June, 2016

• 23 June

  Instagram launches ‘Picked for You’ channels, curates videos based on user interest

  

  Video viewership on the popular social networking and photo app Instagram has increased 150 percent over the past six months, the company said Thursday. To address this trend, it will begin featuring videos based on a user’s favorite interests. The video channels will be folded into the “Picked for You” feature in Instagram’s Explore menu. …

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• 23 June

  Why you should take another look at WPS Office Free

  

  CNET’s Cheapskate scours the Web for great deals on PCs, phones, gadgets and much more. Questions about the Cheapskate blog? Find the answers on our FAQ page. And find more great buys on the CNET Deals page. Once upon a time, WPS Office (formerly Kingsoft Office) was my favorite free office suite. It had the look of modern-day Microsoft Office …

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• 23 June

  Instagram will soon automatically translate foreign languages in

  

  Fresh off hitting 500 million users, Instagram has announced that user bios, comments and captions posted in foreign languages will be automatically translated to the user’s native language. Now, we can better enjoy the snaps of breakfast, dogs and memes posted by our friends abroad (and the occasional photo featuring actual humans, too). “The Instagram community has grown faster and …

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• 23 June

  Pick up this powerful little JBL Bluetooth speaker for half

  

  Now playing: Watch this: JBL Clip: Tiny, travel-friendly Bluetooth speaker adds… 2:13 Thanks to the universal limitations of Bluetooth compression, most of the name-brand portable Bluetooth speakers actually sound very similar. It comes down to supplemental features and pricing for customers to decide which one to buy. If you’re looking to add a soundtrack to your summer, now is the …

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• 23 June

  Facebook is training employees to avoid political bias

  

  Silicon Valley’s new mantra: Have a problem? Solve it with training! The latest example comes from Sheryl Sandberg, Facebook’s COO, who said the company has begun teaching employees how to spot and manage political bias in their work, following outcry over the company’s trending-topics feature and concerns it doesn’t equally display conservative and liberal news topics. The effort is part …

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• 23 June

  How long can BlackBerry’s phone business survive? (The 3:59, Ep. 67)

  

  BlackBerry continues to drop the ball. The embattled phone maker reported results Thursday that saw continued declines in its phone business, confirming the sentiment shared by AT&T earlier this month. It may be only a matter of time before BlackBerry scraps the hardware business as it continues its transformation into a business software and services provider. Special guest Iyaz “The …

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• 23 June

  Samsung selling dual

  

  Chinese smartphone makers Xiaomi and LeEco could soon be offering phones featuring dual cameras, much like the Huawei P9, the Korean Herald reports. What’s more, Samsung Electro Mechanics will be supplying the dual-camera modules to both smartphone makers in July, sources told the publication. “Samsung Electro Mechanics will offer a true dual camera to the market in the second half …

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• 23 June

  Internet tunes in to watch giant balloon take an explosive powder

  

  Who doesn’t like watching things blow up? And who doesn’t like watching others make a gigantic mess that you don’t have to clean up? Following their April stunt where employees wrapped hundreds of rubber bands around a watermelon until it exploded in a satisfying juicy mess, BuzzFeed staffers on Thursday staged a similar event. This time, they filled a white …

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• 23 June

  Apple plans to retire aging Thunderbolt display

  

  Apple is planning to discontinue sales of its Thunderbolt Display, a well-liked but aging monitor. The monitor, which was introduced in 2011 but never updated, is still available in the Apple store until the inventory runs out. The move leaves Apple without a branded monitor to offer Mac users. “We’re discontinuing the Apple Thunderbolt Display,” Apple said in a statement. …

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• 23 June

  The best IFTTT recipes for international travelers

  

  It’s officially summer — aka vacation season. There’s no better way to vacation than with streamlined, barely-there tech. IFTTT, or “IF This, Then That,” is an online automation service that connects apps and services so that certain actions can be set up to automatically trigger other actions. I know that sounds complicated, but it actually makes your life less complicated …

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