Direct messaging is reportedly coming to Threads soon as the Twitter rival app’s user base grows to nearly one-tenth of the Elon Musk-owned platform. A leaked internal report from Meta suggests DMs will be “coming soon” to Instagram’s Threads, along with other exciting features, Business Insider reported. Initially, Instagram’s chief Adam Mosseri had said DMs are not in Threads’ immediate roadmap, but the new leaked memo suggests the Twitter competitor could offer the messaging feature much sooner than expected. This expected update to the platform comes as Threads now has over 100 million user sign ups just within days of its arrival, boasting a weekly active user base that is nearly one-fifth of competitor Twitter’s. Within just its first week of launch, Threads racked up about 93 million active users globally and on 10 July, Meta announced that the app had reached 100 million signups. The app now has more than 150 million downloads, reaching this milestone “5.5 times more quickly than the second-fastest app to do so”, according to the app intelligence firm data.ai. Niantic’s Pokémon GO held the top spot as the most rapidly downloaded app for years since its debut in July 2016. Among Threads’ userbase, data.ai’s report suggested India accounts for nearly a third of the app’s downloads, followed by Brazil, with 22 per cent of overall Threads’ installs, and the US representing about 16 per cent of the total. Now, with the anticipated inclusion of a direct messaging feature, people on Threads can stay longer and chat privately without having to leave the app. Other features such as improved search, trends and topics are also reportedly coming soon, along with a feed in chronological order. It is unclear when these new updates will come. The new changes could put more pressure on Twitter and its owner Elon Musk, who said the platform continues to lose cash as advertising has dropped by half. “We’re still negative cash flow, due to (about a) 50 per cent drop in advertising revenue plus heavy debt load,” Mr Musk tweeted on Saturday. “Need to reach positive cash flow before we have the luxury of anything else,” he said. Read More $44 billion and eight months later. It’s finally all over for Elon Musk Twitter changed my life – I’ll never forgive Elon Musk for what he’s done to it Twitter is in negative cash flow due to 50% drop in advertising revenue, says Elon Musk Twitter in negative cash flow due to 50% drop in advertising revenue, says Elon Musk Twitter starts making payments to its most controversial users Elon Musk posts series of explicit tweets about Mark Zuckerberg

AUSTIN, Texas--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Jul 5, 2023--

By Raphael Satter and Christopher Bing An obscure cloud service company has been providing state-sponsored hackers with internet

Diving into a pool or lake to escape bees could result in a death worthy of a 'Final Destination' movie.

Xbox CFO Tim Stuart insists that the company's merger with Activision Blizzard is going at a "really impressive" speed.

Facebook‘s parent company Meta disabled only a small fraction of the over one million reports it received of underage users on Instagram since early 2019, a lawsuit filed by 33 US states reportedly said. The newly unsealed legal complaint accused the tech giant of carrying an “open secret” that it had millions of users under the age of 13, and that Instagram “routinely continued to collect” their personal information such as location without parental permission. The complaint stated that within the company, Meta’s actual knowledge that millions of Instagram users were under the age of 13 was an “open secret” that was routinely documented, rigorously analyzed and confirmed, and zealously protected from disclosure to the public, according to a New York Times report. Last month, attorneys general from 33 states, including New York’s AG Letitia James, filed a lawsuit against Meta alleging that the tech giant designed harmful features contributing to the country’s youth mental health crisis. The lawsuit alleged Meta created addictive and “psychologically manipulative” features targeting young people while assuring the public falsely that the platform was safe to use. “Meta has profited from children’s pain by intentionally designing its platforms with manipulative features that make children addicted to their platforms while lowering their self-esteem,” Ms James said. Meta’s spokesperson responded to the lawsuit, saying that the company was committed to providing teens with “safe, positive experiences online,” and that it had already introduced “over 30 tools to support teens and their families” such as age verification and preventing content promoting harmful behaviours. “We’re disappointed that instead of working productively with companies across the industry to create clear, age-appropriate standards for the many apps teens use, the attorneys general have chosen this path,” the spokesperson added. However, a significant portion of the evidence provided by the states was obscured from public view via redactions in the initial filing. The new unsealed complaint filed last week provided fresh insights from the lawsuit, including the accusation that Instagram “coveted and pursued” underage users for years and that Meta “continually failed” to make effective age-checking systems a priority. The lawsuit reportedly argued that Meta chose not to build effective systems to detect and exclude underage teen users, viewing them as a crucial next generation demographic it needed to capture. It also accused the tech giant of “automatically” ignoring some reports of under 13 users and allowing them to continue using the platform while knowing about such cases via the company’s internal reporting channels. The company responded that the now publicly revealed complaint “mischaracterizes our work using selective quotes and cherry-picked documents.” It said verifying the ages of its users was a “complex” challenge especially with younger people who likely do not have IDs or licenses. Meta recently said it supports federal legislation requiring app stores to get parents’ approval whenever their teens under 16 download apps. “With this solution, when a teen wants to download an app, app stores would be required to notify their parents, much like when parents are notified if their teen attempts to make a purchase,” the company said. “Parents can decide if they want to approve the download. They can also verify the age of their teen when setting up their phone, negating the need for everyone to verify their age multiple times across multiple apps,” it said. The tech giant holds that the best solution to support young people is a “simple, industry-wide solution” where all apps are held to the same standard. “By verifying a teen’s age on the app store, individual apps would not be required to collect potentially sensitive identifying information,” Meta recently said. Read More Russia places Meta spokesperson on wanted list Meta to allow users to delete Threads accounts without losing Instagram Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away Nasa has received a signal from 10 million miles away Elon Musk set to meet Netanyahu and hostage families in Israel Elon Musk weighs in on Dublin riots claiming country’s PM ‘hates the Irish people’

Netflix says it has begun sending emails to UK customers who are sharing their accounts with people “outside their household”. The streaming giant said a Netflix account was “for use by one household” and those wanting to share theirs must pay £4.99 to do so. It comes after the company, which has lost subscribers amid stiffer competition and rising inflation, began a crackdown on account sharing last year in countries including Chile, Costa Rica and Peru. On Tuesday, Netflix posted a statement online which read: “Starting today, we will be sending this email to members who are sharing Netflix outside their household in the United Kingdom. “A Netflix account is for use by one household. Starting today, we will be sending this email to members who are sharing Netflix outside their household in the United Kingdom. A Netflix account is for use by one household. Netflix statement “Everyone living in that household can use Netflix wherever they are – at home, on the go, on holiday – and take advantage of new features like Transfer Profile and Manage Access and Devices. “We recognise that our members have many entertainment choices. “It’s why we continue to invest heavily in a wide variety of new films and TV programmes – so whatever your taste, mood or language and whoever you’re watching with, there’s always something satisfying to watch on Netflix.” An attached screenshot of the email detailed ways customers could share their accounts. These included allowing users to “transfer a profile” to a “new membership that they pay for” or buying an extra member for the price of £4.99 extra per month. Netflix has changed its tune since joking on Twitter that “Love is sharing a password” as it was quickly expanding in the UK in 2017. Read More Charity boss speaks out over ‘traumatic’ encounter with royal aide Ukraine war’s heaviest fight rages in east - follow live

Tristan Tate tweeted about his passion for the British Empire and was bombarded with criticism soon afterward

Children's advocacy groups including Fairplay and Common Sense Media are asking the Federal Trade Commission to investigate Google, saying the tech giant serves personalized ads to kids on YouTube despite federal law prohibiting the practice

The dinosaurs may have been extinct for more than 65 million years but scientists have suggested that they could still exist as aliens on other planets. Researched published in the Monthly Notices of the Royal Astronomical Society suggests that dinosaurs might not only be on other planets but that we could also find them. The study suggests that if scientists researched compounds that are not currently on Earth but ones that were around during the age of the dinosaurs then it may yield some results. One key element that scientists believe could unlock what would be a groundbreaking discovery is oxygen. The levels of oxygen on Earth at the moment are around 21 per cent but during the time of dinosaurs it was higher at 30 per cent. This, in theory, allowed the dinosaurs to flourish and rule the planet for millions of years. The study suggests that if similar levels of oxygen can be discovered on faraway planets then the conditions could be right for alien like dinosaurs to exist. The study's co-author Lisa Kaltenegger said in a statement: "Modern Earth's light fingerprint has been our template for identifying potentially habitable planets, but there was a time when this fingerprint was even more pronounced — better at showing signs of life." She adds: "This gives us hope that it might be just a little bit easier to find signs of life — even large, complex life — elsewhere in the cosmos." One clue that could unlock this discovery which scientists are looking for are signs of a Phanerozoic stage on a planet which would allow creatures like dinosaurs to evolve. The study's lead author, Rebecca Payne of Cornell University, said: "The Phanerozoic is just the most recent 12 per cent or so of Earth's history, but it encompasses nearly all of the time in which life was more complex than microbes and sponges. These light fingerprints are what you'd search for elsewhere if you were looking for something more advanced than a single-celled organism." If they are successful in finding these conditions on other planets then Kaltenegger believes it could lead to the discovery of dinosaurs that have never been found on Earth. "Hopefully we'll find some planets that happen to have more oxygen than Earth right now because that will make the search for life just a little bit easier," she said. "And, who knows, maybe there are other dinosaurs waiting to be found." Sign up for our free Indy100 weekly newsletter Have your say in our news democracy. Click the upvote icon at the top of the page to help raise this article through the indy100 rankings.

Palantir Technologies Inc. Chief Executive Officer Alex Karp said new AI developments at his company are so powerful

PITTSBURGH--(BUSINESS WIRE)--Sep 7, 2023--