YouTube Gives A Sneak Peek Regarding Improvements Made To Its Channel Pages

YouTube has recently gone public with some major improvements it made to its Channel Pages. And we’ve rounded them up for you below.

For starters, fans requesting the app for Tabs on its most popular features are taking center stage. Ann Katrin the product manager says fans have been very outspoken about Tabs for Live streams and Shorts, and they’re getting that on their channel page.

YouTube is splitting up content into three different features: Videos, Shorts, and Live Streams, so it’s a much more organized affair than before. Videos will feature all long-form content, Shorts will have short-form content, while the live streams will include past, current, and upcoming live streams on the cannel pages (if any). These changes will be seen arriving on the platform by the fall of this year.

Next up, landing viewers directly on the Shorts Tab will be made possible when they’re coming from the Shorts player. This will assist in terms of adding ease and convenience while also aiding them to find more content on your channel. The app says this will also arrive by fall.

Other than that, YouTube provided another update on some visual channel improvements. Previously, this was restricted to just mobile, but now, you can expect it to be rolled out for tablets and the app's web version.

The whole idea is to add a more innovative and modern approach. There will be better styling options and a tagline, refreshing the app's overall outlook at these places. YouTube also hopes to include better options for user navigation. Any empty tabs will now be deleted to clear up unnecessary clutter on channels. YouTube is also in the search for ways to promote the content of creators better, so it’s looking for ways to do just that creatively.

Last but not least, YouTube wants to add a more personalized touch to its Channel Home Tab. Creators have been complaining about how hard it can actually get to add a customized touch to their home tab. This is to make sure the right content lands in front of the right audience.

So the app has decided to explore ways to ensure specific content gets tailored directly to the intended viewers who would enjoy it better than others. After all, they’re the ones with interest.

Hence, the app will try to link users’ watch history to that content to make it a much more personalized ordeal. Similarly, it could be tailored based on the language spoken or their topic affinity. This is bound to be more effective for creators having channels that have various languages or topic diversity on offer, which will appeal to all sorts of audiences.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

The Chinese-Based Top Widgets Apps Saw A Meteoric Rise To The Top of US-Based App Store Charts

The app Top Widgets has cleared the way to the top of the US free App Store charts, replacing BeReal in the process.

The iOS 16 is still in its infancy, having been officially released to the world back in July 2022, no more than a month or two ago. However, as with all new Apple products, it’s gained quick traction with the company’s core user base and is already well on its way in terms of racking up numbers. However, let’s take a moment to talk about something that didn’t come with the iOS 16: Widgets. While Widgets have been around for a long time, with certain Android devices reportedly having the feature since the late 2000s, they were recently popularized by Apple’s iOS 14 bringing them as a thematic touch to the home screens of associated iPhones. And honestly, if an Android feature falls in the forest with no one around to hear of it, did it ever fall in the first place?

Naturally, with Home Screen Widgets allowing users a bunch of creative flexibility via which to craft shortcuts and themes, several assisting tools and videos have sprung up in the past few years. I honestly recall a friend of mine stumbling their way through a 20-minute video to arrive at a Studio Ghibli-inspired Home Screen widgets setup, which seems sort of worth it to me. That’s where Top Widgets and its recent string of success comes into place. With developers based in Sichuan, China, the app was initially developed and released back in August of 2020, coinciding with the rising popularity of iOS 14, Widgets as a concept, and the pandemic giving everyone time enough to work on crafting smartphone themes.

Currently, the app has continued to rise in success and has even made it to the number one spot on the App Store’s free USA downloads. Much of this success can be mapped out as early on as two days ago when Top Widget’s numbers saw a big bump following the release of iOS 16. In two days, the application saw a total of 1.3 million new downloads, a ridiculously dramatic increase of 1,812% from its download number of 68,000. In just two days, which speaks to Apple’s brand as a whole: literally within a day of the iOS 16 hitting phones, everyone wants to start playing around with new features.

H/T: TC

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Even after taking eco-friendly measures, Apple is in a hotspot for its iPhone 14 release

For the last couple of months, a number of original equipment makers have been showcasing the durability of their products.

Samsung took the opportunity to sell its latest foldable based on its sustainability by introducing the Galaxy for the Planet movement, in which the company shared its plan to use fewer resources for the production of its devices in order to minimize the burden on the environment.

A similar decision was also announced for Nokia, in which it was shared that the company will be getting back into business by following the three “R” rule, which includes recycle, refurbish, and resubscribe.

At the time of the announcement for the upcoming iPhone 14, Apple also promised that the company would be using recycled materials for the magnets as well as for the circuit boards used in device manufacturing. By 2025, the company will be able to exclude plastic from all of its products.

Because of these recycled parts, the overall carbon footprint is now 10% lower than in previous iPhone generations.

As being one of the largest mobile phone manufacturers in the world, refurbished devices make sure that the emissions levels are dropped to a minimum as the device is sustainable enough to be used for a longer time period.

By 2030, the company aims to achieve this goal for every Apple product so that the environment doesn’t need to suffer from any of their products.

However, on the other hand, some environmentalists and critics believe that the aims and goals of Apple are just words on a piece of paper. If the company really wanted to do good work for the environment, they wouldn’t have released the iPhone 14 generation.

H/T: CPR
This statement was further supported by Apple's own statement, which stated that these devices will emit carbon emissions during manufacturing. So a device that starts its journey with such an emission will be susceptible enough to cause more damage throughout its time period.

It is also believed that another reason why the iPhone 14 shouldn’t have been released is that it doesn’t offer any major changes as compared to the iPhone 13, so the company could’ve waited for some time before releasing a new device with more noticeable changes.

The debate will carry on between environmentalists and such companies as long as they don’t agree to take major steps towards the protection of the environment.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

How Many Hours of Work Does It Take to Buy the iPhone 14?

Apple’s dominance over the smartphone sector is astounding considering it offers almost exclusively premium phones, but in spite of the fact that this is the case it has managed to keep its growth steady over the past few years. However, one issue that some aspiring buyers face when they are trying you are located.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that the cheapest iPhone available will always be in the United States since this is where the parent company is headquartered.

An American earning an average salary would need to work just 50 hours to be able to afford this phone, so the low price coupled with the high average income makes this product highly affordable in that market. That means that US citizens would need to work around 6 full days before they have the money for this phone.

While this is definitely a potent combination, the iPhone 14 is still more affordable in two countries namely Switzerland and Luxembourg. That’s mostly thanks to the very high salaries that people in these nations earn. In the US, the latest iPhone will set you back around $830, while in Switzerland it would cost $966 and in Luxembourg $982. Despite that, people in these countries earn a lot more so the phone is more affordable to them as a result.

Moving on to the other end of the spectrum, the country where the iPhone 14 is most expensive is Turkey. This nation has been experiencing a lot of devaluation in its currency which drives the price up because of the fact that this is the sort of thing that could potentially end up making their own currency worth less. However, the iPhone is also far more expensive in dollar terms, costing just under $1,700 which makes it twice as expensive in Turkey than it would be in the US.

If you live in Turkey and earn an average salary, you would need to work a whopping 765 hours to have enough money for the latest Apple flagship with all things having been considered and taken into account. That comes up to 95 working days, so the Turkish people might find this phone to be out of their reach right now.

The Philippines are also a bad place for people that want to buy the iPhone 14. Filipinos have it almost as bad as Turkey, requiring around 756 hours at an average rate of pay for the asking price. Interestingly, the iPhone is not nearly as expensive in this nation as it is in Turkey. The standard iPhone 14 asking price in this island nation is $997 which is comparable to Austria and Hungary. The reason why it takes so many hours to be able to afford one is that the Philippines is a very poor country and people there usually don’t earn a lot.

Global inflationary pressures as well as a series of economic mishaps are making iPhones quite difficult for people to buy. They are often making do with older models, and it will be interesting to see if this impacts Apple’s business strategy moving forward since it wouldn’t want to alienate so many buyers.

H/T: Nukeni

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

Gen Zs are Paying More Attention to Social Media Influencers, Here’s What That Means for the Industry

As the older generations die off and younger generations come in to take their place, it is inevitable that we would start to see a shift in how consumers make their buying decisions with all things having been considered and taken into account. One potential byproduct of this phenomenon is that influencers might become a great deal more influential than they are right now, since around 47% of Gen Z said that they trusted them while making purchasing decisions.

With all of that having been said and now out of the way, it is important to note that Baby Boomers are far less likely to trust influencers. Only about 9% of them follow influencer accounts. Conversely, 55% of baby boomers followed retail social media accounts, with only 35% of Gen Z doing the same.

However, the most widely followed category of social media accounts by far is that of brands. 52% of Gen Z, 59% of Millennials, 51% of Gen X and 39% of Baby Boomers stated that they followed accounts belonging to brands.

In the world of influencers the numbers are less stellar, but they are still quite high as far as the younger demographics are concerned. 41% of Millennials said that they followed accounts belonging to influencers. 41% of Gen X also stated the same, and that means that the current influx of investment into the influencer economy has nowhere to go but up.

The influencer market is expected to rise to just shy of $5 billion this year, or $4.99 billion to be precise. That represents a solid 27.8% increase from the $3.9 billion that was seen in 2021, and current predictions estimate that there will be double digit annual growth over the next two years as well.

Influencers are becoming an increasingly central component of marketing strategies. Developing parasocial relationships with younger buyers is essential for driving a continued growth in sales as well a revenue, and that is something that marketing professionals should keep in mind. If the current growth predictions hold out, influencer marketing could become far bigger in a couple of years.

H/T: Klarna

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by Zia Muhammad via Digital Information World

There is a new malware going around that is stealing people’s data using a program called Redline

A lot of gamers who play any games like GTA or Minecraft, often use cheat codes that let them change the game as they wish, but what if we told you that, the cheat code videos that are attached with your gameplay video are just decoys that download a malware that includes a password stealing program called Redline.

Yes, what you read above is true as security researchers have found out that there is a new malware attack going around that is specifically designed to hack into a Windows PC and spread malevolent links by using the victim's YouTube account.

This attack lets out several malicious file bundles that are promoted through YouTube videos, as said by the antivirus program company Kaspersky. The videos claim that those bundles have many new and interesting ways to hack and cheat at games like DayZ, Forza Horizon 5, etc., concealed in themselves. But in reality, those files are nothing but malware that is made so that your device can be hacked, and the creators benefit from it.

To get their hands on the cheat, all the users have to do is download the file listed in the video's description box. While in reality, they are only downloading malware generally hosted by the telegram.ph domain or on mediafire.com, which is a self-extracting RAR archive that is also hosted by a password-stealing Program called Redline.

What makes this specific malware so dangerous is that it cannot only steal usernames and passwords but can also take away cookies, Bank-card details, and all autofill data that has been stored on Chromium and Gecko-based browsers. Moreover, icons also enable the hackers to take over a PC and install any other programs and carry out commands on a browser of any kind whether it be Internet Explorer, Microsoft Edge, Firefox, Chrome, you name it. All of these are probable dangers listed by the researchers at Kaspersky’s.

But there is one feature that almost makes it stand out and that is the program’s ability to do its propaganda itself. Some files in this malware have been designed so that it re-posts the videos on the victim's account thus, leading to its spreading and in turn harming more people.

According to Kaspersky, a program in the malevolent jumble of programs called MakiseKurisu.exe has been specifically made so that it extracts cookies from the unfortunate user’s browser so that it can access their YouTube account. From then on, a group of other programs will be set to work about re-posting the video on the YouTube account.

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

US Customs’ Policy Enables Data Retrieval And Sharing From User Devices For 15 Years

Thanks to one senator from the US, there are plenty of alarm bells ringing after a shocking discovery related to the US Customs and border protection unit was made public.

According to the Senator, a CBP policy has enabled an agency to track, trace, and download user data located on searched devices for up to 15 years. And if required, they’re even given a chance to make the information public to many federal agents.

The news was first made public thanks to Senator Ron Wyden. He wrote the following concerning information. In that, he urged officials to take note of this and update their policy because it wasn’t right. Looking through anyone and everyone’s phone for such a long time and having that data become a part of the database was really a shocking feature to some.

As of now, it’s still unclear what the exact figures are as far as people affected are concerned. Hence, how many Americans have gotten their data taken and shared with Federal agents continues to be a mega mystery for obvious reasons.

The Senator was furious and stated that the CBC wasn’t cooperating well with his team and failed to provide more information on the matter. And even though all of this data collection is being done on the basis of security, some reports confirm border searches continuously arising without any warrants being issued.

Why personal devices are being tapped into without a special request or permission is a question on many people’s minds. And now, the issue has been upheld in front of the public to raise awareness on the subject.

Similarly, some reports by the Senator claim that searches are taking place on travelers and they’re not even told about their rights in the country before they’re forced to give up their phones. In the same way, there aren’t any tear sheets being offered when a search begins, and that’s concerning, which allows the traveler to refuse.

Just taking devices and not outlining the measures of how data is being looked at is really shocking. And then seizing that data for a period of 15 years is just mind-boggling for many.

After that, there was some discussion about how tear sheets do mention how collecting this sort of data is mandatory. However, they failed to outline how the officials have no right to arrest Americans or stop them from making an entry into the country, just in case they don’t inform the CBC of any passwords belonging to their devices.

On that note, the Senator added that no one could be tricked for the sake of data, be it their phone or laptop.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World