criticized because of the low level security provided by Instagram as it was exposed to hackers.

According to a spokesperson of the social media site, this service will be made available to all the customers soon enough – at this point in time, it is not widely available to all the users of the photo sharing application. Some of the high profile celebrities have been a victim of such cases, including Kris Jenner as well as Taylor Swift. Furthermore, there is another offer that is being provided by the video sharing app, according to which a user can be easily able to switch between to accounts instead of logging in and out to switch between accounts.

IBM Has Claimed To Launch The World's Most Secure Server For Cloud, Mobile and Data Center.

The technology company has launched the world's most secure server and along with that it also plans on introducing its very on digital currency by the name of Blockchain.

On February 16, 2016 International Business Machine Corporation announced and is launching a newer version for its z13 mainframe; this latest version of the cyber-frame includes cyber analytics, security innovations along with speedy encryptions. The novel version for the z13 was introduced back in January 2016 which used 1 billion dollars and five years for development by the Big Blue.

The previous fifteen quarters of IBM have got the investors and shareholders of the technology in quite turmoil as it managed to report a decline in sales throughout that time. Despite the fact that it has been going through a rough patch, the tech company has referred to the z13 mainstream as one of the most sophisticated system that it has built yet.

According to the measurements carried on at IBM’s Internal Lab, the system can process over 2.5 billion transactions in a single day which could be equivalent to over 100 Cyber Mondays daily. It has the ability to protect information without affecting the performance of the system or the transactions; additionally its can encrypt and decrypt data twice as fast as the initial system that were performing the same function; thanks to the advanced cryptography built-in feature.

The Vice President of International Business Machines’ Security, Caleb Barlow stated that with the help of the new mainstream system (z13) the tech organization has been able to help mid-market clients to encrypt their entire businesses; including any financial transaction that is processed in their data center to any order placed by any customer. He added that the organization and its system is able to do so with compromising the performance of the software

Additionally, it is also offering another feature to its customers which is, its latest cybersecurity analytics services – this feature/service can help z system users by providing top notch security through which the user will be able to track any unidentified behavior that is carried out. This new security service is coming from the company’s security unit.

In other news, the tech business has also become the biggest ‘backer of technology’ that works in the Bitcoin Digital currency as it aims to test its own personal service with variations that is called Blockchain. This new digital currency will be working on simplifying the lives of IBM’s customers, especially those who lease the company’s computer hardware, according to the information provided by the technology organization.

IBM stock presently is being traded in the market for a share price of $121.04 which shows an increase of 2.71% from its previous trading session. The market cap of the tech giant is reported to be 120.60 billion along with earnings per share of $13.62. The trade commenced at a share price of $119.26 during the current trading session and was seen at a high end of $121.05 and a lower share price of $118.35. Furthermore, during the past year the highest level at which the share price of IBM was seen at was $176.30 and the lowest at which it was seen at was $116.90 during the year.

Apple Expected To Release iPhone 7 In September and iPhone 7s in 2017

The tech giant might be bringing in some new technology to its platform; customers expected for the new features.

Apple, Inc. is expected to release its latest iPhone 7 sometime in September 2016. The Street has been mentioning some of the features that are likely to be seen in the latest smartphone y the Silicon Valley giant. The analysts and company are hopeful that the novel device will introduce some momentum in the slow year over year growth that has been happening in iPhone shipments.

According to Business Insider, a note was published by an analyst of Barclays stating that the technology giant might not be including ‘noise cancelling headphones’ with the new smartphone. This news was reported by analysts at Barclays, Blayne Curtis and Christopher Hemmelgarn. The tech organization is likely to use the basic digital codec in 2016 preparing the company to launch its lightning-connected headphones.

It is possible that Apple will completely eliminate its earphone jack due to which users will be forced to connect their headphones via Bluetooth to the device specifically through the iPhone maker’s Lightning connector. If the business were to ditch the traditional headphone jack, a number of companies as well as the organization’s suppliers would be able to benefit from it.

As per the note published by the two Barclay analysts, Apple Inc. will be including its Lightning connector headphones and give it away with the latest smartphone it will be launching in September; as for the Cirrus’ noise-cancelling technology, that will not be included in the in-box purchase till the iPhone 7s. The S series of the latest iPhone will be out sometime in 2017.

Additionally, it is expected to replace the headphone jack with a speaker, thanks to yet another of Apple’s suppliers, Cirrus Logic. After the ‘below expectations’ sales of the iPhone 6, the technology organization is going to try its best that it lives up to the expectations of its customers, investors and analysts with the launch of the 7 series.

In the upcoming year however the smartphone maker is likely to break a record with its latest noise-cancelling technology. It has managed to maintain a strong position in the market despite the fact that the smartphone market is at its saturation point now.

Presently, Apple stock is being traded at share price of $93.99 indicating an increase of 0.31% from its previous trading session. Furthermore, during the last trading session, the stock price of the tech giant was seen hit a high of $94.50 and a low of $93.01. The 52-week share price was reported to be $134.54 and the twelve month low was reported to be $92.00. The earnings per share reported by the Silicon Valley leader were $9.41 with price to earnings ratio of $9.98. The current market capitalization is of the once ‘most valuable company’ is at $522.75 billion.

Netflix Inc. Has A Bigger Problem In Store For It

Looks like the streaming media company has some real competition coming towards it; it need to improve its security system.

Netflix Inc. has expanded in over 190 countries worldwide during its expansion spree and charges only $9.99 per month for the customers to avail the service – which is a great deal for majority of the users of the streaming media giant. However, a problem has surfaced for the company as a black market for the online streaming service has been discovered that is charging as less as 25 cents per account.

It has been established that during its expansion spree, the streaming media organization forgot to take into account those people who want the same service for cheaper. Online hackers have been around for way too long. They have managed to target bank accounts, credit cards, social media account etc. – and now their target is Netflix Inc.

According to a research report conducted by Symantec, which is an American Cyber Security Firm, stated that a black market has emerged that is claiming to provide the same service provided by the streaming media leader for cheaper rates; the research company was conducting an analysis of how the hacking industry works.

For the users who want the service for cheaper rates have an alternative way through which they can avail the service, hackers are marketing and selling hacked legitimate Netflix accounts to customers for a lesser price, according to the research analysis by the cyber security firm. These accounts are being sold at a price of 25 cents which is not even half the price that the company is actually charging its users. The security firm shows concern over the matter stating that people would prefer to go for these cheaper stolen accounts as they will be able to start their own ‘illegal store’ and further starting selling these illegitimate accounts.

As per the research, these stolen accounts are actual accounts of real customers who are paying their monthly subscription charges for the streaming service that they are availing. The hackers have somehow managed to gain access to Netflix’s database specifically their usernames and passwords and have managed to make a way to make money off of it.

Symantec stated that there are two ways through which these hackers might have gained access to the usernames and password of actual company accounts. One of these two ways is through malware and/or they might have gained access through phishing – in which the hackers pretend to be a bank or an online service through which they gain accessibility to the users’ login information.

A number of users have confirmed that they have received emails that stated that they are from Netflix. These fake emails ask the users to confirm their login credentials. As soon as the user puts its credentials into the email, they are directed to a fake website and not the official website of the streaming media company. So whatever information they type in the email is sent to the hacker.

Furthermore, the information could also be leaked through malware if the users accidentally download something on their computers. These malwares are designed in such a way which makes it seem like Netflix’s original software and according to the research the service is mostly affected users in Brazil – but this is a simple Trojan virus that creeps up into the customer’s computer and steals their information.