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All Posts Term: Internet Today
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Paypal The J.P. Morgan Of The Internet

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Paypal, the famous online payment website has expanded its services. Venmo, Paypal's newest peer-to-peer payment platform, provides an easy to use app that allows easy financial transactions.

Venmo and Paypal dominate the cyber world of peer-to-peer and b2b payments. The goal of these services, provide easy and flexibility. Today, people are using their mobile devices for all types of payments. Mobile devices, including cellular telephones, are the center from which housewives, entrepreneurs, and executives of all types conduct their business of all types.

Paypal's Venmo app allows users to request and make payments from a mobile device. The easy of use is a major key to Venmo's success.

Paypal's success started a decade ago. When consumers started shopping through websites like Ebay or Amazon they needed a secure way to ensure the transaction was both legitimate, legal, and safe.

Why You Need Nintendo's Switch Now!

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With the underwhelming performance of Nintendo's Wii U, it is natural to be leery about the company's latest console: the Nintendo Switch. Skepticism is warranted based on its limited launch library and bare bones functionality, but the games released thus far already provide an amazing gaming experience.

First, the downsides. The Switch's menu is full of empty square blocks that seem to be awaiting functionality in the future. While it is only natural to expect increased functionality as developers spend more time with the hardware, obvious features such as Netflix are currently absent. Any games you have are displayed, but the included eShop offers a total of nine games. If you are not interested in any of them, your options may seem lacking.

Quality is more important than quantity, however, and the Switch has one universally praised gem. Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an extremely versatile title with a large open world that caters to a wide range of playing styles, from combat specialists to stealth fanatics. There is so much to explore that you may not need another game for a long time.

Saying Farewell To The Vine Looping Application

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Vine is closing down, so remember to get your videos exported today.

As announced initially in October, Twitter will shortly close its' looping video application down, and its' social media network Vine. At first, the firm suggested that it would remove the Vine application from app stores, however subsequently, it decided to change this to a newer, easy to maintain application known as Vine Camera. In advance of this, Vine's application and website were upgraded to enable the exportation of Vines, if you don't want them to be deleted.

It is possible to export Vines until later today. This can be done from the Vine website, or from Android or iOS applications. At the moment, the Vine website states that Vines can be downloaded up until the 17th January 2017, at which point the applications will convert to the Vine Camera. However, the banner for the mobile application states that the application will be upgraded tomorrow.

VidAngel May Be Getting Shut Down

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The streaming service, VidAngel, may be getting shut down for federal violations.

VidAngel is a company in Ohio that has been streaming various videos after filtering out all of the nudity, violence and foul language. Organizations such as Fox, Disney and Warner Bros. have gotten together and sued this small business. The reason for the suit is that the business took their copy written material, altered it and then streamed it to customers who paid them. In all fairness, that is not a legal process. VidAngel would have needed a special license to do what they did, and they did not have such a license.

Netflix Plans To Expanding Original Content

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Netflix plans to increase original content by 20 shows in the next year.

Netflix has been slowly releasing original content in recent years. The company has been doing it to rave reviews. They have stated that their long-term goal is to have half of the streamable content be comprised of original material. The goal is 1,000 new hours of content each year developed by Netflix. The first year for this will be 2017.

For comparison, Netflix offered 600 hours of self-produced content in 2016 and 450 in 2015. As you can see, the increase in incremental, but the increments are aggressive. They plan to spend $6 billion on original programming next year.

There are a few reasons they are planning on doing this. The first is competition. Streaming entertainment companies are getting more competitive. Netflix used to stand out from Hulu and other similar services in their offerings. This is not true anymore. They believe by increasing their own content they will distance themselves from these other companies.

Reddit CEO Drops A Bombshell

Steve Huffman

Reddit CEO confesses that he changed comments made by supporters of Donald Trump

Steve Huffman, American entrepreneur, web-developer, and the CEO of Reddit, has confessed that he edited comments made about him on the website from Donald Trump supporters. Born in Lansing Michigan, Huffman also co-founded the now defunct airfare search site Hipmunk.

Huffman claimed that he altered references to him in several of the comments inside the website's biggest forum for the next President, however not the comments themselves. Nonetheless, by doing this, he brings up previous worries that Reddit can not work with its' users.

"Yes. I changed the 'screw ups' remarks, editing them for roughly sixty minutes" wrote Huffman, who founded Reddit in 2005 with Alexis Ohanian.

Google, Facebook Make Changes In Effort To Ban Fake News Sites

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Fake news sites dot the landscape on platforms like Facebook and Google. Unfortunately, such sites play a dangerous game of misinformation. They've even proved lucrative for the perpetrators. Facebook and Google recently took efforts to ban fake news sites, though. With these efforts, perhaps the flood of fake news will lessen in a noticeable way.

On social media, fake news rose to popularity with the US election more so than ever before. Such sites found their way into Google search results and Google News. This type of news spreads inaccurate information on purpose rather than pushing a particular opinion or belief.

Google's policies now state that sites cannot misstate or misrepresent information. If a site breaks the policy, then it could lose Google AdSense privileges. Of course, fake news sites depend upon Google AdSense revenue in order to turn a profit from misinformation.

Your Next Job Could Come From Facebook!

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Recruitment drives through LinkedIn now face competition as Facebook creates a new job opening feature.

Pages have always been an important part of Facebook's ecosystem, and now they've added a new twist: job listings. Companies who currently market their products via their Facebook news feeds may now also have a new reason to funnel traffic that way; driving traffic for Facebook and paying for the privilege.

At present, it is only an experiment, first spotted by TechCrunch, and part of a wider drive to address the burgeoning social recruitment market. It is, in part, a response to behaviour that Facebook confirm they have already noticed: small businesses offering jobs through their existing Facebook pages.

There are already others participating in this market -- LinkedIn, Work4 and Jobscore to name but a few -- so there is clearly demand to be addressed. These services can already be embedded in Facebook pages, so it is a natural follow-on for Facebook to launch their own service. Speculation online is that Facebook already did some preparation work when it tested Profile Tags in 2015.

The Clinton Foundation Denies Being Hacked

Guccifer 2.0

A hacker with the screen handle Guccifer 2.0 has claimed to have hacked the Clinton Foundation's website and leaked various emails tied to the Democratic National Committee. A number of files that could be potentially damaging to Hillary Clinton's reputation have been uncovered. The Clinton Foundation has issued a statement of denial about this claim. The hacker has reportedly posted screenshots and copies of spreadsheets that he claims to have found on the DNC's servers.

The hacker was posted that the Clinton campaign hasn't even bothered to secure their information against intrusions, and breaking in was a relatively quick and easy process. There has also been media attention devoted to the political motivation behind the breach. The hacker even mentioned a shout-out to Julian Assange. The two of these hackers have been tied to the publication of condemning information about private citizens and about members of the DNC.

Yahoo Password Breach May Create Ripple Effect, Experts Warn

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Cyber-security investigators are continuing to assess the damage in the aftermath of the massive Yahoo password breach that occurred in 2014, in which scores of Yahoo users had their password data stolen. The concern of investigators now is that the data could potentially be used to hack other websites, such as banks and email accounts.

According to Shuman Ghosemajumder, Shape Security's chief technology officer in California, cybercriminals often use this data for "credential stuffing". This is a process in which they use stolen usernames and passwords on various websites to access confidential information. Today's software makes this process almost instantaneous for cybercriminals, although it is only successful approximately 2 percent or less of the time.

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