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Here is the look at the best hosting solution that suits your business

Best Hosting Solution for your business
Best Hosting Solution for your business

Web hosting comes in many standard and customized packages with different combinations of bandwidth, price, features and ad-ons. It can be very challenging for even a pro to choose the right solution. Therefore, the best way to select a suitable hosting package is by understanding the exact server requirement of your business and website.

The second most important thing you need is to set aside the maximum budget possible for these services. This would simplify the process of choosing the right kind of web hosting solution for your business.

If you do not exactly understand what all services you get in a web hosting solution? The answer is very simple! A web hosting service mainly allows you to make your website accessible via the World Wide Web. In order to do so, you get limited/unlimited disk space, along with some free Email accounts, Web site builders and marketing tools, and sometimes podcast and blogging tools. Usually the basic packages are offered for 1 year duration, which you need to renew each year.

Types of hosting servers


There are 4 types of servers that include Shared, Dedicated, Cloud and VPS.


Shared web hosting


It is the best suggestive measures who are running short of budget as you are not paying the cost solely. You are sharing it with other owners. Here you share the different software applications and physical server provided by web hosting services with others. The biggest drawback faced by the user is the slowest speed as huge numbers (above 1 thousand) of users are put to single server. Almost 3,000 sites use it. It may happen that a part of the users are utilizing maximum space of the server by having huge visitors and the remaining users are left with too little and such bad neighbors actually declares the idea of shared hosting as a bad one. Get your server shifted if you are facing any such issues. If you are having a test site or website without expecting uptime then this kind of hosting could be used. People with low budget find it too useful as in their tight budget they are in a position to prove their presence to the world.


Dedicated hosting


It is recommended for those sites that are expecting to have one million or more visitors in a month. You can avoid all bad neighbors as you are using it alone. The performance speed is extremely high in this hosting but yes it comes with huge cost that you need to pay on your own. You may select the kind of memory you want, OS, hardware elements and other customization as per your requirement through it. You get the feature of flexibility here. It is advisable for those who possess great knowledge about server technology as they need to handle everything on their own.

One of the most popular dedicated hosted server is Gmod server, offered by many hosts like gmod.eu, elpishost.com, elpishost.com and more. In order to find the best gmod server, it is always recommended to do some in-depth research on Google or Yahoo!, read reviews of their old clients before spending your money.


Cloud hosting


It permits you to use the multiple servers’ resources in single network and turns it highly scalable. It is very secured hosting service. It acts like a protection guard against DDOS attack. It has become the choice of mass and users are shifting from VPS to cloud hosting services for better service.

VPS


Virtual Private Sector is one of the upgraded web hosting services which is shared differently. It is restricted to be shared among 10-20 users and is highly flexible. It is scalable and configurable. It is more cheaper and strong server.

Selecting the right web hosting service is a tough go but you are just required to choose the best option for you. There are several companies that are offering you with these services; you are just required to have an inner look into it to understand what suits you most!
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Hopes to become Google for life science research

Bioz pulls in $3 million from Esther Dyson
Bioz pulls in $3 million from Esther Dyson

Bioz, a new search engine for life science experiments, wants to reduce the time it takes researchers to thumb through thousands of science articles published online and get them right to the findings relevant to their search.

The Palo Alto startup does this by offering up article extracts from published science papers using natural language processing. The Bioz platform helps researchers select products, plan experiments, write papers, apply for grants and collaborate, speeding up experimentation and drug discovery.

It’s not the first to offer up scientific papers through search – Google Scholar already surfaces articles for researchers from peer-reviewed resources, as does the popular PLOS ONE. But Bioz believes it has a business model that will set it apart from the others.

Bioz doesn’t charge the researcher for its findings. Instead, it makes money from a flat fee (for now) to the article publisher. If a researcher clicks on an article they want, the company serving up the article is charged.

Eventually, Bioz will work very similarly to Google Adwords says co-founder, Daniel Levitt. Publishers will bid for placement.

It works using NLP and machine learning to mine for hundreds of millions of pages of complex and unstructured scientific papers throughout the web and then summarizing those papers to make it easy for researchers to click through to the information they want.

“Bioz revolutionizes search technology and delivers information in a way that focuses on the researcher,” investor Gary Wilcox, a PhD and developer of Cialis, said of the platform.

The startup claims over 30,000 users from academic research labs and industry R&D labs, from more than 1,000 universities and biopharma companies, from 40 countries are using its search engine – all for free.

It’s a simple idea based on Google search and has already gained $3 million in seed funding from industry investors like Esther Dyson.
“The business model for Bioz is around things you can buy, but there’s a subtext that you should be paying attention to everything,” Dyson said of why she invested. “And Bioz can help you find all those external factors you may not be noticing
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Twitter announces the account verification process for everyone

verification process for everyone
Twitter announces the account verification process for everyone

There is some good news for Twitter users. Now, you need not be a high-profile individual for your Twitter account to be considered for verification. Twitter on Tuesday announced that it is opening up verified accounts to everybody. You can now request a verified account from Twitter.

For those unfamiliar, the Twitter accounts that have a blue checkmark called a “verified badge” means that those are verified by the microblogging network. Usually, the coveted blue checkmark was reserved for prominent individuals such as celebrities, politicians, and members of the media.

“We want to make it even easier for people to find creators and influencers on Twitter so it makes sense for us to let people apply for verification,” said Tina Bhatnagar, Twitter’s vice president of User Services said in a press statement. “We hope opening up this application process results in more people finding great, high-quality accounts to follow, and for these creators and influencers to connect with a broader audience.”


If you believe your Twitter account is of public interest and should be verified, you can start by filling out a form on Twitter. In order to complete the form, users must have specific information already listed: A verified phone number, a confirmed email address, bio, profile photo, header photo, birthday (for accounts that are not company, brand, or organization accounts), website and Tweets set as public in Tweet privacy settings.

Once you have cleared step one, Twitter will ask you a few questions about why your account should be verified. It wants to understand your impact in a field or your mission. You can also provide URLs to support your request, including sites that suggest your newsworthiness or relevancy in a field. It can even ask for a scanned copy of a government issued identification card, such as a passport or driver’s license, to confirm your identity.

Twitter will respond to requests via email and if it is denied, the firm will allow users to submit another form for the same account 30 days after following the rejection notice.

Starting in 2009, Twitter was the first platform to introduce account verification. Currently, Twitter has about 187,000 verified accounts, which is nothing compared to its some 320 million monthly active users. This change could be an opportunity for the company to offer a choice to majority of its users who may only want to communicate with accounts that share their verification status.
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Google to build a new Android smartphone to directly challenge Apple’s iPhone by the end of 2016


 For long Android users have asked this question, why does not Google build its own smartphone to take on Apple’s iPhone instead of relying on Huawei and LG to take on Apple. After all they have the financial and technical wherewithal to take on the might of Apple and it popular iconic iPhone.
Now Google is reportedly toying the idea of releasing its own smartphone to give direct competition to Apple’s iPhone. The new Android smartphone by Google, which is expected to be launched by the end of 2016, is being looked as an attempt by search giant to firm its grip on mobile software.

 According to The Telegraph, this would allow Google to take more control over the “design, manufacturing and software” that doesn’t involve a partnership with a well-known brand. The internet giant is already in discussion with the mobile operators about a Google-branded handset extending its move into the hardware segment, sources familiar told the Telegraph.

Unlike its arch rival Apple, Google leaves the manufacturing part to other smartphone vendors, while concentrating more on the development of its Android mobile operating system that runs on 1.4 billion devices.

 There have been rumours about Google releasing its own handset for a long time. Even though Google has always been the official name behind the Nexus smartphone, the devices have traditionally been designed and manufactured by other companies, including Motorola, Nokia, and HTC, and the Nexus has typically been a mid-range smartphone. While Google’s Android operating system dominates the market, they aren’t particularly present in the hardware, and Apple’s iPhone absolutely dominates the lucrative high-end device market.

The proliferation of Android device makers, many of which apply the software differently, means Google has struggled to ensure consistency, with some smartphone owners waiting months for updates, and some manufacturers downgrading Google’s own internet services which are included in Android.

 Its own phone would allow Google to control the software, securing the future of services such as the Google search engine and Google Play app store that run on it.

 Ben Wood, an analyst at CCS Insight said, “They are concerned that Android is fragmenting, that it needs to become a more controlled platform. I think they’ll seek to control it more, more like Apple.”

 In a recent interview, Sundar Pichai, Google’s CEO said, “We are investing a lot more effort into [Nexus]” in response to a query whether the company is planning to launch its own smartphone. However, Pichai reiterated that Google is fully committed to working with OEMs and putting more “thought into our Nexus devices.” Pichai said, “Our plan is still to work with hardware partners.”

The biggest problem with Google’s may be the European Union, which accused Google of monopoly abuse in April. However, a new device is not likely to dishearten them in that thinking.

 For now, the story is still a rumor, so we request you to read this article with a pinch of salt. Stay tuned and keep checking this space for more updates.
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Tutorial For Uploading, Checking and Viewing The Awesome 360-Degree Photos On Facebook

Facebook has now officially introduced support for 360-degree photos, an immersive photo that allows you to view and upload 360-degree photos on your News Feed. The feature called “360-de Photos” allows Facebook users to capture a panorama or 360-degree photo on their smartphones, using either the native camera app or a third-party app, and then post it to their Facebook News Feed.
In other words, all you need to do is capture a panorama image and post it like a normal photo. Facebook has its own feature to make it a 360 degree image. There’s also 360-degree video, where you’re inside a moving sphere rather than a static one.

Last month, Facebook announced that 360-degree photos would arrive in the News Feed. By introducing this feature now, Facebook is looking to increase its user base by dragging the average consumer into virtual reality, as they hope that many of the people may find this feature very useful. This new feature is available in smartphone as well as desktop.

In the official release, Facebook product manager Andy Huang wrote, “Along with 360-degree Photos from your friends and family, you can discover stunning new 360-degree Photos on Facebook from public figures, publishers, and other organisations. 360-degree Photos give you the ability to take the stage in front of 100,000 fans with Paul McCartney, get behind-the-scenes access to the Supreme Court via The New York Times, visit the International Space Station with NASA, and more.”

It is very simple to create, view and upload 360-degree photos on Facebook. In this article, we help you get accustomed to the new feature.


 To create a Facebook 360-degree photo, you will need to take a panoramic photo using an iPhone, iPad, Samsung device, 360-enabled camera, or using various apps. Once you have taken a panoramic photo using one of the above options and uploaded it to Facebook, it will automatically be converted into a 360-degree photo.


However, keep the following points in mind:

You can upload a 360-degree photo the same way you would upload any other photo.
If you upload a panorama that’s wider than 100 degrees, it will automatically be converted to a 360-degree photo. You can only upload a single 360-degree photo at a time on Facebook. (You can also upload a 180-degree panoramic photo).
Not all panoramic photos you take from your smartphone or camera will be converted to Facebook 360-degree photos.
You can use one of the following devices or apps to take your own 360-degree photos. Following camera’s support 360-degree photos
  • Ricoh Theta S
  • Giroptic 360 Cam
  • Samsung Gear 360
  • LG 360 Cam
  • IC Realtech ALLie
  • 360Fly
  • Panono

 You can use your iPhone or iPad support for 360-degree photos
  • iPhone 4S or newer
  • iPad mini 2 or newer
  • iPad Air and iPad Air 2
  • iPad Pro

 You can use your Samsung Galaxy Phones
  • Samsung Galaxy S5 or newer
  • Galaxy Note 2 or newer
  • Photo Sphere Apps or Devices: Take a panorama using Street View, Google Camera, Cardboard Camera or Theta S.

 Image-Stitching Software: The final option to create a 360-degree photo is to use image-stitching software like PTGui.

How to upload a 360-degree photo on Facebook?

Uploading your finished 360-degree photo to Facebook is as simple as uploading a normal photo.

 Open the Facebook app (make sure you are using the latest version of Facebook for Android and iOS) > tap the status tool > select Photo/Video > select your photo > tap Post.

 You can also view the 360-degree photos from the Desktop version of the social media website. In addition, you can also view 360-degree Photos on the web with Chrome, Safari or Firefox.


How to watch a 360-degree photo?


 All 360-degree Photos in Facebook are marked with a compass icon on the right side of the image. This will help you to view the image from every section. You can either view the 360-degree photo by dragging your finger across the photo or moving your phone to see the full 360-degree view.

 Simply tap the photo to view the 360-degree photo in fullscreen and enjoy the awesome 360 degree vista.
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Facebook has announced that it is rolling out its suicide prevention tools and resources globally. Previously, this tool was available only to some English-speaking users, but with this global roll out, everyone on Facebook can use it.

You too can now save a life with Facebook’s suicide prevention tools

Can you believe it because I’m still finding it indigestible?


 The tool was developed in collaboration with the mental health organizations and with input from people who have personal experience with self-injury and suicide, these tools first launched in the US with the help of Forefront, Lifeline, and Save.org.

 Facebook is rolling them out to offer people around the world who may be experiencing self-injury or suicidal thoughts. This rollout will be in collaboration with local partners and in all languages Facebook is available in.


Now, with the help of these new tools, if someone posts something on Facebook that makes you concerned about their well-being, you can reach out to them directly and you also can also report the post to Facebook.


It means we can all probably save a life everyday!!!


 Facebook has teams working around the world, 24/7, who review reports that come in. They prioritize the most serious reports like self-injury.

And, as of today, the resources we send to the person who posted something concerning will include an expanded set of options. People can now choose to reach out to a friend, contact a helpline, or see tips.


 If you or someone you know is in crisis, it is important to call local emergency services right away. You can also visit the Facebook Help Centre for information about how to support yourself or a friend.
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Huawei Honor V8

Huawei Honor V8 went official two weeks ago and it's one of the most interesting devices the company has outed lately.


The V8 is an all-metal smartphone with a 5.7" IPS display, powered by the latest Kirin chipset, and featuring a dual 12MP camera setup on its back - one monochrome and one color sensor. Sounds familiar?

The difference with the P9, besides the screen estate, is that you can get the V8 with a 1080p display, or for the first time ever in a Huawei phone - with a Quad HD screen. Depending on the resolution Kirin 950 with 32GB storage or Kirin 955 with 64GB storage will be embedded under the hood.

There are no Leica software optimizations though, which means no Vivid or Smooth color modes. The two sensors are the same though - both Sony IMX286.


Well, the phone has been torn down already in China and the pictures revealed a well-built device with familiar internals. The Honor V8 is not the easiest smartphone to repair, because of its comprehensive stack of components and adhesive. But it isn't all filled with glue, so any skillful repairman should be fine.

Enjoy the Huawei Honor V8's internals - they may answer some questions you may have been having.

More pictures below
Huawei Honor V8Huawei Honor V8Huawei Honor V8
Huawei Honor V8Huawei Honor V8Huawei Honor V8Huawei Honor V8Huawei Honor V8Huawei Honor V8
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instagram logo

Instagram has announced a big update for its mobile apps today

This affects users on both Android and iOS, and the newest version of the app should have already been offered to you as an update through theiOS App Store or the Google Play Store.
The first thing you'll notice once you install the new iteration is that the app has a different icon. Instagram has gone through a lot of ideas until it settled on the colorful new logo you can see below.

Not only the main Instagram app has received a new icon - the same treatment has been applied to Layout, Boomerang, and Hyperlapse, the other three mobile apps developed by the Facebook-owned photo sharing social network.

In the Instagram app itself you should also see a new design at some point, though this doesn't seem to automatically appear once you have the newest version, so it's probably a server-side switch which is getting a staged rollout. When the new UI does land on your device, you'll notice it's much simpler and much more devoid of blue than the old one.

The top and bottom of the app are now white, and the icons in the bottom navigation bar seem to have gotten smaller than they used to be.

Instagram says 80 million photos and videos are shared through its network every single day, and this updated look "reflects how vibrant and diverse" the "storytelling" on the service has become.
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Apple orders 100 million Samsung OLED panels for the 2017 iPhone

According to the latest rumors, Apple has made an order to Samsung for 100 million 5.5" OLED panels in 2017. The displays are supposedly going to make their way to the 2017 iPhone Plus. The timing for the order indicates that the OLED screens will skip the iPhone 7 and only make it to the iPhone 7S.
The information comes from a source cited by the Chinese edition of the WSJ and it also points out that Samsung has set aside a production line at its Asan plant for the order. While the information about future iPhone models using a Samsung-made OLED panel is not new, it was previously anticipated to happen in 2018, not a year earlier.
Apple orders 100 million Samsung OLED panels for the 2017 iPhone

KGI's analyst Ming-Chi Kuo, who has a mixed track record regarding Apple rumors, also shares similar information. However, he is quite certain that the 2017 iPhone Plus will have a 5.8" display.

 The reason for Apple's decision to go OLED could be because currently, its production cost is lower than LCD's. It'll be also interesting to see if rumors surface regarding Apple issuing a request to LG to manufacture OLED panels as a fallback. Up until now, the Korean company has been a key Apple partner in making panels for the iPhone.
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Amazon has eyeballed several hot startups for acquisition in a wider fashion push

Amazon has been focusing attention on areas like media streaming, its faster delivery and pickup services, hardware and enterprise via AWS. But it’s also making an effort to reboot one of the more legacy parts of its business: fashion.


 TechCrunch has learned from multiple sources that the e-commerce giant has eyed up several startups in the fashion sphere as potential acquisitions to update and expand its presence in the category. Everlane, Le Tote, Rent The Runway, Third Love and PreeLine are among the names we’ve heard in connection with the effort.

 “They are losing big time in apparel and are anxious to acquire brands,” one founder approached by the company told TechCrunch. Amazon did not respond to requests for comment, and all the companies mentioned here declined to comment about any talks.

 The range of these companies speaks to how Amazon is looking to address several parts of the equation when it comes to selling fashion online.

 Apparel and accessory site Everlane and lingerie startup Third Love are both vertically integrated businesses, selling items that they have designed and manufactured themselves. Le Tote and Rent the Runway are in the business of Netflix-style clothing rentals, sometimes called recommerce, where you wear and then send back items. And Preeline is a social platform where people can connect with like-minded consumers to share opinions and discover new items.

 Amazon has been looking to build up its own in-house muscle in at least one of these areas already. Following in the footsteps of major physical retailers like Nordstrom, Macy’s and Target, Amazon has been working on a number of its own private-label brands, with smart/quirky names like Franklin & Freeman, Lark & Ro, and North Eleven, designed and manufactured under Amazon’s direction and (of course) sold and distributed by Amazon. Of the 399 job openings in fashion that Amazon is currently advertising (399!), 25 specifically mention Amazon’s private label business.

 Part of the reason that Amazon is interested in acquiring third-party brands and building its own private-label business is because the company has typically had a hard time shaking its no-nonsense and decidedly unsexy image as a purveyor of cut-price books, electronics and just about anything under the sun — an image that has kept some fashion brands away from selling through the site, and keen fashionably-minded shoppers from visiting and buying there.

 “Right now, there is no way that some of the top brands would want to be seen for sale on Amazon,” one source said.

 But in a kind of e-commerce, corporate version of Pygmalion, Amazon has been trying to change this. The company has built photo studios in hipster neighborhoods in New York and London to put together shoots and editorial to better sell items online. It has sponsored Fashion Weeks both in New York and India (also helping to raise its game in the latter country). And in addition to the company’s own private label advances, it’s finally been wooing some bigger brands, too.

 “Dozens of brands now sell directly to Amazon,” the WSJ wrote earlier this month, “including department store stalwarts such as Nicole Miller, Calvin Klein, Kate Spade, Lacoste and Levi Strauss.” It’s also apparently taking a very un-Amazon approach with this new stock: it’s selling full price.

 And on top of all this, the company has been looking at ways of leveraging some of its other assets to differentiate what it presents in terms of fashion commerce. One of the more recent and notable developments there has been the debut of Style Code Live, a daily video program that lets viewers shop for highlighted uitems on Amazon (and chat about them) while the show is streaming.

 The other thing that is notable about these startups that Amazon has looked at for acquisition is that they are the essence of customer loyalty and recurring sales, with sites like Le Tote directly built around subscriptions, but the others donning strong brands that encourage repeat visits and purchases, too.

 “They are trying to break the mould and the one-off relationship,” one source said of Amazon’s interest in smaller online brands with loyal followings. “With fashion it needs to be more of a brand play and longer-lasting relationships, not just ‘come to my site to buy a pair of boxers or a regular white t-shirt.'”

 Loyalty is something that Amazon has been very bullish about as a way of growing its business, specifically around its Prime service, which gives shoppers free, fast shipping and exclusive access to certain digital content and other goods in exchange for a monthly fee. It’s a guessing game how many Prime members Amazon has. One estimate from this past January put the number at 54 million in the U.S. alone.

 On the other side of the equation, building e-commerce businesses of any size is notoriously hard, with even large operations often failing to make decent (or any) returns, never mind the challenges for smaller outfits that lack scale. (Indeed, consignment marketplace Threadflip suddenly folded in January and sent its business over to Le Tote, which appears to still be going strong.) That pressure (or more positively, the scaling opportunity) could lead some smaller businesses to consider offers from Amazon.

 Amazon itself is no stranger to considering startups for acquisition when it starts to eye up a new business area, be it delivery, food ordering, or video.

 But while Amazon’s push into fashion is on the one hand somewhat recent, it also goes back years, as a reference point in a more general mantra about how the company needs to focus on the essential, recurring items of modern consumerist life. “In order to be a $200 billion company, we’ve got to learn how to sell clothes and food,” CEO and founder Jeff Bezos has reportedly said, according to Brad Stone’s 2013 book about the company, The Everything Store.
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Unreel.me allows creators to build their own video streaming sites and apps

Unreel Entertainment is launching a new platform called Unreel.me, which provides tools to build your very own video streaming site and app.


 Those sites can include videos that were uploaded directly to Unreel.me, as well as content posted to social networks. And they can be monetized advertising, paywalls, subscriptions and merchandise sales.

 As part of the launch, the company is also announcing a $1 million “Creator Appreciation Fund,” where the first $1 million earned through Unreel.me sites will go entirely to creators. After that, the standard revenue share deal will be 85 percent to creators, 15 percent to Unreel. The platform itself will be completely free.

 There are a number of startups experimenting with giving creators ways to reach and monetize their fans outside of YouTube and social networks — Victorious, for example, allows them to build their own mobile apps.

 Asked via email how Unreel.me is different, co-founder and CEO Dan Goikhman said, “Unreel.me is designed for ANY content owner or aggregator to be able to launch their own streaming sites and apps on any platform, and is focused on truly making it available to EVERY creator to use, and any creator can use it today and get set up in less than a minute!”
Goikhman (who was previously co-founder and chief revenue officer at mobile ad network Mojiva) added that Unreel.me sites will be able to take advantage of the video analytics technology that the company has already built, with capabilities in visual search, as well as content recommendation and personalization.

 Unreel has raised $1.5 million in seed funding from Digital Ignition Entertainment and angel investors. You can see some of the initial Unreel.me partners and their websites on the Unreel.me homepage.
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New Type C Standard Usb

The folks behind the USB Type-C standard have a new approach to keep sketchy cables from zapping your laptop or evildoers from hacking your phone.

 USB Type-C brings new perks to the mundane chore of connecting devices to each other and to chargers, but problems have cast a shadow -- notably when Google employee Benson Leung's effort to flag faulty cables fried his laptop and testing gear earlier this year.

That's why industry powers behind the tech announced on Tuesday a USB authentication technology that will guard against that type of problem and will keep criminals from using hacked USB devices to launch attacks. The technology functions behind the scenes on your devices so you won't have to think about it, at least until your phone refuses to work with an uncertified airport charger or freebie cable.


 USB is a remarkable success, starting two decades ago as a way to connect printers and keyboards to PCs, picking up duties charging phones and syncing their data, and now in everything from cars to TVs. USB-C expands further by letting you use USB to power your PC and to send videos to TVs and external monitors. The fact that it's reversible -- there's no up or down to the connector -- is icing on the cake.

 The USB Implementers Forum is "unwavering in our mission to solidify USB Type-C as the single cable of the future," Jeff Ravencraft, president of the standards group, said in a statement.

 But the new future is messy. For example, it's not always clear what capabilities a USB port will include. Some will feature video support. Others will offer USB 3.1's new super-high data transfer speeds of 10 gigabits per second. Separately, faulty cables led Amazon to take the unusual step last month of threatening to banish sellers offering bad USB-C cables.

 Maturing technology should ease the growing pains. Cable powerhouse Monoprice announced a new Palette line of colorful USB-C cables on Tuesday. They're limited to slower 480 megabit-per-second USB 2.0 speeds for now. Later this month, Monoprice will release cables that support USB 3.0's tenfold increase to 5Gbps, and in coming months, USB 3.1's 10Gbps.
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For long months now, Facebook Comments have been riddled by some of the most transparent, eye-roll-inducing “I make a good salary working from home” spam you’ve ever seen. Every mail service can filter it out; but Facebook? Home to cutting-edge AI research, massively scalable services, some of the smartest software people in the world? Nope, spam appears to be beyond their capabilities.

Facebook comments are a joke. pic.twitter.com/lfDiFhbVDX

 — Matthew Panzarino (@panzer) April 4, 2016

 FB wants to own VR. I'd settle for them fixing FB comments pic.twitter.com/JGDhF2nDLr

 — Alexia Tsotsis (@alexia) April 7, 2016

 I kid, I kid. Obviously Facebook could clean up comment spam if they really wanted to. (And, in fairness, Facebook Comments have always been terrible.) Maybe they even will, on some executive whim. But, really, who can blame them for not bothering? Facebook has become a business which focuses on things that affect billions of users, and/or bring in billions in revenue. Comments don’t come even close to moving the needle on that scale.

 But Facebook Comments are an excellent object example of a curious tech paradox: the bigger the business, the less you can rely on its new initiatives.

 Consider the curious case of the Revolv, a home-automation controller which was bought by Nest, which in turn is part of mighty Alphabet … and is now deliberately being bricked by its controllers. This is numerous things: an instance of Nest apparently being a slow-motion flaming trainwreck; This is a great reminder that the “Internet of Things” is actually the “Internet of Someone Else’s Things“: if you don’t have root on a device in your home, then it is not yours. It is also a reminder that the bigger the business, the more you should fear it if it acquires something you love.

 Google, of course, was also home to much-beloved Google Reader, which it dispatched a few years ago as casually as if it were a mook in a martial-arts film:

 Annual reminder: the development effort spent adding an animated minion GIF to Gmail could have kept Google Reader running all year

 — Pinboard (@Pinboard) April 1, 2016

 On the one hand this was simply a bad strategic mistake on Google’s part, at a time when they thought that Google+ was the future. (Cue the flood of people trying to claim that Google+ was actually a success, in some bizarre war-is-peace kind of way. It was a debacle, folks.) But on the other hand Gmail actually matters to Google; it would far rather make its billion users feel a little better about the service than cater to Reader’s tens of millions of users.

 Which in turn explains why the great Maciej Ceglowski aka Pinboard is not exactly shuddering in his proverbial boots now that Google has launched a new kind of bookmarking service itself:

 I encourage everyone to sign up for the new Google bookmarking site so I can have an influx of customers in 2 years https://t.co/JZdcSMOdwT

 — Pinboard (@Pinboard) April 7, 2016

 It may seem that one would be better off relying on a service brought to you by one of the Stacks than something from a tiny, scrappy startup. But this is not so unless this service is crucial to one of their major business lines. (Unless it’s PayPal, in which case you shouldn’t rely on it at all, he said bitterly, fuelled by a painful recent dayjob project.)

 Otherwise, any BigCo service can and will be victimized by the vagaries of internal politics. Bit rot affects us all; being left to languish is just a slow death sentence in its own right. You’re arguably better off relying on a failed startup that dies a quick death than being dragged down by an abandoned service that slowly circles the toilet. At least that way you’re granted the gift of a known outcome. For further evidence, I invite you: just scroll down.
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WordPress.com is adding HTTPS support for all its blogs. If you have a custom domain or have a blog under the wordpress.com domain name (like naijasaver.wordpress.com), you’re good to go.

While many social services like Facebook and Twitter have supported HTTPS for a while now, WordPress.com was still lagging behind for custom domain names.

 Since 2014, WordPress.com subdomains have supported HTTPS, but not the others. But this isn’t as easy as flipping a switch for custom domain names as you need certificates for all domain names.

 WordPress.comThanks to the Let’s Encrypt project, it has become much cheaper and easier to implement HTTPS across the web. WordPress.com is taking advantage of this initiative for its websites. Each website now has an SSL certificate and will display a green lock in your address back.

 As a nice side effect, Google tends to favor websites that support HTTPS over HTTP-only website. So your WordPress.com website should rank higher in Google search results.

 I’m sure you all have a burning question. What do I need to do to activate HTTPS? In an Oprah-like moment, WordPress.com is activating HTTPS on all websites without having to do anything. You get an SSL certificate! Everyone gets an SSL certificate!
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