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Thursday, July 6, 2023

Talking Tech: Twitter has a new challenger. Why this one is different

Facebook parent company Meta rolled out Threads, the latest app to try and fill the void left by Twitter.

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Talking Tech

Thu Jul 6 2023
 

Brett Molina |  Consumer Tech Reporter

@brettmolina23

It's Thursday. Judging by the sudden jump in heat and humidity, summer is finally here. It's Brett Molina thankful for air conditioning as I deliver this week's tech headlines.

Hive. Mastodon. Bluesky. Post. All four of these apps have positioned themselves as alternatives to Twitter, virtual life rafts for social media users seeking an escape.

From some Twitter users' perspective, the app now helmed by billionaire Elon Musk is the Titanic, and they want off.

Most recently, Musk had set temporary limits to how many tweets you could read . The change meant users were greeted last weekend with "rate limit exceeded" messages preventing them from seeing new tweets. For an app that depends on users scrolling through countless tweets, that's not good.

Since Musk bought Twitter last year for more than $44 billion, the app has been thrust into chaos.

Now, we have a new challenger: Mark Zuckerberg. While we wait for the cage match that may or may not happen, the Meta CEO is duking it out with Musk on another stage by rolling out a Twitter rival called Threads.

So what is Threads? It's linked to Instagram, but the separate app works very similarly to Twitter. When you open the app, you can log in with your current Instagram account and type away.

Will this app be the one that truly challenges Twitter? Hard to say right now. But if there's any company that can successfully copy apps for their benefit (looking at you, Reels and Stories), it's the parent of Facebook.

What else happened in tech?

Thursday tech tip

Yes, it's July. But it's never too early to think about Christmas, especially if you're a parent and want to stay up to date on the hottest toys. And a lot of those toys will be powered by artificial intelligence. Here's how to keep kids safe in case ChatGPT ends up on the holiday wish list.

One more thing

It's National Fried Chicken Day. Lots of deals out there today. Not sure I need to sell any one on fried chicken deals.

Enjoy your Thursday! See you next week.
This file illustration photo taken on January 12, 2023 in Toulouse, southwestern France, shows a smartphone and a computer screen displaying the logos of Instagram app and its parent company Meta.

Facebook owner Meta launched a Twitter competitor Wednesday that piggybacks on Instagram, extending Mark Zuckerberg's rivalry with Elon Musk.

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Fans of the Hershey Bears participated in the Teddy Bear Toss and threw 52,341 stuffed bears on the ice after a first-period goal.
 

A new generation of AI toys is coming: How to keep your kids safe

Think Furbys with AI. A slew of ChatGPT-powered toys are on the way this holiday shopping season. How parents can protect their kids' privacy.
Scientists in Japan have created Jizai Arms, a set of interchangeable robot arms that can be worn like a backpack.
 

Japanese researchers develop wearable robotic arms

The device is rooted in the idea of "jizai," a Japanese term that roughly defines autonomy and the freedom to do as one pleases.
Despite the rise of cyber attacks involving things like phishing, denial of service, and malware, people often still create passwords that are easy to crack (simple numerical sequences, for instance, or personal information that might be publicly accessible, such as birthdays or street numbers) and use the same log-ins across all of their accounts. Doing this means that once hackers find their way in, they wind up with keys to your entire online kingdom. One possible explanation for using simple passwords is the heavy reliance people have on numerous web services. It can be difficult to keep track of a long list of complex and secure alphanumeric passwords, so people fall back on memory hacks, using sequences that are easy to remember. (We take our electronic devices so much for granted today that we might be surprised to learn the cost of a computer every year since 1970 .) To determine the most common passwords in America as of this year and the time it takes password cracking software to reveal them, 24/7 Tempo reviewed data from a report on the top 200 most common passwords published by NordPass, a password management division of the digital security and privacy firm Nord Security. NordPass compiled the list in partnership with what it describes as "independent researchers specializing in research of cybersecurity incidents," who evaluated a 4TB database, classifying data into various verticals in order to perform statistical analyses. The time it would take to crack the passwords comes from zxcvbn, an online password strength estimator. NordPass used a program assuming multiple attackers, proper user-unique salting, a slow hash function, and a moderate work factor, and notes that different approaches might yield different crack times. So, they add, might the use of different computer technologies. The results of the study might make you think twice about using obvious passwords unless you want your accounts to be accessed by cybercriminals hunting for access to a system or for data they can leverage to commit identity theft and financial fraud -- or even hijack your car. ( This is the car with the best technology .)
 

What does cc mean in email? Do's and don'ts for using cc and bcc.

Cc may be a computer-age term, but it has roots in the 1870s with paper copying techniques. More on how to use cc and bcc in emails.
Someone working in a tv tower pops out of an opening with his phone to take a photo.
 

Apple's 'My Photo Stream' is shutting down. What's next?

Apple is shutting down the photo uploading feature 'My Photo Stream' in July. Here's how to make sure your photos aren't lost.

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