Technology

San Francisco, Aug 31 (IANS) Truth Social, the social media platform launched by Donald Trump to counter Twitter, is yet to get approval from Google Play Store and the former US President's company was working "in good faith with Google".

Google has notified Truth Social of "several violations of standard policies in their current app submission", reiterating that "having effective systems for moderating user-generated content is a condition of our terms of service for any app to go live on Google Play".

Trump Media & Technology Group (TMTG) said in a statement that it has "no desire to litigate its business matters in the public sphere, but for the record, has promptly responded to all inquiries from Google".

It said that the Truth Social Android app complies with Google's policies without compromising the promise to be "a haven for free speech".

"As our users know, Truth Social is building a vibrant, family-friendly environment that works expeditiously to remove content that violates its Terms of Service, which independent observers have noted are among the most robust in the industry," the company said.

It alleged that some of its competitors' apps are allowed in the Google Play Store despite "rampantly violating Google's prohibition on sexual content and other policies, whereas Truth Social has zero tolerance for sexually explicit content".

Truth Social was launched in the Apple App Store on February 21.

According to reports, Truth Social is strapped for cash and facing tech and legal troubles.

"The most immediate problem is the platform's stalled SPAC, initially planned as a way to publicly trade shares in the new company without the diligence of an IPO," reports The Verge.

An SEC filings show that the company has lost over $6 million in the first half of this year and hasn't generated any revenue.

--IANS
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San Francisco, Aug 31 (IANS) Tech giant Apple's upcoming fourth-generation iPhone SE is allegedly going to be identical to the iPhone XR, which was launched in 2018.

According to AppleInsider, the tech giant's expected fourth generation iPhone SE will effectively be a reworked iPhone XR. The prediction made by leaker Jon Prosser is most likely just a sensible extrapolation of Apple's prior designs for the iPhone SE, the report said.

To produce the less expensive iPhone SE model, Apple likes to modify the hardware from previous models slightly. The original model from 2016 modified the hardware from the iPhone 5S from 2013. Based on the iPhone 8, the 2022 model was created. First spotted by AppleTrackr, Prosser predicted on the Geared Up podcast.

"The iPhone SE 4, likely coming next year, will essentially be a rebranded iPhone XR. Expect a 6.1-inch display with Face ID, 12MP rear camera and IP67 water and dust resistance," Apple Track tweeted.

Meanwhile, in March, the tech giant launched the third generation iPhone SE with support for 5G networks in 64GB, 128GB, and 256GB models in midnight, starlight, and (PRODUCT)RED, starting at Rs 43,900. It features a 4.7-inch Retina HD display with a 750x1334 pixels resolution that brings 326ppi of pixel density and has up to 625 nits of peak brightness.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Aug 31 (IANS) Google has launched a new bug bounty programme where it will award up to $31,337 (nearly Rs 25 lakh) to researchers who spot vulnerabilities in the company's Open Source projects.

Depending on the severity of the vulnerability and the project's importance, rewards will range from $100 to $31,337.

The larger amounts will also go to unusual or particularly interesting vulnerabilities, "so creativity is encouraged," said Google while launching its Open Source Software Vulnerability Rewards Programme (OSS VRP).

As the maintainer of major projects such as Golang, Angular, and Fuchsia, Google is among the largest contributors and users of open source in the world.

Last year, Google saw a 650 per cent year-over-year increase in attacks targeting the open source supply chain.

With the addition of Google's own vulnerability reward programme (VRP), researchers can now be rewarded for finding bugs that could potentially impact the entire open source ecosystem.

The original VRP programme was one of the first in the world and is now approaching its 12th anniversary.

"Over time, our VRP lineup has expanded to include programmes focused on Chrome, Android, and other areas. Collectively, these programs have rewarded more than 13,000 submissions, totalling over $38 million paid," Google said in a statement late on Tuesday.

Google said its OSS VRP is part of "our $10 billion commitment to improving cybersecurity, including securing the supply chain against these types of attacks for both Google's users and open source consumers worldwide".

--IANS
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New Delhi, Aug 31 (IANS) Twitter reportedly planned to monetise adult content on its platform this year, by allowing adult creators to sell subscriptions on the micro-blogging platform, and become profitable in a jiffy.

According to The Verge, Twitter was set to become a competitor to adult creator website OnlyFans by allowing adult creators to use its platform in the spring of 2022.

Some adult creators still reportedly rely on Twitter as a means to advertise their OnlyFans accounts, as posting porn doesn't violate its guidelines.

However, an 84-employee "Red Team" discovered that Twitter cannot detect child sexual abuse material (CSAM) at scale if it allows adult content to stream via its platform.

Twitter also lacked tools to verify that creators and consumers of adult content were above the age of 18.

The discovery by the Red Team actually derailed the project at Twitter.

"Twitter cannot accurately detect child sexual exploitation and non-consensual nudity at scale," the Red Team found.

As a result, in May, after Tesla CEO Elon Musk announced to buy Twitter for $44 billion, the company delayed the project indefinitely, the report mentioned late on Tuesday.

"Allowing creators to begin putting their content behind a paywall would mean that even more illegal material would make its way to Twitter -- and more of it would slip out of view. Twitter had few effective tools available to find it," the report noted.

Twitter's yearly revenue is nearly $5 billion, a tiny amount compared to a company like Google, which earned $257 billion in revenue last year.

Google and Meta have more sophisticated technology to identify CSAM, and still these systems are not full-proof.

"Twitter has zero tolerance for child sexual exploitation. We aggressively fight online child sexual abuse and have invested significantly in technology and tools to enforce our policy," according to Twitter which is fighting a legal battle with Musk after he terminated the $44 billion takeover deal over the presence of bots.

--IANS
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Chennai, Aug 30 (IANS) Director Hari's out-and-out entertainer 'Yaanai', featuring Arun Vijay and Priya Bhavani Shankar in the lead, has garnered an impressive 100 million streaming minutes on OTT.

The film had a successful theatrical run before being released on the OTT platform ZEE5 on August 19.

The film's success has delighted the OTT platform, which has said that it is enthused by the response the film has received so far and that it encourages them to continue delivering real and relatable entertainment to their audiences.

The movie, which earned positive reviews from both critics and general audiences during its theatrical run, has been receiving an excellent response on OTT.

With the film repeating its successful run on OTT, it appears that director Hari's strategy of creating a perfect entertainer, encapsulating emotions, action, sentiment, romance, and ingredients that cater to the tastes of family audiences, has worked yet again.

Produced by Drumstick Productions, the film was primarily targeted at audiences in 'B' and 'C' towns. What worked in the film's favour was the fact that the film had huge expectations riding on it as this is the first rural script that Arun Vijay was doing after a gap of almost 12 years.

--IANS
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New Delhi, Aug 30 (IANS) Most Indian banks are falling behind customers' changing needs on their mobile apps, doing too little to help customers understand their spending and debts, create useful budgets, receive personalised insights, get proactive advice, track their financial health, and monitor their financial lives, a new report has revealed.

Indian banks have a lowest average score in money management capabilities. In fact, no bank scored higher than 60 in this area of mobile banking, according to the latest Q3 2022 report by global research firm Forrester.

Despite improved navigation, most Indian banks still struggle to implement good search in their apps, such as when searching for app functionality or a particular transaction, the report mentioned.

More Indian banks now display a privacy policy but this content is verbose and not easy to consume for the masses.

"Many banks struggle to design rich apps well. A good mobile banking experience strikes the right balance between useful functionality and great user experience,a said the report.

In 2021, 72 per cent of online Indian adult customers said they used a mobile banking app for their banking activities in the past month, and the number going mobile-only is growing.

"New functionality feels bolted on to older parts of the app and often has a completely different look and feel. The addition of a plethora of newer payment options makes the overall payment experience disjointed," said the Forrester report.

The user experience of Indian banking apps has improved significantly since 2020. Many have newer, cleaner interfaces that are easier to navigate and simplify payments by offering a combined search of registered payees irrespective of the payee's bank.

"But key concerns remain," said the report.

--IANS
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