Looking to apply a fresh coat of paint in Chrome? For the first time ever, the Google Chrome team has published 14 official themes, with color choices that aim to spice up your browsing experience.
The post Spice up the look of Google Chrome with one of 14 official new themes appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
The Green New Deal unveiled by congressional Democrats last week is fairly criticized for being vague and unrealistic. But the US needs ambitious societal goals.
Source: Wired
The latest figures out of NPD show a continued uptick in smartwatch sales, here in the States. The category has been a rare bright spot in an overall flagging wearable space, and the new numbers show gains pretty much across the board. In fact, the study puts smartwatch ownership at 16 percent among U.S. adults as of December — that figure is up from 12 percent a year prior.
Unsurprisingly, it’s a younger demo driving that growth — specifically 18-34-year-olds, where smartwatch ownership is around 23 percent. Of course, Apple and the like have been looking to increase purchases with the older crowd, courtesy of more serious health feature like last year’s addition of an ECG meter.
Apple, Samsung and Fitbit continue to dominate the market, making up 88 percent of the nearly $5 billion in sales tallied for the year ending in November. But companies like Fossil and Garmin made some marketshare gains. Google, naturally, will be looking to make a larger dent in the market, with its recent purchase of Fossil IP. Wear OS’s growth has been pretty flat, but that could change in 2019 with the rumored arrival of the Pixel Watch.
Source: TechCrunch
VideoStudio is Corel’s more consumer-oriented video editor — but the software just gained advanced color correction tools. The update adds several new tools, including custom transitions, along with speeding up performance and adding new shortcuts.
The post Corel VideoStudio adds tools for customizing color in simple video edits appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
Insta-chat addicts, rejoice. You could soon be trading memes and emojis from your computer. Instagram is internally testing a web version of Instagram Direct messaging that let’s people chat without the app. If, or more likely, when this rolls out publicly, users on a desktop or laptop PC or Mac, a non-Android or iPhone, or that access Instagram via a mobile web browser will be able to privately message other Instagrammers.
Instagram web DMs was one of the features I called for in a product wishlist I published in December alongside a See More Like This button for the feed and an upload quality indicator so your Stories don’t look crappy if you’re on a slow connection.
A web version could make Instagram Direct a more full-fledged SMS alternative rather than just a tacked-on feature for discussing the photo and video app’s content. Messaging is a massive driver of engagement that frequently draws people back to an app, and knowing friends can receive them anywhere could get users sending more. While Facebook doesn’t monetize Instagram Direct itself, it could get users browsing through more ads while they wait for replies.
Given Facebook’s own chat feature started on the web before going mobile and getting its own Messenger app, and WhatsApp launched a web portal in 2015 followed by desktop clients in 2016, it’s sensible for Instagram Direct to embrace the web too. It could also pave the way for Facebook’s upcoming unification of the backend infrastructure for Messenger, WhatsApp, and Instagram Direct that should expand encryption and allow cross-app chat, as reported by the New York Times’ Mike Isaac.
Mobile reverse-engineering specialist and frequent TechCrunch tipster Jane Manchun Wong alerted us to Instagram’s test. It’s not available to users yet, as it’s still being internally “dogfooded” — used heavily by employees to identify bugs or necessary product changes.
In the current design, Direct on the web is available from a Direct arrow icon in the top right of the screen. The feature looks like it will use an Instagram.com/direct/…. URL structure. If the feature becomes popular, perhaps Facebook will break it out with its own Direct destination website similar to https://www.messenger.com which launched in 2015. Instagram began testing a standalone Direct app last year, but it’s yet to be officially launched and doesn’t seem exceedingly popular.
Instagram did not respond to requests for comment before press time. The company rarely provides a statement on internal feature in development until they’re being externally tested on the public, at which point it typically tells us “We’re always testing ways to improve the Instagram experience.”
After cloning Snapchat Stories to create Instagram Stories, the Facebook-owned app decimated Snap’s growth rate. That left Snapchat to focus on premium video and messaging. Last year Instagram built IGTV to compete with Snapchat Discover. And now with it testing a web version of Direct, it seems poised to challenge Snap for chat too.
Source: TechCrunch
Further proof that gold wheels make almost everything better.
Source: CNET
Now that the Super Bowl sales are over and new 2019 TVs are starting to appear, we tackle the age-old dilemma.
Source: CNET
Among mobile ad networks, Facebook and Google remain the best bet for advertisers, according to the latest ROI Index from marketing startup Singular.
To pull this year’s index together, Singular says it sampled $1.5 billion in ad spending (from the $10 billion in spending that the company optimizes annually) and measured which networks are delivering the best return on investment. It also kept an eye out for ad fraud, apparently deleting a record 15 companies from the rankings because of “excessive” fraud.
So yes, Facebook followed by Google topped the list. As the report puts it, “Savvy marketers know they need more than just two media partners, but Google and Facebook are in virtually every mobile marketer’s game plan for good reason: they deliver.”
At the same time, Singular noted that Snap improved its rankings on virtually all the lists, and is now the number three network for non-gaming ads on both iOS and Android. And Twitter did respectably as well, ranking second on iOS for retention.
Comparing the two big mobile platforms, it seems that Android is more volatile — one-third of the networks on the Android ROI list are appearing for the first time, and 80 percent of the remaining 10 networks changed position on the list. On iOS, on the other hand, 73 percent of the networks changed positions, but there were only two new ones on the list.
You can download the full index here.
Source: TechCrunch
Looking to save on a new MacBook Air? As part of an Apple Shopping Event, retailer Best Buy is currently taking off $150 off select models of the 2018 MacBook Air, bringing prices to as low as $1,100.
The post The latest Best Buy sale takes up to $150 off the 2018 MacBook Air appeared first on Digital Trends.
Source: Digital trends
It will hang out alongside the almost-ready EV “prototype” debuting that week.
Source: CNET