Facebook has repeatedly pushed back against calls to split up Instagram and WhatsApp from the social media giant, arguing it won’t solve its woes around privacy, election meddling and other issues. It turns out even one of its competitors, Snapchat, isn’t sure if a break-up is a good idea. Evan Spiegel, the CEO and co-founder …
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Facebook hasn’t been quiet about copying features made popular by Snapchat and adding them to Instagram and its other apps. Apparently Snap, the parent company of the Snapchat app, kept track of Facebook’s competitive moves in a dossier called “Project Voldemort.” Project Voldemort — a nod to the dark wizard and main antagonist in the Harry Potter book series — …
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Facebook has partnered with Ray-Ban and Oakley sunglasses maker Luxottica to develop augmented reality glasses, according to a report. The companies are looking to launch a set of AR glasses, code-named Orion, for consumers sometime between 2023 and 2025, CNBC said on Tuesday. Facebook’s AR glasses have been in the works for some time. In 2017, the company’s chief technology …
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Snapchat and Instagram were both struggling on Monday afternoon, with users unable to send chats. Tests of both apps showed everything else working — on Snapchat you could send snaps and see stories and on Instagram you could view your feed and stories and send pictures. Snapchat confirmed it was completely back online as of around 3:30 p.m. PT. Snapchat …
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During weekend’s G7 summit, French President Emmanuel Macron reportedly said the US didn’t sign on to a charter against online hate speech. Why? Macron said “legal reasons,” according to a report from Reuters on Monday. “We formalized an agreement for the first time with several Anglo-Saxon and European platforms and with support from nearly all (G7) countries,” Macron told reporters, …
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Snap unveiled the third version of its Snapchat Spectacles on Tuesday, showing off the slick new frames that it promises will capture depth and dimension “the way our eyes do.” Due to ship this fall, the specs have undergone a tech overhaul since their last iteration and also appear to be sleeker and more compact. Designed to capture content specifically …
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Instagram is my social media jam. I share photos with friends and see their pictures as well. It’s a happy space for me, or at least it used to be. Instagram has changed drastically over the years. There are ads everywhere, and it feels more like Snapchat and Facebook than the hip photo-sharing site it once was. To make matters …
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Snap, the parent company of ephemeral-messaging app Snapchat, said Tuesday that its daily active user base grew 7% to 203 million in the second quarter, suggesting the company was seeing success with its revamped Android app. That’s an increase of 13 million from the 190 daily active users the company reported in the first quarter. Snap CEO Evan Spiegel during …
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To celebrate Wimbledon 2019, Snapchat made a Bitmoji Tennis game that lets you hit the court with your friends. Snapchat started rolling out its own set of games called Snap Games in April. Similar to Facebook games, you can invite your friends to play with you. You can find Bitmoji Tennis, as well as other Snap Games, by opening a chat and then tapping on the …
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A San Francisco Bay Area man reportedly used Snapchat’s gender swap filter to take down a police officer allegedly looking for an underage hookup on Tinder. Ethan, a 20-year-old college student, took a photo of himself and used the feature to pose as a teenage girl named “Esther” as way to hunt predators, NBC Bay Area reported Tuesday. The fake profile …
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