The new Snapchat user interface

The old Snapchat user interface

The new Snapchat user interface

Snapchat recently released a big overhaul of their smartphone application, and many users are up in arms about the update. It was the biggest redesign since the app’s origination in 2011.There are now only two sections, one for friends and stories and another for commercial media. The updated app consolidated the “stories” tab with the friends feed that used to list who the user last Snapchatted in chronological order. The new consolidated section is extremely cluttered, unfamiliar, and definitely not user-centered.

Thousands of snappers lost their streaks, some of which were hundreds of days in length. Snapchat streaks occur when two users send Snapchats to each other for at least three consecutive days. Once a streak is established a bolded number with a flame would appear next to the friend’s name. However, the new interface makes it difficult for users to see their most recent snaps amongst the stories that lead their feeds. The friends section combines snaps, direct messages and chat, and groups all in one cluttered page.

Backlash came in the form of angry and passive aggressive tweets, emails, and direct messages from unhappy users. There were complaints about how crowded and overstimulating the new interface is. It is not concise, easily comprehensible, or clear. However, the new update does keep users in the app for a longer period of time, successfully increasing overall user interaction. Even with much backlash, Snapchat hasn’t hinted at a fix coming anytime soon. Until the next update is released, Snapchatters will have to adjust to the new update.

https://www.thedailybeast.com/snapchats-new-update-triggers-revolt-by-millions-of-teens?source=articles_sum&via=rss

http://amp.fox25boston.com/news/trending-now/change-it-back-snapchat-users-not-happy-about-latest-update/696399921

“Virtual reality has provided a free zone for cybersex, porn, and trolling. But that same freedom, D.J Soto believes, can also provide a place where sinners and the saved can come together for an open and profound conversation about faith.” – JESSICA CHOU

Recent innovations have provided more consumer-friendly virtual reality opportunities to a wide range of users. While some may use the technology in what pastor D.J. Soto says to be sinful ways, he also believes the platform can be used to spread the message of faith. After trying out the Oculus Rift back in 2016, the Reading, PA megachurch preacher decided to take his electrifying virtual reality experience to nearly unchartered territory: Church!

Unlike BelieveVR or Second Life, Soto’s VR Church slowly became a success. He knows that Christians are called to reach all people in all corners of the earth, including the atheists that often attend his online church services on the AltSpaceVR platform. However, for his church to be a success, he will have to expand to different virtual reality platforms in the future, especially in the ever-changing technological world. That is a challenge Soto is willing to take on to spread the Good News.

Other religions might have a harder time adjusting to and incorporating a virtual church experience. The Catholic church believes in the sacraments and being in true community with one another is a key component to successful congregations. Thus, back in 2002, the pope declared no sacraments can be made online or virtually. Over time as other denominations have declared they would be increasing their online presence, media and church members have made harsh criticisms.

Nonetheless, Soto is set on reaching his online church-goers. So many of them attend his virtual and more informal services regularly. They comment how much more welcoming the atmosphere is than that of the “hushed tones, muted colors, and high tight collars of Sunday best” they remember from their childhoods. The changing world we live in needs more pastors like Soto who are willing to reach all corners of the earth, even the virtual ones.

“‘What I saw in the scripture was a very open invitation to all types of people,’ Soto says. Ministry training, he found, did not line up with that vision.” – JESSICA CHOU

https://www.wired.com/story/virtual-reality-church/amp

https://www.oculus.com/experiences/gear-vr/1135979366469525/

Zirconium’s tech support malvertising on Microsoft’s website

Congratulations! You have been selected to win a $100 gift card! Have you ever gotten one of those ugly messages popping up in your web browser? Not only are they annoying, they can also be very dangerous. A gang of web browser hijackers upped their malvertising game by creating 28 fake ad agencies. The group, tackily named Zirconium, made over a billion ad impressions on unsuspecting victims last year. The ads were force-redirect popups that opened a spam webpage.

So how did Zirconium manage to create so many fake agencies to sell ads to websites? Most of the agencies built up what seemed to be a legitimate history to gain credibility. They created Twitter and LinkedIn profiles with stock photo profile pictures as well as their own websites. They sold seemingly real ads to create a sense of establishment before selling malvertisements on larger and often credible websites, including Microsoft and Facebook. After hijacking thousands of devices and making billions of ad impressions, the group was finally stopped.

With more and more technology driving our every day lives, such malware could do major damage to our devices and personal lives. Cyber attackers may use malvertising as a way to gain access to your browsing history, passwords, and personal information. They can even use it as a way to completely crash your device, rendering it unusable. So what can you do to protect yourself from such malicious activity? According to MakeUseOf.com, it is extremely important to keep your browsers and antivirus software up to date, use script management add-ons, and disable Silverlight and Flash. Until the Internet is funded in a different way, ads will continue to plague our browsers. It is up to us to prevent and respond to ads and potential threats in a safe and secure manner.

What is Malvertising?

https://finance.yahoo.com/news/gang-crooks-hijacked-web-browser-215742162.html

https://arstechnica.com/information-technology/2018/01/malvertising-factory-with-28-fake-agencies-delivered-1-billion-ads-in-2017/

“What’s a mind without a body? New research adds physiology to computer models”

Our minds are influenced by our bodies’ needs, mental state, and physical environment. The brain must make decisions constantly, sending signals to all parts of our bodies in less than a split second. This cognition can change based on many aspects of the human body, from emotions and fatigue, hunger or even nausea. A student who stayed up into the early hours of the next morning would be more likely to have a harder time focusing in class the next day than a student who got a full eight hours of sleep.

Though programmers have developed computers that can process information quickly and efficiently, no current technology exists that can process information in the same way our brain does. Researchers are now trying to change that. Penn State News recently reported on the research being conducted by Frank Ritter, a professor from the College of IST here at Penn State. Together with Christopher Nancy from Bucknell University, he wants to program a sense of bodily processes in a computer simulation to learn how the brain responds to physical fatigue. Through the use of a framework called ACT-R/Phi, a theory developed about the combination of how the brain works with how the body works, they aim to get a better idea of how our normal, daily physiological functions influence what we do and what we decide.

The U.S. Army, a sponsor of the research, wants to use the information to better predict how fatigue may impact how a soldier performs certain tasks. The research could benefit the medical field as well. Such a combination of physiology and technology could also be applied to hospital simulations. This could be a more efficient and cost-effective way for medical students to learn, as well as a way for doctors to simulate how certain treatments may affect their patients’ conditions. However, such a reality may still be far off, as mimicking the human state has been a long-standing challenge in the field of technology that doesn’t yet seem to have a very simple solution.

http://news.psu.edu/story/499094/2018/01/15/research/what%E2%80%99s-mind-without-body-new-research-adds-physiology-computer?utm_source=newswire&utm_medium=email&utm_term=500848_HTML&utm_content=01-15-2018-22-46&utm_campaign=Penn%20State%20Today

Grayscale iPhone

As technology has infiltrated classrooms over the last decade, parents have expressed growing concern for their children’s absorption in technology. Sherry Turkle, a professor at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, commented in her book Alone Together: Why We Expect More From Technology and Less From Each Other, “Over the past 10 years, there’s been a bottom-up backlash. You see it in things like people not sending their kids to schools that use iPads, and kids telling their parents to put their phones down.”

Investors and researchers have taken note of such anxieties, pressuring technology companies to study consequences of their products and technological advancements. This week, Apple was hounded by two of its investors to devise a solution to device addiction in children. The challenge stems from the pressing need to study how internet and device addiction is affecting development in the current generations of young people and what big tech companies can do about it.

Until a solution is agreed upon, one tech reporter in San Francisco thinks device users could follow the advice of Tristan Harris, a tech ethicist. He claims that using grayscale lessens the appeal of screens and devices. Companies know humans are innately attracted to colors and use this knowledge to develop apps and devices that appeal to users and keep their attention. Taking away the subconscious control these colors have over users may lead to less distracting and addictive technology. Researchers at Apple, and other Silicon Valley companies, may possibly be able to use these fundamentals of color to alleviate device addiction problems by more thoughtfully designing colors of apps and devices.

Color palate changes may only be one piece in solving the puzzle of device addiction. Researchers still have a lot more pieces to find. If you find yourself subject to device addiction, the next time you head into class or an important meeting, try switching your phone into grayscale mode. This simple solution could be one step closer to resolving big tech backlash.

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/12/technology/grayscale-phone.html?rref=collection%2Fsectioncollection%2Ftechnology&action=click&contentCollection=technology&region=stream&module=stream_unit&version=latest&contentPlacement=5&pgtype=sectionfront

https://www.nytimes.com/2018/01/08/technology/apple-tech-children-jana-calstrs.html