Instagram Will Continue To Focus On Full-Screen Content With Upcoming Tests For Ultra-Tall Images

It might seem to many that Meta’s march to copy TikTok’s algorithms may have slowed down by quite an extent but we’d like to inform you that it’s not stopped by any means.

While Instagram may have listened to many people crying out loud to stop focusing on copying TikTok, more news reports from the company are clearly hinting how they’re yet to shift focus from full-screen content.

Now, Instagram will soon be launching tests for ultra-tall images that can well align with its full-screen reels. So if you were breathing a sigh of relief that the controversial redesign isn’t happening, well, this is definitely a rude awakening.

The news comes to us thanks to the platform’s CEO Adam Mosseri who revealed during a recent session of Ask Me Anything that Instagram is going to soon carry out a test for the extra-tall 9:16 images.

The testing phase will begin by next week or perhaps after that but it’s definitely happening, the CEO confirmed today.

Mosseri added that the app was making the most of tall videos without users having access to tall images. So what not introduce the latter so both aspects are given equal importance, right? After all, Instagram was first renowned for its pictures, after which the craze for videos and Reels came.

On average, Instagram is producing images in the 4:5 ratio whenever vertical pictures are displayed across the app and cropped accurately. Now, the change would allow for more support regarding images that fall in the 9:16 ratio, which are not only much taller but slimmer too.

This way, the image would end up filling up your entire screen while you continue scrolling through Instagram’s news feed.

But we don’t know how the response to the change is going to go as in the previous history with the same experiment received plenty of backlash from known photographers who felt the app was clearly not thinking straight.

They added that forcing images to fit the bigger 9:16 frame was not only awkward but really made the images seem out of place. Also, the new Instagram feed was seen incorporating overlay ingredients to the posts’ bottom portion. This way, the app thought the written text would be much simpler to read.

But the convenience factor really bombarded the photographer’s work and the end result was not a happy one.

Throughout the past few weeks, we’ve seen Mosseri bump heads with the app’s users on the final outlook of Instagram and its redesign. And the Instagram CEO has clearly spoken several times about how tall reels will always look better when compared to tall images.

In other words, the full-screen experience is more suitable for Reels than it is for pictures. Yet, the fact that the app is still willing to enter into the territory with a test that’s rolling out soon is definitely questionable.

Also, Instagram’s own tests have proven that people aren’t loving the overhauled design and it’s causing them to dislike and tune in less. Hence, we’re curious to see how the feedback for this test goes.

H/T: TheVerge

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google Is Looking To Revamp Its Search Homepage By Testing New Widgets

For years now, we’ve been accustomed to seeing the Google homepage as one that’s crisp, clean, and as minimalistic as can be.

There’s adequate room to add in your search queries in the space bar and that’s about it. But if you’ve wanted a little more in terms of the homepage’s interface, well, you might be in luck.

Google is carrying out a test that could possibly revamp its search page after years.

The company is experimenting with different rows of widgets that it feels can possibly serve useful purposes. And while nothing is final yet, we’re definitely loving the sounds of it so far.

Dubbed as the ‘new Google.com’, you can soon find apps like weather, your standard news, and a few other cards offering a wide array of features. And by the sounds of it, it’s definitely going to be diverse and innovative.

The move to transform Google’s desktop webpage has begun and the entire ordeal is more or less similar to its Discover endeavor.

Google announced its decision for the test in February, where it highlighted the possibility to introduce a few useful widgets to its homepage. They’ve even spoken about how two users have already written in and talked about seeing it happen live.

So what’s new? Well, for starters, you’ll be seeing a new ‘Meet the new Google’ card pop up on your home screens. This requests users to sign into their accounts and allow for the customization process to begin.

Next, users can press on the ‘make this space yours’ tab which allows for a hello pop-up to enter, followed by ‘what are you interested in’ to arrive next on your screens. This way, you can play around and carry out customization of the various widgets on offer.

Some common and fun selections that you can utilize include cryptocurrency, air quality, weather, news, sports, and stock exchange. What to watch, events happening near you, and more.

For now, as per default settings on the page, these cards are made to appear as small rectangular tiles. This way, you can benefit from seeing a wider view at first glance.

We definitely find the change to be very unique and interesting because Google used to talk about how important it was for homepages to remain basic, to the point, and as minimalistic as can be.

However, we do feel change is necessary and much overdue, as far as Google is concerned. Hence, we could well be seeing a bigger launch soon and we’re excited to see what the final outlook seems like.

You’ll find the new set of cards to pop up at the bottom of the page because Google says it’s not ready to do something too drastic. Moreover, you can even click on Hide if you don’t wish to clutter your page too much as customization is key.

Also, the company says the overall number of cards users get on the page varies depending on their screen size.

H/T: GreenShades

Read next: Google’s Quoted Searches Will Now Appear In Bold So Users Can See The Most Relevant Results
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

LinkedIn Launches New Link Sticker That Helps In Driving External Traffic

LinkedIn says it believes it has found the perfect solution for driving external traffic. And this comes in the form of an innovative link sticker that was rolled out for some users today.

With the new approach, users are given the chance to add the sticker to their images, putting it wherever they like as it arises in different sizes.

Thanks to more insight from leading social media analyst Lindsay Gamble, we got the chance to see more about the venture through her insights. And on first glance, the sticker is quite similar to those provided by Instagram and Facebook. Moreover, you can think of it as adding more referral links to your posts.

We feel the new venture could certainly come in handy in terms of carrying out more trials with the design. And as you’re already aware, the engagement seen across the app continues to increase. Hence, we don’t see why this can’t serve as a valuable tool to help drive more user traffic through LinkedIn's feed.

You can find the sticker option for external links as a tool in the post creation tab. It’s best delineated by the famous icon reserved for chain links.

However, LinkedIn mentioned that at this stage, it’s only applicable for users through the mobile version of the platform and not yet for desktop users. However, that doesn’t mean you can’t interact with the links on the desktop.

In other words, millions of LinkedIn members can tap into the links whenever they see them. And that’s around 850 million platform users in total.

As far as different hues are concerned, well, it’s a little limited in that regard as you can’t change the colors. However, links could be attached to both video content as well as the regular image. And users are also given the chance to get the text customized that comes as a display with the link.

While some might not appreciate the large text attached to the link button, we do feel it can gather for better reach and awareness, while driving more users to interact. We also feel it’s an innovative approach to the usual content seen on the app.

For now, LinkedIn revealed how the feature is getting launched on a gradual basis. Hence, not all users would be having it at the same time, but you’ll definitely get it soon.

Read next: LinkedIn launches a new human-based discovery feature making big changes to the platform
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

YouTube is releasing a feature that will allow users to zoom into a video but it will only be available for premium users

YouTube is one of the most used apps in the world and like many apps have a premium subscription as well. YouTube Premium starts at 11.99 dollars per month and has a lot of killer features to offer. The best feature YouTube Premium has to offer is undeniably the no-ad feature. This feature lets users not see any ads while, before, or after a video no matter how monetized the uploader is. YouTube Premium is very cheap as compared to other platforms that have a premium subscription like Spotify which is 2 dollars cheaper than YouTube Premium and Netflix whose standard package starts at 15.49 dollars for a month.

Now YouTube has come up with another new feature that will only be available for Premium users and that feature is the ability to be able to zoom into any video at any time. However it should be noted that this feature is still an experimental one and it is not clear if this one will be coming to the app soon, but with the current state of affairs, it seems like it is very likely that this feature is here to stay.

The format and the screen sizes of android phones have always been changing with time and YouTube has evolved to keep up. First, it gave users the ability to stretch the video to fit their phone screen, and then YouTube gave its users another feature that allowed them to adjust the ratio of the video along with providing them with different resolutions as well. But if you are feeling a bit more courageous then YouTube is also providing a new feature that will allow users to zoom into a video at any time a video.

You can find this feature listed on YouTube’s Experimental features site. Once it is enabled users will be able to zoom into any part of a video at any time during the video however it should be kept in mind that this feature is only available for Premium users.

Read next: YouTube Launches Exciting Updates For Creators And Here’s What To Expect
by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

The End Of Windows 10 Is Nowhere Near As It Continues To Achieve Market Gains With Gamers

Every time you believe the end of Windows 10 is nearer than you imagined comes more news about a fascinating incident that flips that very notion.

Today, trends are showing us that Windows 10 isn’t ready to be wiped out from the market, thanks to a recent report by Valve.

Windows 10 is proving to be a clear winner for some when compared to Windows 11 after both were recently put into the spotlight by the report.

But why is that so when you’ve got the latest version up for grabs? Aren’t we supposed to shun the old and accept the new? Well, that’s not quite the case here.

Valve’s recently published report for this month highlighted the ongoing conditions of the Steam Market. Shares were discussed and the trends weren’t quite what many tech analysts were expecting.

There’s definitely a major shocker for users of Windows 10 and 11.

Steam’s new results from a recently conducted survey for hardware and software delineated how Windows 11 market shares experienced a decline of nearly 0.11%. And this is definitely the first time ever that we’re seeing a deceleration of this kind appear for games across Windows 11 on the platform.

Usually, the exact opposite takes place.

Looking at this particular data set, Windows 10 happened to show an increase in the market shares for Steam, rising by almost 2%. Wow, a change like that to occur against Windows 11 in the same month means big things.

Meanwhile, Windows 7 and 8 both experienced downfalls too, losing out their respective Steam market shares at the same time. So that clearly shows you that the Windows 10 increase wasn’t accidental.

According to tech analysts, this could mean big things for Windows 10! Gamers across Steam are willing to go back to Windows 10 despite it being an older version of OS and even after having the newer Windows 11 at their disposal.

There have been so many issues since the launch of Windows 11, ever since the latter underwent its release. People couldn’t stop with their complaints because that’s actually how dissatisfied they were with the whole situation.

In such a short span of time, having this many issues is definitely a signal that change was inevitable.

But another major compounding factor in this entire situation has to do with how the entire market share across Steam also fell for Windows 11 because there was a great deal of failure on the part of Microsoft.

It clearly failed to rightly convince users or gamers why they needed to make the upgrade or switch to Windows 11.

Even if we did happen to witness a slight increase in the market share at Steam for Windows 11, it’s only been marginal. To help better put things into perspective, well, only 22% of gamers are using Windows 11 as compared to the 73% making use of Windows 10.

Obviously, gamers are going to be sticking with versions they feel comfortable in, not to mention those that offer greater stability, And that means Windows 10 in this regard.

Read next: Social Media Profiles Are Getting Hacked At Alarming Rates, Confirms New Report
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google’s Quoted Searches Will Now Appear In Bold So Users Can See The Most Relevant Results

There’s nothing more worrisome on the web than not being able to find exactly what you’ve searched for. And to help with issues circulating around that very theme, Google is launching a new feature.

The search engine giant unveiled how its quoted searches would soon be arising in bold. The move is designed to help users witness their most relevant searches first, before getting lost in the wide amount of information scattered across their screens.

The new tweak to the tech giant's quote searches is sure to add a great degree of effectiveness when searching for a certain result.

But for now, it’s going to be limited to searches on desktops only, although the firm does plan on expanding the initiative further to mobile devices soon.

Hence, the next time users end up making a quoted search on their PC, the term questioned would be highlighted in bold for greater prominence when it arrives in the search results pages.

You can specifically find the bold text in the snippets preview version of the page on Google that the company would portray under every search result.

The company announced the decision via its blog post that was published yesterday. Here, Google elaborated on how it wished to make things simpler for users' search queries, and for that, they’re bolding their queried searches.

The change will take place after users press on the link and go to visit that particular content in question.

In case you might not be aware, quoted searches are for those occasions when a user wants a particular search result to include a specific term, sentence, or even a phrase. To put it simply, many see it as a great tool that really narrows down your searches when a regular Google search fails to find results that users might be in search of.

In the past, Google prevented itself from highlighting text observed in certain quoted searches. And that was related to the fact that the text quoted could be found in other parts of the page. Hence, it wouldn’t end up producing the most helpful reviews or little snippets of where the information could be found.

Developers agreed and felt that it just would affect the entire readability factor as irrelevant snippets would pop up showing the term in different areas of any web page.

On that note, Google worked hard and finally found a solution, keeping in mind input from its loyal users.

It spoke about all the feedback that it had received regarding its quoted searches. People wanted to see where their quoted terms popped up across a page as it added more value and ease to their search.

This was much more user-friendly and had a great readability factor when compared to a simple summary of what the page was all about.

Now we hope users don’t expect every single term mentioned in their query or quote to be bold on the web page because that’s very difficult.

Google adds that it would also be searched for the highlighted term in the description text, ALT area for text, and the Meta too.

Hence, if you like the sound of that, go ahead and try it out on your desktop computers today.

Read next: Google Is Testing An Increase In Local Service Ads Across Its Search Results Pages
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Social Media Profiles Are Getting Hacked At Alarming Rates, Confirms New Report

Have you ever witnessed your account on social media get hacked? If not, we bet you’ve either come across a friend or loved ones’ who have experienced it. And it’s not a great feeling.

But the woes and worries don’t stop there as a new report by NordVPN is making users aware of the growing number of phishing attacks. In addition, scammers are waiting to invade your privacy and security.

Special importance was given to hackers who are continually on the lookout for profiting from others’ identities or online profiles. And in case you didn’t know that in today's time, social media profiles are definitely more valuable to most of us out there.

Whether it's linked to your connectivity purpose or for the sheer reason related to business, your social profile goes a long way in creating your picture in today’s fast-paced digital world.

It’s a great tool that hackers are making use of for stealing purposes and extracting all sorts of sensitive data. Similarly, they can also end up sharing malicious links with your profile and connections while logging into your pages, and so much more.

Without a doubt, the concern is huge and one that so many leading social media platforms are working toward evading. We’re hearing of all sorts of security checks like double factor authentication or even logging in through passwordless means.

Now that we know that the threat is looming as we speak, which apps do users actually feel most comfortable in? Moreover, which ones are they going to have the greatest concerns about as far as safety is concerned?

Thanks to experts at NordVPN, a new survey is shedding light on all of these factors where up to 1000 different users were asked to provide input on the subject and the concerning topic of hacking.

Today, about 76% of Americans are super worried about their accounts getting hacked, when compared to data collected from previous years. And in terms of apps that people fear the most, well, Facebook leads the pack, followed by TikTok, and Snapchat.

Closely trailing behind were Instagram, Twitter, and then YouTube. But most respondents claim that while they may not express it publicly, they’re somewhat concerned about what would happen if they were faced with such a situation.

90% of respondents know somebody that’s been hacked, while two in five individuals had been hacked, which is 37%. This bunch claims their accounts located on Facebook were hacked the most while Instagram trailed behind by a huge margin.

It’s quite clear how many people are having trust issues with Facebook the most and hope the company can get its act together soon as they wish to trust it more.

But what’s surprising is that the results proved that while Facebook was hacked the most, it was also the app that people had faith in the most. Sounds bizarre, right?

Next up was YouTube, followed by Instagram. Twitter and TikTok tied in the fourth position with 20% of respondents adding their trust.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World