WhatsApp Announces Cloud-Based Contact Storage

Meta’s popular texting platform WhatsApp just confirmed that it’s going to store users’ contacts on Cloud.

The decision is one that many will welcome with open arms because let’s face the reality, what’s better than getting access to contacts from any personal device, right? This is exactly Meta’s goal which says it’s rolling out a new feature that saves contacts on the Messenger app’s cloud storage.

The news was confirmed on the company’s blog which says users can now save and manage contacts through the app directly. In the past, it was not easy to find anyone on the platform. You had to go inside the integrated list on the device, type numbers manually, and then scan QR codes. When you include connections to the app that were not there previously, you would save that contact through local means.

It’s not ideal when devices are lost as local saving makes it harder when devices are lost or when you opt to upgrade. Also, you might need access to contacts on devices like your PC and vice versa.

It might now seem like a mighty upgrade but the benefits of saving on Cloud are always great.

Combining the feature with updates from the past enables users to set up several WhatsApp accounts on one device. You can separate contacts depending on your profile. This is true for those keeping personal profiles separate from work ones. Now, you can save them separately for each account.

It’s also more secure as WhatsApp promises a bigger privacy upgrade in the future, thanks to this feature. Soon, users can share contacts through username only and without any visible phone details. This simply adds more privacy for those unwilling to share numbers directly.

Clearly, the feature is going to get love but we do think it was much overdue on Meta’s part. Cloud on mobile devices has been the go-to option for years. Already, several leading texting apps offer it so it’s about time WhatsApp got on the bandwagon too.

Apps like Signal keep promoting privacy to the highest degree but thanks to this new feature, we can see how WhatsApp is slowly but surely getting there. It just might take the lead but only time can tell so stay tuned!

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Do You Rely Too Much On GPS? Here's Why It Could Be Destroying Your Navigation Skills

Imagine going on a road trip where you need to reach your destination before dawn, but the problem is you do not know which way to take. All you have is the address of your destination, but there is no guidance on what path to go on. If you have ever been in a similar situation like this, then you can relate to the stress and anxiety that gradually rise within you until you can’t take the frustration anymore.

This is where GSP (Global Positioning System) acts as a God-send help that allows you to navigate easily to your destination, all at your fingertips via smartphone and internet connection. However, a recent study, based on meta-analysis on the effects of GPS on navigational abilities, published in the Journal of Environmental Psychology, found that people who use GPS are more likely to have poor environmental knowledge and a bad sense of direction.

Global Positioning System uses satellite navigation to access time data and location anywhere on earth. GPS uses 24 satellites that orbit around the earth as a network, and through transmitting signals to GPS receivers on the ground, mathematical precision is made to detect the exact signals by triangulating signals from several satellites orbiting around the earth. The initial release of GPS was first used for military purposes. However, due to its growing popularity and practicality, it is now used in vast varsities of applications for navigation and mapping.

Neurologically speaking, any mental capability that isn’t trained or re-used over a period of time diminishes in functionality. Similarly, GPS use among humans for a prolonged period can reduce their navigational skills. Research has shown that people who regularly use GPS can reduce their capacity to learn landmarks and spatial environmental clues. Furthermore, relying too much on GPS can also cause the natural innate ability to find their way without technological guidance.

Laura Miola and her colleagues, who published the study, set a meta-analysis between GPS and three focal study points: a sense of direction, wayfinding performance, and environmental knowledge.

The study participants were above 16 and divided into two groups; one group used GPS, and the other didn’t use GPS as they relied more on traditional navigation methods, such as maps and asking people for directions. The focus of the study was to measure the results of wayfinding, environmental knowledge, and self-reported navigational abilities.

To match the study results, 23 studies were identified that met the academic criteria and had a participant range from 13 to 636 people between the ages of 16 to 84 years old. The data collected in these studies were mainly from a single-time point; however, one study measured the results as a follow-up after 3 months, while another study did a follow-up on the participants over three years.

The results gathered from all of these studies showed a unanimous result that using GPS frequently can diminish environmental knowledge and a sense of direction. However, the researchers could not build a strong connection between the use of GPS and the decline in wayfinding performance. Additionally, it was also found that people who already have a hard time forming mental maps and struggle with spatial learning often use GPS, which further hinders their improvement in these areas.

Image: DIW-Aigen

Read next: Elon Musk’s Twitter Acquisition Linked to Decreased Academic Engagement, Study Finds
by Ahmed Naeem via Digital Information World

Elon Musk’s Twitter Acquisition Linked to Decreased Academic Engagement, Study Finds

A group of researchers published their study in PS: Political Science and Politics which talked about how Elon Musk’s acquisition of X (formerly known as Twitter) impacted academics and how most verified users stopped using the platforms. Before Elon Musk took over Twitter, most of the academics used to communicate with their fellows, peers, public and policymakers on the micro-blogging network. When Musk took over Twitter, he did many changes like reinstatement of suspended accounts, mass layoffs and shift in policies which made many users, including academics, decrease their use of the platform while some left it.

The study was done to find out how, when and why the engagement on Twitter dropped after Elon Musk’s acquisition and what influence did it leave on academic activity. The author of the study, Kevin Munger, said that they had been interested in this topic because Twitter used to be a great social network to engage in academic discussions, especially for social scientists. There was a great shift in engagement after Musk’s takeover so it was needed to study the impact it left on academic communications.

The researchers collected tweets from 15,700 academic accounts that used to tweet on different topics including sociology, politics, psychology and economics. The activity before and after Elon Musk’s takeover on these accounts was studied. Likes, replies, retweets and quote tweets were examined too. A Bayesian Change-Point analysis was used to find out when the engagements on those accounts started to change.

According to the results, it was found that engagements on those accounts decreased drastically after Elon Musk’s takeover in October 2022. Even though the engagement on Twitter was declining since 2021, it dropped all of a sudden on November 19, 2022. It was the day when Elon Musk announced to reinstate Donal Trump’s account after it had been banned in January 2021. This suggests that engagement dropped because of policy decisions and not because of the person who took over the platform.

The study also found that verified accounts lost more engagements than non-verified accounts. Many prominent academics had verified accounts but they lost most of their engagements. But the study didn't talk about retweeting and replying tweets on verified versus non-verified accounts. Overall, the study found that Elon Musk’s takeover on Twitter affected many big academic accounts and they saw decline in their engagements.

But this study has some limitations. One limitation is that this study doesn't talk about reasons why academics left Twitter with evidence. Another limitation is that they study used Application Programming Interface (API) and it can create problems for future studies on social media engagements. A comprehensive study should be done standing out reasons for decline in academics seeing a decline in their engagements and other issues should also be highlighted.

Image: DIW-Aigen

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by Arooj Ahmed via Digital Information World

Despite Google’s AI Overview Impact, Organic Search Traffic Remains a Crucial Channel for Websites and SEOs

There are different forms of website traffic like paid, search, social, referral and direct but search engine is the most common way to get traffic on websites and it attracts the most audience too. Search traffic is also responsible for creating reliable and long term website traffic. It is because there is no end date to this traffic like paid campaigns and that is why it can make your website rank even for years, if the content is relevant and educational.

According to Conductor’s 2024 Organic Search Traffic Benchmark Report, organic search produces 33% of the total website traffic in 7 major industries. The report also mentioned that 1 in 3 website visitors come from organic search traffic. Even though there was some decline in the benchmarks of those industries because of Google’s efforts to engage users in SERPs with the help of AI overviews, organic search has still remained the impactful and reasonable channel.

The industry that gets the most organic search traffic is Professional Services with 39% of its total traffic from organic search. Followed by Professional Services is Technology with 36% organic traffic. Education and Healthcare gets 35% traffic each from organic search results. Travel and Hospitality is also an industry that gets traffic from organic search results (31%). Even though Finance and Retail industries are getting a little less search results traffic compared to the above mentioned industries, they are still among the top website domains getting visitors from organic search (27% each).

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Reddit's CEO Takes Stand Against Data Misuse by Tech Giants in AI Arms Race

CEO Steve Huffman just confirmed how his company is working hard to carve its niche in the AI arms race. However, he was not happy about other leading tech giants taking advantage of the company’s data without obtaining consent.

As per Huffman, the app’s content is considered to be some of the best training data for AI. Many do consider it very valuable and it’s great timing because Reddit is trying to figure out where it lies in this AI race.

The news comes as the Reddit CEO made an appearance recently at the Wall Street Journal’s much-talked-about Tech Live conference yesterday. This is where the future of online search in a period of AI was discussed.

The CEO hopes to stand out brighter than before during the times when AI generated content is out of control. And because of that, finding authentic human content and insights is super hard to find. And that is where Reddit boasts its power.

The firm went public about its AI aspirations in March this year. It’s a platform that many turn to for help on a wide number of topics. The best bit is how it keeps getting updated. Hence, that’s why it’s so valuable in training models and helping them think and speak like one of us.

Reddit has a massive database featuring content and comments that users generate. It plays a vast role in helping to bring AI models to life and that’s why Reddit is finally confirming its place in the growing AI ecosystem.

During the start of this year, Reddit rolled out public content policies and made major deals with the likes of Google and OpenAI to enable data for training AI models. Google confirmed its $60M yearly partnership with Reddit for content access. Meanwhile, OpenAI’s deal details are still discreet and yet to be revealed.

As per Huffman, the internet needs to be more open than restricted. But that should never come at the cost of giving out material for free, he adds. When asked if other leading tech giants in today’s world were misusing Reddit and taking data for AI training without consent, he said yes. This is why deals are now in place to stop that from happening and so both parties can benefit.

Reddit is rumored to be in discussions with many other companies for data licensing and that includes Microsoft. Huffman concluded that Reddit is very transparent and it doesn’t like the sounds of a closed internet. But if that is what’s required to maintain the firm’s values and achieve sustainability, then so be it. Remember, internet scraping is not a fun game when you’re at the losing end.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Google Confirms Removal Of Extra Site Search Box Within Search Results

If you’re an avid Google Search user, you must have noticed an extra search box pop up, each time you try to explore something.

It always seemed like the search giant was encouraging users to dig down further and search for answers from specific websites. Thankfully, that site-linked search box will no longer be found because as per Google, the usage is not that high.

Google confirmed the news through a blog post where it says that it’s been there for more than a decade. With time, they noticed the usage kept falling. So to make search more simple, they’re getting rid of this visual element starting next month.

Some might not be too happy as you could always use that extra search box as shortcuts to look for something inside a website. After the deadline arising in November, Google vows to not display the box in any other nation or language.

If they didn’t see this announcement from the search giant, many users feel they wouldn’t have ever noticed that it disappeared because that’s how less the usage is. As a whole, it’s a tiny tweak when compared to others that Google makes across its search engine. In case you forgot, the company is leaning more towards AI and shuffling the team that heads Search.

Read next: Meta Takes Anti-Scam Measures By Expanding Tests On Facial Recognition
by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World

Meta Takes Anti-Scam Measures By Expanding Tests On Facial Recognition

Meta is working on more innovative facial technology to help curb scams.

Facebook’s parent firm is currently undergoing tests on facial recognition to combat the increase in celebrity scam ads. The company’s VP for content privacy explained through a blog post on how they are boosting anti-scam measures. This includes automated ones that run as parts of Meta’s ad reviewing system.

The goal is to make it more difficult for threat actors to avoid checks and roll out fake ads that click users on apps like Facebook and Instagram. Frequently, scammers make use of popular names from the entertainment work that link to scam websites. These places ask users to reveal personal details or give money. The more commonly used term for such scams is celeb-bait. These not only look real but are hard to detect.

The tests make use of facial recognition as backstops for checking ads. When a fake celebrity image is detected, the system alerts users that they’re at risk of celeb bait. Now, Meta is working on expanding this by using facial recognition tech for face comparisons against profile images on apps. If a match gets confirmed, the system will block it.

For now, Meta is not using this technology for other purposes than fighting scams. In cases when facial data is generated through ads, it will be deleted. It’s like a one-time comparison, regardless if the system finds a match or not.

Early tests for such approaches with a small number of celebs and public faces did prove promising for the tech giant. Not only did it enhance the speed of detection but also the efficacy of highlighting scams of different kinds.

Meta feels using facial technology can be great when detecting deepfake scam ads or when generative AI is used to produce images of famous faces. The tech giant has been accused for several years of not doing enough to bring this sort of fraud or scam to an end. Many people fall into the loopholes of crypto scams and lose money.

This is why the company is pushing hard to ensure anti-fraud measures do their job and stop turning into a nuisance now. It’s also interesting how it’s getting done at a period when it hopes to store as much user data as possible for AI training purposes.

In the next few weeks, Meta hopes to send in-app alerts to a large number of public figures that are commonly targeted. This makes them aware that they’ve enrolled in Meta’s system. If anyone begs to differ, they are free to opt out by going to their Accounts Center, the company explained.

Meta is also testing facial recognition for celeb imposer account detection. Scammers here will try to impersonate public figures to get better success with fraud. So that’s why Meta is targeting these threat actors who have suspicious accounts and make use of others’ images to get gains.

In other news, Meta is also pushing for facial recognition training on video selfies. This enables quicker account unlocking for those getting locked out of social media accounts after scammers hack them.

It’s going to be quite similar to how users unlock their devices or gain access to apps like the Face ID feature on iPhones. Whenever video selfies are uploaded, they will get encrypted and safely saved. You can never see it on profiles.

Meta says that no tests are getting rolled out for places like the EU and UK for now. However, other parts of the world will be a part of Meta’s efforts, it confirmed.

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by Dr. Hura Anwar via Digital Information World