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Google unveiled its WebP image format already back in 2010 but it hasn't taken the world by storm in the manner that the company probably expected, or at least hoped.

Obviously all Google's own products have since been updated to supports its superior web image format but many of the competitors are yet to fully adopt WebP.

Now few of the more influential competitors, including Microsoft and Mozilla, are ready to bring WebP to their platforms. Last week Microsoft revealed that Edge would be supporting WebP content in the future, and now Mozilla has done the same with Firefox, CNET reports.

According to Mozilla, all Gecko-based products will be gain WebP support in early 2019. Gecko is the engine that is running under the hood of Firefox browsers, excluding the iOS version.

After Microsoft and Mozilla have updated their respective browsers, Safari and Apple's platforms remain the only major forces to still reject WebP.

Alongside WebP, video format AVIF, which is based on Google developed VP9, is making inroads in the web community, and is backed by most companies, including Google, Mozilla, Microsoft, and even Apple.

Tomorrow is the big day of the year for Google. The company is debuting its new smartphones and maybe even revealing some other new Pixel devices.

In fact, a new leak suggests that Google is turning back time and unveiling a brand new tablet, first one since 2015 Pixel C.

The new one is allegedly called Pixel Slate and indeed will be revealed tomorrow in New York City as Google updates its Pixel smartphones.

However, except for these pictures, there's not a lot we know about Pixel Slate. It'll likely run Chrome OS and seems to sport a 3:2 aspect ratio, which seems to be a hallmark of Pixel tablets and computers alike.

There's also a stylus and a keyboard cover, as expected. But that's about it.

We'll know more about it tomorrow so stay tuned.

While Spotify has been growing at an impressive rate for years, it has not managed to turn its core business into a money-making machine.

The Swedish-born service has been looking into bringing other forms of entertainment, or at least other audio related entertainment. Cue in podcast fever that is running rampant.

Spotify introduced a new Spotlight section early this year which brought both news and podcasts to the platform.

Apparently the podcasters haven't found Spotify in numbers that would satisfy the company, and now they are trying to lure in more with new tools.

Spotify for Podcasters is meant to make it easy for podcasters to publish and monitor their podcast statistics, and thus potentially bring in more advertisement money.

You won't have to upload the audio files either, just provide Spotify a link to the RSS feed.

Spotify for Podcasters is currently in beta and you can read more about it (and get started) at podcasters.spotify.com.

Nintendo's newest console, a combination of a handheld and a traditional gaming console, has been a success, even to a surprising degree one could argue.

However, it never was very powerful and technology keep on trotting at a pace that makes Switch supremely obsolete in no time flat.

Switch is only 18 months old but it's showing age. The graphics are just not there, if they ever were, and especially with the next generation of Xbox and PlayStation consoles ever closer, Nintendo needs something to keep people buying their devices.

And arguably smartphones could be an even bigger threat as they keep evolving and catching the Switch.

So no big surprise, Wall Street Journal is reporting about Nintendo's plans to release a new Switch in 2019. According to the sources the new Switch is slated for late 2019 release but there is not much on what this new version will update.

One update could be an improved screen which is definitely not on par with today's technology. Switch has a 6.2 inch 720p LCD screen.

Some have argued that Nintendo should give up the living room battle altogether and make the updated switch a handheld only console. This would make the device smaller and/or free up space for improvements in performance.

For most people Wi-Fi is just Wi-Fi, and the cryptic numbers and letters alongside don't reveal a thing.

Why would Wi-Fi Alliance keep the odd number combination, "802.11", for the ride, and why would they differentiate Wi-Fi versions by attaching random letters to it?

Well, it turns out they don't anymore. Wi-Fi Alliance has revealed that instead of 802.11n and 802.11ac they'll be using new names, Wi-Fi 4 and Wi-Fi 5 respectively.

As you might imagine, the new standard that is in development currently, officially 802.11ax, will be named Wi-Fi 6. If you are in the biz, you know that the 802.11-names will probably persist far in to the future, but at least they won't confuse customers any longer.

Every new generation brings along important upgrades in speeds and reliability, which is better represented by the new naming scheme, and Wi-Fi 6 is no different. However, Wi-Fi Alliance doesn't quote any specs in the statement.

The latest trailer for Rockstar Games' Red Dead Redemption 2 teases a first-person mode, endless activities, and madness.

It outlining all sorts of nefarious activities Arthur and the Van der Linde Gang can get involved in, including robbing trains, encountering rival gangs and outlaws, evading cunning lawmen and lots more in a world that is deep, teeming with life and very menacing.

The trailer shows us more of the improved Dead Eye system that was so well received in the first Red Dead Redemption title eight years ago. Additionally, we get a nice tease of viewing the world in first-person mode for those who are fond of first-person shooters.

Red Dead Redemption 2 will land on the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 console systems on October 26.

Amazon workers are to get a pay increase after criticism from multiple angles about workers' pay and conditions.

Amazon became the second company in history (after Apple) to reach a valuation topping $1 trillion this year. While the news was likely celebrated at Amazon, it was also met with concerns over the low pay rate for some Amazon employees and the conditions at some of its warehouses.

In a rare glimpse of agreement on America's left and right, both the Trump White House and Bernie Sanders welcomed the move by Amazon. Senator Sanders and President Trump had both publicly attacked Amazon for workers wages and for how much tax the firm pays.

From November, Amazon's lowest-paid workers in the United States will receive at least $15 per hour. In the UK, the minimum wage at Amazon will rise from £8 per hour to £9.50 per hour or £10.50 per hour in London. Around a quarter of a million workers will benefit from the increase in the United States.

Amazon has had widespread strikes by workers across Europe over conditions at factories too.

Source: BBC News

InfoWars founder claims that PayPal is abusing its market position to discriminate against conservative and right-wing viewpoints.

InfoWars founder Alex Jones has filed a lawsuit against PayPal after the firm halted processing of payments to the media outlet in September. PayPal cited its services policies in making its decision, accusing InfoWars of promoting violence and hate.

InfoWars users and fans had paid for InfoWars branded goods using the PayPal service up until this point. According to Jones, PayPal's actions are a dangerous precedent and an example of viewpoint discrimination.

"It is at this point well known that large tech companies, located primarily in Silicon Valley, are discriminating against politically conservative entities and individuals, including banning them from social media platforms such as Twitter, based solely on their political and ideological viewpoints," the complaint states.

InfoWars and Jones' personal social media accounts were targeted in recent months in a coordinated takedown that affected podcasts, personal pages and apps.

Source: BBC News

Facebook has some reassuring news for the up to 50 million users affected by a data breach disclosed last week by the social media giant.

Last week, Facebook disclosed that a data breach affected up to 50 million users of its social network. The news set off alarms all over and concerns about how the stolen data may have been used, or is being used. One possibility is that hackers had used the "Facebook Login" feature to access third-party websites for which users signed in with their Facebook credentials.

Thankfully, there is not yet any evidence that this is the case.

"We analyzed third-party access during the time of the attack we have identified. That investigation has found no evidence that the attackers accessed any apps using Facebook Login," Facebook security VP, Guy Rosen, told the Reuters News Agency.

Facebook set out the possible negative consequences of the data breach in full when it disclosed it last week. This is thought to be due to the European Union's GDPR regulation, which would have imposed heavy penalties on Facebook if it was found to have failed to give a full picture to affected users. However, a side effect of this well-meaning and reasoned regulation is that Facebook painted the worst possible scenario after the disclosure.

As we reported last week, Tesla's own Elon Musk became the receiving end of a government lawsuit. Musk was going to be taken to court by The Security and Exchange Commission for fraudulent behavior.

Originally S.E.C. tried to settle the issue with Tesla and Musk, but no such agreement was found. Thus the government commission went forward with the lawsuit.

S.E.C. claimed Elon Musk's August tweet was recklessly false and mislead the shareholders into thinking there was agreements about privatizing the company with a specific share price.

Now Tesla has decided to settle the lawsuit but the price was a steep one. Tesla is going to have to pay $20 million in damages and Musk needs to resign as the chair for three years.

Musk will step down as the chairman of Tesla within 45 days and can only return to his duties in October 2021. He will still remain the CEO of Tesla.

Spotify announced a new feature today, integrating the popular streaming service app to Google Maps navigation on Android and on iPhone.

Spotify has previously worked with Waze, providing an integration to the Wze's navigation user interface, but obviously, integrating to the Google Maps is significantly bigger leap for the Swedish company.

With the integration, users will see barebone Spotify buttons available in the Google Maps' navigation screen. The minimzed UI will show the currently played song, has next/prev buttons and play/pause buttons shown, too. Also, the Spotify playback mutes when navigation instructions are spoken by the Google Maps and will resume after that.

According to Spotify's data, more and more people are replacing their car radio, CDs and USB sticks with Spotify when driving a car. Thus, it seems that the most important feature in current car audio systems is the Bluetooth connection, everything else can be outsourced to the phone.

Yesterday Facebook released a statement about a security breach that had affected tens of millions of Facebook users. According to the social media giant the hackers got some user information from up 50 million users.

Facebook is investigating the hack with authorities, including the FBI, but currently it is not certain what type of information was leaked. At least the "View As" pages and basic information such as age and sex were leaked.

Some have argued that the access tokens that were used to gain access to View As pages would give access to other more sensitive information as well, but there's no official word on this yet.

Those 50 million affected have been logged out from their Facebook account which cut any illegitimate connections. This also means that you have to log back in to your account to access Facebook. Facebook also logged out another 40 million users as a precaution even though believes they were not targeted.

Currently seeing if you've been logged out is the only way to check whether the hack affected your account or if you were one of the 40 million users that were suspect of a "View As" lookup and thus precautionarily logged out.

It is advised that you don't enter any details on possible forms or sites that claim they can retrieve information on whether your account was hacked.

Facebook has just revealed that it has detected a security issue that has affected tens of millions of accounts.

The statement posted on Facebook's official newsroom details that a total of 90 million accounts might have been affected by the security exploit.

50 million of the accounts are the prime suspects that Facebook has determined to have been affected but another 40 million accounts have been logged out as a precautionary step as they've been suspect to a "View As" lookup in that past 12 months.

The issue has allowed logins to users without their knowledge or consent. Facebook has now logged all those users out and they will need to perform a new log in next time requesting access to Facebook.

The breach has been fixed last night and faulty access should no longer exist.

According to CEO Mark Zuckerberg, Facebook does not currently have information on whether the breach might have leaked any sensitive information like private messages. However, the hackers have gained access to users' "View As" profile information.

Facebook has removed "View As" pages temporarily.

The page shows what the user's profile looks like to someone else and could includes information such as age, sex, and home town.

Elon Musk, the visionary behind Tesla, SpaceX and most recently The Boring Company, has been sued by the U.S. government over tweets posted last month.

The Security and Exchange Commission is accusing Musk and his privatization tweet on August 7 of fraud by false statements that could hurt investors.

Musk's original tweet that now got him to hot water was "Am considering taking Tesla private at $420. Funding secured." According to S.E.C. Musk had done no securing of the funding and was recklessly falsifying the state of privatization.

Later in the month Musk retweeted Tesla's tweet titled "Staying Public" linking to a statement by Musk himself explaining why he and the Board of Directors have decided to stay public.

The lawsuit is trying to bar Musk from serving as an executive or a director of publicly traded companies, obviously including Tesla. Tesla is the only one of Musk-lead companies currently public.

In response to S.E.C.'s lawsuit was Musk said: "This unjustified action by the SEC leaves me deeply saddened and disappointed."

He continued to explain that he has always tried to pursue truth and transparency. It remains to be seen how the courts find the accusations.

Oculus VR, one of the foremost pioneers of virtual reality headsets, has announced a new product. Facebook-owned, since 2014, Oculus' new headset is called Quest.

At Connect 5 keynote Mark Zuckerberg took the stage to announce the new Oculus Quest. Oculus Quest is the social media giant's next-generation VR headset that offer wireless connectivity and familiar motion controllers.

The main improvement over the current generation is the ability to use the product in almost any situation thanks to the wireless nature of the headset. The location tracking is found in both the controllers as well as the headset with four wide angle cameras placed in each corner.

As there is no wires, Oculus Quest includes a battery and all the necessary computing units inside the headset. This also means that the processing power is nowhere near a PC powered VR headset.

Oculus expects over 50 games to be shipped with Oculus Quest but didn't name any games.

Oculus Quest will cost $399. They'll hit the market next spring, but Oculus doesn't have a firm release date for the headset yet.